Investigation in the Ardennes into the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin. – FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI / AFP
A new operation to search for the remains of Estelle Mouzin, alleged victim in 2003 of Michel Fourniret, was initiated Monday in the Ardennes, in the presence of the ex-wife of the deceased serial killer, said a family lawyer and a source close to the case.
This seventh excavation campaign in one year has resumed in a communal wood of Issancourt-et-Rumel, explored for three days at the end of April by investigators and the examining magistrate Sabine Kheris, said Didier Seban. Speaking on the sidelines of a trial in Douai, he said that these new excavations were organized for “two to three days at least”.
Monique Olivier “continues to want to cooperate with justice”
Despite the information provided on the site by the accomplice and ex-wife of “the ogre of the Ardennes”, Monique Olivier, the latest excavations had ended in failure. Extracted from her cell where she is serving a 28-year prison sentence for complicity in four of the murders of her ex-husband, who died on May 10, Monique Olivier, 72, “continues to want to cooperate with justice” added the lawyer.
During a previous search campaign in this region of the Ardennes, the scene of a good part of Michel Fourniret’s criminal career, she had for the first time recognized on April 1 a role in the kidnapping of Estelle. She had specified to have accompanied her ex-husband to the edge of the wood of Issancourt-et-Rumel to let him go to bury the body of the girl, on January 11, 2003.
Michel Fourniret had confessed
Two days earlier, the child had been abducted on the way to school in Guermantes (Seine-et-Marne). The village of Issancourt-et-Rumel is located about four kilometers from Ville-sur-Lumes, where, still according to Monique Olivier, Fourniret kidnapped, raped and killed Estelle, in a house belonging to her sister.
“For us the investigation is finished, the only point which remains to be clarified is to know where is the body of Estelle”, had declared Me Seban at the end of the last excavations, at the end of April. “Everything has been confirmed, reconfirmed by Monique Olivier. She confirmed that it was in this area that the body was buried, ”he noted.
Sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of seven young women or adolescent girls between 1987 and 2001, Michel Fourniret finally admitted in March 2020 his responsibility in the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin. He died at the age of 79 at the Pitié-Salpétrière interregional secure hospital unit in Paris.