Widow of 'Ogre of Ardennes' guilty of helping husband murder three women - including British student Joanna Parrish
19 December 2023, 20:53
The ex-wife of one of the most notorious serial killers in French history has been found guilty of involvement in the murder of a British student in 1990.
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Joanna Parrish, who was 20 years old and from Gloucestershire, was kidnapped in Auxerre, France, before she was raped and murdered by Michel Fourniret.
Monique Olivier is already in jail for the rest of her life for helping her then-husband kill other women.
She was tried more than three decades after Joanna was killed in Auxerre.
Olivier was found guilty of complicity in Joanna's murder, as well as the murders of Marie-Angele Domece in 1988 and Estelle Mouzin in 2003.
The judge handed her a second life sentence, with a minimum term of 20 years.
Joanna Parrish was 20 years old when she was raped and killed in Moneteau, France in May 1990 by Michel Fourniret, infamously known as the Ogre of Ardennes.
He confessed to her murder three years before he died in prison in 2021.
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At the time of her death, Ms Parrish was working as an English teaching assistant at the Jacques Aumont high school in Auxrre, Burgandy, as part of her French degree at Leeds University.
Her post-mortem revealed the student had been beaten and raped before her naked body was dumped in the River Yonne.
Fourniret was jailed in 2008 for murdering seven girls.However, it took years before he confessed Ms Parrish was another of his victims.
The 'Ogre of Ardennes' died before he faced the courts.
In 2018, when Fourniret confessed to the murder, Mr Parrish said he was "relieved".He added: "If we can get that kind of certainty it would be a huge relief. It's the final hurdle that we've faced for the last 27 years.
"We try to get on with our lives as best we can. But there are times with it comes back when you least expect.
"Our lawyers are confident that this has a degree of positivity which we've not had up to now. We're being guarded about it because of our past experience."
