Michel Fourniret

Michel Fourniret
Born (1942-04-04) 4 April 1942
Sedan, France
Other names The Ogre of Ardennes
The Beast of Ardennes
Criminal penalty Life imprisonment[1]
Spouse(s) Monique Olivier
Killings
Victims 7-9+
Span of killings
1987–2001 (2003?)
Country France, Belgium
Date apprehended
26 June 2003

Michel Fourniret (born 4 April 1942) is a convicted French serial killer who confessed in June and July 2004 to kidnapping, raping and murdering nine girls in a span of 14 years, from 1987 to 2001. He was also accused of 10 additional murders, nine in France and one in Belgium, and was found guilty of seven of these charges. The trials started on 27 March 2008,[2] and ended on 28 May. He is sometimes referred to as the "Ogre/Beast of the Ardennes".[3]

Fourniret was arrested after a failed attempt to kidnap a Belgian girl in June 2003. His wife, Monique Olivier, exposed him after hearing the news of another child murderer's wife (Michelle Martin, wife of Marc Dutroux) being convicted. Fourniret was charged with the abduction of minors and sexual misconduct, and has been in detention since June 2003 for the attempted kidnapping of a 14-year-old girl in 2000. Olivier was charged with one murder and for helping him with a further six.[4]

Fourniret buried at least two of his victims at his Sautou chateau near Donchery in the French Ardennes in the late 1980s. On 3 July 2004, a team of French and Belgian police recovered the bodies of two of Fourniret's victims near the chateau. Fourniret was sentenced to life in prison; Olivier was sentenced to life with no possibility of parole for 28 years.[1]

Confessed murders

Other crimes

He was named as a suspect in connection with the murder of 20-year-old Englishwoman Joanna Parrish, whose body was found in an Auxerre river on 17 May 1990. She had been raped and strangled. However, he has never been charged with her murder and 25 years on the murder remains unsolved.[7]

References

  1. 1 2 "Life sentence for French killer". BBC News. 29 May 2008. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  2. "French 'serial killer' on trial". BBC. 27 March 2008.
  3. "The couple who 'hunted virgins'". BBC. 28 May 2008.
  4. Campbell, Matthew (23 March 2008). "Wife lured virgins for ‘Ogre of the Ardennes’ serial killer". The Sunday Times. London. Archived from the original on May 17, 2017.
  5. "Closed Cases". The Doe Network. Retrieved 1 July 2007.
  6. "French child killing case widens". BBC. 1 February 2005.
  7. "Daughter murder 'may be unsolved'". BBC News. 17 May 2010.
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