French serial killer Michel Fourniret, the “Ogre of the Ardennes” who confessed to killing 11 people, died on Monday aged 79, taking his final secrets to the grave and denying families of victims long-awaited justice.
Fourniret, whose victims were mostly girls and young women, died at the La Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris where he was admitted on April 28 from the nearby Fresnes prison where he serving two life sentences, Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said.
An investigation has been opened into his death, Heitz said.
Photo: AFP
This always happens when any person dies in custody in France.
Fourniret confessed to 11 murders, including British student Joanna Parrish, who was killed in May 1990 while she was in France as part of her university course.
However, he has been linked to other disappearances, most of them in the Ardennes region that straddles the French-Belgian border.
The death of Fourniret, who was reportedly suffering from heart problems and Alzheimer’s, dashed the hopes of those families still awaiting justice for murders he might have committed.
His lawyers said they now expected the judiciary to end all investigations against him, adding that they had recently asked for his term to be suspended due to his ill health.
Fourniret’s victims included nine-year-old Estelle Mouzin, whom he raped and killed just months before he was caught in Belgium in 2003.
Fourniret finally admitted to the girl’s murder in March last year, but her body has yet to be found, despite intensive searches, including over the past few weeks.
“There is a feeling of anger after so many years of inaction,” said Didier Seban, the lawyer for several families of girls who disappeared, including the relatives of Estelle Mouzin.
“There will be no trial and no possibility to have the responses that are expected,” Seban said.
As well as the killing of Parrish, Fourniret had also been charged over the murders of Marie-Angele Domece, who vanished in 1988, and Lydie Loge, a 29-year-old who disappeared in 1993.
His former wife, Monique Olivier, who married Fourniret while he was still serving a previous jail term, has also been charged over several of the outstanding cases.
Olivier, now 72, is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 28 years, for her role in some of the abductions and killings.
AFP, PARIS
French serial killer Michel Fourniret, the “Ogre of the Ardennes” who confessed to killing 11 people, died on Monday aged 79, taking his final secrets to the grave and denying families of victims long-awaited justice.
Fourniret, whose victims were mostly girls and young women, died at the La Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris where he was admitted on April 28 from the nearby Fresnes prison where he serving two life sentences, Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said.
An investigation has been opened into his death, Heitz said.
This always happens when any person dies in custody in France.
Fourniret confessed to 11 murders, including British student Joanna Parrish, who was killed in May 1990 while she was in France as part of her university course.
However, he has been linked to other disappearances, most of them in the Ardennes region that straddles the French-Belgian border.
The death of Fourniret, who was reportedly suffering from heart problems and Alzheimer’s, dashed the hopes of those families still awaiting justice for murders he might have committed.
His lawyers said they now expected the judiciary to end all investigations against him, adding that they had recently asked for his term to be suspended due to his ill health.
Fourniret’s victims included nine-year-old Estelle Mouzin, whom he raped and killed just months before he was caught in Belgium in 2003.
Fourniret finally admitted to the girl’s murder in March last year, but her body has yet to be found, despite intensive searches, including over the past few weeks.
“There is a feeling of anger after so many years of inaction,” said Didier Seban, the lawyer for several families of girls who disappeared, including the relatives of Estelle Mouzin.
“There will be no trial and no possibility to have the responses that are expected,” Seban said.
As well as the killing of Parrish, Fourniret had also been charged over the murders of Marie-Angele Domece, who vanished in 1988, and Lydie Loge, a 29-year-old who disappeared in 1993.
His former wife, Monique Olivier, who married Fourniret while he was still serving a previous jail term, has also been charged over several of the outstanding cases.
Olivier, now 72, is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 28 years, for her role in some of the abductions and killings.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS