The case of Cécile Vallin, a 17-year-old woman who disappeared in 1997, has been relaunched with the placement in police custody of Monique Olivier, widow of Michel Fourniret.
Cécile Vallin, a 17-year-old teenager, has not given any sign of life since June 8, 1997. She was last seen walking along a departmental road in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. Searches were undertaken several times, but in vain. A student without problems, she was due to take her philosophy exam the next day. The hypothesis of running away was then quickly dismissed.
For the first time since the start of the affair, according to The Parisiana police custody has been decided in the case, and not just any case, that of Monique Olivier, widow of the serial killer Michel Fourniret. She is being questioned by investigators from the Central Office for the Suppression of Violence against Persons. The lawyer for the family of the young missing person had been asking the cold cases unit in Nanterre to question Monique Olivier for several months.
Contacted by The Parisian, Monique Olivier’s lawyer, Me Richard Delgenes admitted to having been surprised by this placement in police custody. : “I was called while Mme Olivier was already in police custody, more than three hours away from my office. So I can’t go there. This seems counterproductive to me because it is certain that Mr.me Olivier will be reluctant to speak out in these circumstances.”
Statements that relaunched the investigation
For weeks, investigators had been looking back at the case, after the trial of Monique Olivier for the kidnappings of Estelle Mouzin, Joanna Parrish and Marie-Angèle Domèce. Last December, Didier Seban, lawyer for the Mouzin family, read statements made during a 2005 hearing of Michel Fourniret’s widow by the Belgian police concerning the murder of a young “babysitter”, whose identity remains unknown, at the end of the 1997 school year.
According to BFMTVMonique Olivier had recounted seeing the young girl arrive with the Ogre of the Ardennes: “She moved forward on her own, docilely, without wanting to flee, without any resistance”. However, she seemed “asleep”, according to Monique Olivier. She had described the young woman as being “between 16 and 18 years old, with light-coloured hair, was no taller than Fourniret. She was white”. “If Fourniret brought this young girl home, it was to sexually abuse her. If he abused her, he was not going to let her leave alive”, she had also stated, while she had been forced to leave the family home.
A profile and a period that could correspond to the Cécile Vallin case. “The correspondence of dates between what Monique Olivier says and the disappearance of my daughter is alarming. It is really very important to check,” said the father of the missing woman.