For the second and final interrogation of her trial, Monique Olivier is questioned about the kidnapping, sequestration and murder of Estelle Mouzin. Gray areas persist after the numerous lies from Michel Fourniret’s ex-wife on this affair.
“You have not said everything about the ordeal, the suffering of Estelle Mouzin” and worse “you have lied a lot in this matter”. It was with these sentences that the president began the second and final interrogation of Monique Olivier at her trial before the Hauts-de-Seine Assize Court, this Thursday, September 14. After having mentioned the cases of the disappearances of Marie-Angèle Domèce and Joanna Parrish, the ex-wife of Michel Fourniret is this time questioned about the kidnapping, sequestration and murder of Estelle Mouzin, who disappeared on January 9, 2003 in Guermantes, in Seine-et-Marne, when she was only 9 years old. The little girl is the youngest known victim of the ogre of the Ardennes.
Suspected after the disappearance of the little girl, Michel Fourniret and Monique Olivier interested the investigators in the first months of the investigation, but the lack of convincing elements and the alibi – which would later prove to be one of Monique’s lies Olivier – lead investigators to other leads. It was only in 2019 that the couple united by a criminal pact was again worried in the case. Both then let slip statements and confessions to the investigating judge Sabine Khéris in 2020, but it takes years to reconstruct the facts between the lies and the cover-ups.
Monique Olivier is “the only one who can say what happened”
Questioned 34 times, including around thirty times between 2018 and 2023, Monique Olivier “lied a lot” on this file, “first on the telephone alibi provided to Fourniret, on the location in Guermantes, on the kidnapping, on the fact that[elle a] guard [Estelle Mouzin] in Ville-sur-Lume (Ardennes)”, underlined President Didier Safar in front of the court. And the man added to the accused: “You are still lying”. However, since the death of Michel Fourniret in 2021, the 75-year-old woman is the only one who can tell what the little girl experienced before she died.
The history of her lies in the Estelle Mouzin affair listed in front of her, the ogress from the Ardennes resumed her usual speech during the trial, calling herself a “monster” who “should have saved” the little girl. She explains in her own words that she “obeyed” Michel Fourniret, but denies any form of active involvement in the kidnapping and murder as during her first interrogation at the trial: “I recognize everything, but don’t believe that I was following him out of the goodness of my heart. I was obeying, that’s all.” The recognition of all the facts, however, raises questions, because many gray areas still hover over this file, in particular the location of Estelle Mouzin’s body. A point on which the septuagenarian says he knows nothing or no longer remembers the details. “I have nothing to hide. […] I’m sorry I don’t remember anymore,” she said in court.
Lots of lies and always gray areas
Over the course of the investigation and interrogations, Monique Olivier ended up reconsidering her previous lies. Starting with the alibi she had created for Michel Fourniret by calling the latter’s son for his birthday – when the two men no longer had contact – from the couple’s home on the evening of January 9, during that Michel Fourniret “hunted” Estelle Mouzin. At the trial, the lawyer for the accused, Me Delgenes, pushed his client to “tell the families what[elle a] did and what'[elle a] told the judge, with all the details.” Monique Olivier then admitted having telephoned Fourniret’s son: “I didn’t want to do it but I did it anyway to prevent him from looking for stories to back”.
The ex-wife of the killer also admitted to having seen Estelle Mouzin for the first time at the house in Ville-sur-Lumes, which belonged to the deceased sister of Michel Fourniret and where the little girl had been sequestered for almost two days according to the ‘accused. During the first interrogations she assured that she had only seen Estelle Mouzin on television.
Monique Olivier got lost in other lies, only on these the truth has not yet come to light. In a first version of the facts, Monique Olivier indicated that her ex-husband had “raped then strangled” the child “with his big hands” before retracting and saying that he had “tried to rape her without succeeding in do it” or even to mention a post-mortem rape. At the trial the accused maintained this last version: “I don’t believe [qu’Estelle Mouzin a été violée], I don’t know. I’m not trying to defend him but… I don’t think he did it. He didn’t tell me he did it.”
As for the place where the girl’s body was buried, and perhaps moved, Monique Olivier assures that she does not know it but had mentioned the Château du Sautou belonging to Fourniret in 2020 then the woods of Issancourt-et-Rumel in 2021. Places searched in vain. So does Monique Olivier continue to lie about this affair or has she confessed everything she knows? This trial is one of the last chances to find out.