French Serial Killer And Virgin Hunter – Ogre Of The Ardennes – Sentenced To Life Imprisonment | Pattaya Daily News - Pattaya Newspaper, Powerful news at your fingertips

Published : May 29, 2008 :: 14:05:21 [ 167 views ]

French Serial Killer And Virgin Hunter – Ogre Of The Ardennes – Sentenced To Life Imprisonment

In one of France?s largest serial-killing cases for decades, the "Ogre of the Ardennes, French serial killer, Michel Fourniret, 66, who murdered at least eight girls and young women in the forested, Ardennes region of Northern France and Belgium over a 14-year period, from?1987, was sentenced to life imprisonment?on May 28, 2008.

The self-confessed killer and rapist, who described himself as “an extremely dangerous individual”, with a long history of rape, was aided and abetted by his wife, Monique Olivier, 59. He had first met his wife when she replied to his advert for a pen-pal in a Catholic magazine, while he was serving a sentence for multiple sexual offences in the early 1980s. Olivier also received a life sentence for complicity in the crimes. The couple, however, showed remained nonchalant as the sentences were announced to the packed courtroom in Charleville Meziere, France.

Monique Oliver and Michel Fourniret had signed a criminal pact: she promised to help him hunt for young virgins, while he swore to kill her former husband. Only she kept her promise. In mitigation, Monique, defended herself, saying her husband manipulated and terrified her. “The fear was constant, it lived within me” she apparently told the court.

The pair would apparently work in tandem, sallying out from their chateau, sometimes with their baby son, preying on young virgins, for whom Fourniret had a penchant. While driving, Fourniret would apparently spy a potential victim then stop to ask for directions, after which they were lured into his car; his wife’s presence in the car reassuring them. His wife, described as a “big slimy spider” and “cunning witch” by the chief prosecutor during the trial, was accused of helping her husband choose and capture victims and hiding their bodies. Some of the female victims were first drugged and bound. The eight victims, aged between 12 and 22, were shot, strangled, or stabbed to death with a screwdriver and most were raped.

Travelling in their van, the couple approached 17-year-old Isabelle Laville, who was on her way home from school. Under the pretence of asking her directions, they persuaded her to travel with them to show them the way. Her body was found at the bottom of a well almost 20 years later.

A year later, 20-year-old Fabienne Leroy was seized from a supermarket car park east of Paris. Her body was found near a military base the day after she disappeared, shot in the chest. The bodies of Fourniret’s other victims – all of whom he admitted to killing but denies raping – were found in the grounds of his chateau, deep in the forest, or on a beach.

In 1967, Fourniret received his first conviction, for assaulting a young girl. However, the murders proper started less than two months after his release from prison on parole in 1987. He then managed to escape detection on his most outrageous crimes until 2003, despite having been convicted of numerous offences in the 1990s, including an assault on a woman.

The full extent of his heinous murders essentially only came to light when one of his potential victims, a 13-year-old girl, escaped an attempted kidnapping in Belgium when she managed to bite through the ropes around her wrists and run away, having first noted his registration number and then informed police. After his arrest, even though Fourniret admitted the previous murders, he refused to co-operate further during the two-month trial.

Psychologists who examined the couple maintained neither was insane and were marginally above average intelligence. The specialists stated that the self-obsessed, authoritative Fourniret took a sadistic pleasure in rape and murder.

As well as the murders for which he has been sentenced, Fourniret is suspected of a number of other killings, including that of 20-year-old Briton Joanna Parrish in 1990, and possible involvement in murder or disappearance of another 10 people.

CONFIRMED VICTIMS

Isabelle Laville : Kidnapped in 1987 in Auxerre, central France, aged 17, and raped; body found in 2000

Fabienne Leroy : Kidnapped and raped in Chalons-en-Champagne, eastern France, in 1988 aged 20; found next day

Jeanne-Marie Desramault : Kidnapped in Charleville-Mezieres in 1989, aged 22; found in 2004 at Fourniret’s former property

Elisabeth Brichet : Abducted in Namur, Belgium, in 1989, aged 12; found in 2004 at Fourniret’s former property

Natacha Danais : Kidnapped in 1990 near Nantes, western France, aged 13; found three days later on nearby beach

Celine Saison : Kidnapped in Charleville-Mezieres in 2000, aged 18, and raped; found three months later in Belgium

Mananya Thumphong : Abducted in 2001 in Sedan, north-east France, aged 13, and raped; found in Belgium in 2002

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