Monique Olivier, the ex-wife of rapist and serial killer Michel Fourniret, is expected to spend many more years in prison.
Since November 28, Monique Olivier has been appearing before the Hauts-de-Seine Assize Court in Nanterre for complicity in the kidnappings and murders of Marie-Angèle Domèce, Joanna Parrish and Estelle Mouzin. Some cases are 35 years old, and victims’ families are sometimes still waiting for answers. Her husband, Michel Fourniret, having died in 2021, Monique Olivier appeared alone before the Assize Court.
The 75-year-old accused has provided few new elements over the past three weeks. She mainly gave confused answers and claimed that her memory was failing her. On the other hand, she expressed regret and apologized to the families this Tuesday for her last speech before the verdict was rendered: “I ask forgiveness from the victims, from the families of the victims while knowing that it is unforgivable everything I ‘have done.”
The questions that still remain unanswered to this day concern the cases of Estelle Mouzin, aged 9 years old when she disappeared in 2003, and of Marie-Angèle Domèce, who died in 1988, whose bodies were never found. Although the question was asked many times, the accused always claimed not to know where the bodies of the two women were and added that she would have communicated it if she knew. Inaccuracies also persist regarding the circumstances of the deaths of the two children. Present at the trial, Estelle’s father, Eric Mouzin, told the press on Monday, December 18, that the civil parties had “not had all the answers.” He also added: “But we knew that these answers were hard to obtain”, as relayed by France Info.
This Monday, the attorneys general called for life imprisonment with the addition of a security period of twenty-two years, i.e. the maximum sentence, “in view of the exceptional seriousness of the acts committed, the necessary protection of the society”. The attorney general declared: “Ms. Olivier, you were not an accomplice at that moment, you were the author of the choice to remain silent.” Me Seban, the lawyer for the Parrish and Mouzin families, spoke after the public prosecutor’s requisitions: “It is the maximum sentence that was requested, because the crimes committed justify it. For me, the prosecution’s requisitions are in line with what the families of the victims I represent were asking for.” This sentence would make Monique Olivier “the most convicted woman in French judicial history” as recalled by the lawyer who also added: “What my clients want is for her not to come out”.
The verdict expected this Tuesday, December 19 will be added to the previous convictions attributed to Monique Olivier. Now aged 75, she has already been sentenced to life imprisonment with a security period of 28 years in 2008 by the Ardennes Assize Court. A sentence following her complicity in the murder of four people and a rape committed by her ex-husband. During another trial held in 2018 at the Yvelines Assize Court, the accused was also sentenced to 20 years in prison, she was then aged 70. According to the law, the maximum security period is 30 years in France. A maximum reached during Ms. Olivier’s previous convictions. This period must therefore extend until 2035, when the accused will be 87 years old. In the event that the verdict expected this Tuesday gives her an additional 22 years, the safety period could extend until 2045, the year Monique Olivier turns 97.
It is nevertheless possible for a convicted person to request conditional release during a security period. According to article 720-1-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a convicted person whose state of health, physical or mental, is no longer compatible with the conditions of detention may benefit from a suspension of the sentence. The decision is based on a medical certificate issued by the doctor of the health facility where the convicted person is treated. Conversely, this suspension measure can be revoked by the judge in the event that the detainee no longer meets the conditions of suspension.
