the tins of split peas which confused Michel Fourniret

Eric Mouzin, father of Estelle, who disappeared on January 9, 2003 in Guermantes (Seine-et-Marne), finally has some of the answers to the questions that have haunted him for seventeen years. Monique Olivier confessed this week that her ex-husband, Michel Fourniret, had “kidnapped, raped and strangled” the 9-year-old child. Physical evidence has corroborated these statements: Estelle’s partial DNA, with that of another victim, was identified on a mattress in the house of the serial killer’s sister, in Ville-sur-Lumes (Ardennes ). The result of the combined efforts of the oldest investigating magistrate of Paris Sabine Khéris, who succeeded in winning the trust of the diabolical ex-couple, and the gendarmes of the Dijon research section.

Read also – Disappearance of Estelle Mouzin: Monique Olivier, the former Madame Fourniret, has an appointment with the judge

A long and expensive technique

Why, while from 2007 Fourniret himself asks to be heard on the Mouzin affair, hadn’t we made this DNA “talk”? The first answer is technical. “We have made considerable progress compared to 2003, indicates Olivier Pascal, director of the French Institute of Genetic Fingerprinting. We only need a few cells to identify an individual.” According to the national expert at the Court of Cassation, analysts used the long and expensive grid technique, reserved for the most sensitive cases.

Read also – Disappearance of Estelle Mouzin: these elements that link Michel Fourniret to the case

The second answer is a story of men. Seized in 2019, Judge Khéris asks investigators to look at the case with a fresh eye, focusing on Fourniret’s involvement. The idea of ​​looking at seals dating from 2003 was brought to the magistrate by Didier Seban and Corinne Herrmann, lawyers for the father of the victim. “We have been asking for it for years, says Me Seban. Judge Khéris seized the expert in early 2020.”

The body still untraceable

On the ground in recent months, investigations have yielded nothing. At the end of June, the four days of searches of the house of the killer’s sister, Huguette Fourniret, by 50 gendarmes and experts turned out to be in vain. But thanks to the AnaCrim software, the investigators unearthed, among the hundreds of seals, a receipt found at Fourniret, printed in a supermarket near Ville-sur-Lumes. Two days after Estelle’s disappearance, the killer had bought four boxes of split peas there. This confirms the trail of the gendarmes. Hundreds of samples are taken from the entire surface of the mattress before being compared to Estelle’s genetic profile, with the expected result.

It remains to be seen where the girl’s body is. The lawyer for the ex-“muse” of the killer, who says he only wants to speak to Judge Khéris, ensures that his client is still ready to collaborate. “We want to show that she is different from him, to show her humanity, to, perhaps, anticipate an exit one day”, advance Richard Delgenes. Monique Olivier was sentenced in 2008 to life imprisonment with a security sentence of twenty-eight years. Friday, after four days of questioning, she was “relieved”, assures Me Delgenes, who told her that she had “done well”.

Read also – Dupont de Ligonnès, little Grégory, Estelle Mouzin …: why big news is so fascinating

Next week, Judge Khéris has planned to question Michel Fourniret for several days. Since the Mouzin case was disoriented from Meaux to Paris last year, the 78-year-old criminal has always taken one step further, after confession of his ex-wife. Didier Seban, who also represents the family of Lydie Logé, who disappeared in 1993 and whose only suspect is Fourniret, hopes for other confessions. But in all these cases, the civil parties are suspended from the failing memory of the ogre des Ardennes.

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