French police are to re-open 30 cold cases potentially linked to self-confessed serial killer Michel Fourniret
Credit: BENOIT DOPPAGNE/ AFP
France’s most notorious living serial killer may have killed up to 12 more people after forensics experts pinpointed unidentified DNA on a mattress which had traces of two of his known victims.
Michel Fourniret, 78, was jailed for life in May 2008 for the murder of seven girls and young women. In 2018, he was convicted for the murder of a former cellmate.
He is also charged with the murder of another three women, including Briton Joanna Parrish, a 20-year-old Leeds University language student found in the River Yonne near Auxerre, Burgundy in 1990, a day after she was reported missing.
After years of denial, Fourniret, dubbed the "Ogre of the Ardennes”, finally confessed to her murder in February 2018.
Last month, in another breakthrough, his ex-wife accused him of also raping and murdering a nine-year-old school girl whose disappearance sparked parallels with Madeleine McCann, the British three-year-old who went missing in Portugal in 2007.
Estelle Mouzin vanished in Guermantes, 18 miles east of Paris, on January 9, 2003 while walking home from her school.
While her body has never been found, forensics experts in August identified partial DNA traces of the missing girl on a mattress belonging to Fourniret’s sister, along with that of a second victim, Céline Saison.
In August, Michel Fourniret's wife told police he raped a murdered a nine-year old girl Estelle Mouzin, dubbed the "French Maddie"
Credit: AFP
According to Le Parisien, upon further inspection of the mattress — in police possession since 2003 — they also found traces of up to 12 other individuals. Experts say recent advances in testing now mean that DNA can be pinpointed from just a few human cells.
The newspaper said that the discovery has prompted police to re-open up to 30 cold cases from among 70 potential victims listed shortly after his arrest.
Fourniret’s first murder dates back to 1987 and his most recent was in 2003. But detectives have always been troubled by a “blank decade” between 1990 and 2000 in which he has not been linked to any disappearances. When asked about the discrepancy, he replied cryptically: “In your shoes, I’d pose the very same question.”
Two lawyers of victims’ families have lodged seven separate requests for investigating magistrates to examine the fresh evidence.
“We want the DNA of all victims and disappeared girls that we represent to be compared with those found on the mattress and with all evidence under seal seized at Michel Fourniret’s home,” said one, Corinne Herrmann.
“It is inconceivable that Fourniret didn’t kill other victims.”
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