excavations resume at an ex-wife of Michel Fourniret

Was Estelle Mouzin a victim of Michel Fourniret? A search campaign has just been relaunched to remove the doubt that has loomed over the past fifteen years on the responsibility of the serial killer in the disappearance of the 9-year-old girl, one evening in January 2003. The investigators are aiming for a place very specific: the home of the former wife of "Ogre des Ardennes", located in Clairefontaine (Yvelines).

In September, this property had already been targeted by the courts. Only a first search and superficial searches could be done, says a source close to the file. The prosecutor of Meaux, Dominique Laurens, said it was today "to do extensive research." A military unit, with more technical means, is participating in this new campaign.

Nicole, pillar of the life of Michel Fourniret

No particular statement by Michel Fourniret would have prompted the investigators to embark on this research. The latter would have decided following a re-examination of the central place occupied by Nicole C. in the life of the killer. This septuagenarian was the great love of his life, he had three children with. She was the only one to be able to draw some emotions during her two trials, in 2008 and 2018. In 1987, although the couple is divorced, this is the woman he comes to take refuge on his release from prison, with his new companion, Monique Olivier. It is also in the immediate vicinity of this house of Clairefontaine that he kills Farida Hammiche, in 1988, to appropriate the treasure of the "gang of hairpieces". More than thirty years after separating from Nicole C., Michel Fourniret continues to write to her, without her answering her missives.

"Who knows what will reveal this search campaign," wondered the lawyer Mouzin family, Didier Seban. If he hopes that we can advance in the investigation of the girl, he believes that with the serial killer "everything is possible." "We could very well find the body of Farida Hammiche, killed next door. We could also discover Michel Fourniret's victims, who are still unknown. "

Confessions "in hollow"

In 2007, shortly before the trial for which he will be sentenced for the deaths of seven young women, Michel Fourniret wrote to the President of the Court of Appeal of Reims to be heard for the disappearances of three other victims: Estelle Mouzin, Joanna Parrish, and Marie-Angele Domece. He then said he had nothing to do with their dead. In early 2018, he ended up admitting to having killed the last two.

There remains Estelle Mouzin, case in which "he does not deny being involved", without confessing. For connoisseurs of the killer, these confessions "in hollow" could be part of a kind of perverse game led by the serial killer, waiting for him to submit enough evidence for him to finally confess.

Two weeks ago, during the trial on the death of Farida Hammiche for which Michel Fourniret was sentenced to his second life sentence, Nicole C., had enjoined her ex-husband to speak, so as to finally know "where are the victims' remains [et] relieve the spirit 'of families. Without success. She had seemed extremely tired at the bar, hoping "it all stopped." The acts of her ex-husband may not have finished haunting her.