three questions about the survey that relaunches the Fourniret trail

Sixteen years later, is the investigation into the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin revived? The new investigating judge appointed in the investigation into the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin has appointed gendarmes to explore the track serial killer Michel Fourniret, learned Wednesday, October 9, franceinfo close source file, confirming information RTL.

Aged 9, the girl had disappeared one evening in January 2003, while returning from school in Guermantes (Seine-et-Marne). His body has never been found. Back on a new turning point in this long investigation.

1Why did the judge decide to appeal to the gendarmes?

The new investigating judge in charge of the case since July 2019, Sabine Kheris, believes that the Michel Fourniret track was not sufficiently excavated in this investigation. Hence, explains RTL, its decision to change investigators: "The gendarmes will come to reinforce the policemen to conduct the investigation. Their mission is to focus exclusively on the Fourniret hypothesis and to review everything with a fresh eye ".

TheThe girl's family shares this opinion. For Estelle's parents, the investigators of the judicial police of Versailles who were in charge of the investigation too quickly abandoned the track Michel Fourniret. They have been fighting for years to be further explored. "That's very good news, welcomed one of the lawyers, Didier Seban, joined by franceinfo. The most serious track will finally be investigated".

2Why is the Fourniret trail being followed again?

"If the judge wants to explore this trail to the end, it's also because she knows the killer Ardennes well. It directs indeed other investigations which concern it ", explains RTL again. Sabine Kheris leads investigation into two belated murders by Michel Fourniret, those of Joanna Parrish and Marie-Angèle Domèce, details The union.

At the beginning of 2007, the police had once dismissed the "ogre des Ardennes" in the Estelle Mouzin case. Six years later, the expertise of thousands of hairs and hair taken from his car had also not found traces of the girl. Interviewed by the investigators at the end of 2017, Michel Fourniret once again said he did not "nothing to do with the case" Mouzin. Faced with the police officers of the Versailles PJ, who had already heard three times in the past on this issue, he always challenged his involvement.

But in March 2018, Corinne Herrmann, one of the girl's father's lawyers, claimed that the serial killer had delivered "hollow confession" on his involvement in this disappearance, in the context of hearings relating to the murders of Joanna Parrish and Marie-Angèle Domece. "He did not deny his involvement whereas for years, he gets angry when talking to him about Estelle Mouzin"said the lawyer to franceinfo. However, excavations on land that had belonged to the serial killer in Floing (Ardennes), conducted in December 2018, were unsuccessful.

3Why was the inquiry disoriented in Paris?

In July 2019, the Court of Cassation has agreed to disorient the investigations, previously conducted in Meaux (Seine-et-Marne), after the reopening of the Fourniret trail. The request came from the Paris Attorney General and was motivated "for the sake of promoting the manifestation of the truth". This change of scenery made it possible to entrust the investigation to a judge who was a good expert on the Fourniret file.

"This is the culmination of a long fight over fifteen years for the case to be seriously investigated and the track of Michel Fourniret is finally investigatedDidier Seban, one of the lawyers for Estelle Mouzin's father, said he had already asked for a change of scenery several years ago. "The hope is that means will be put for the conditions of the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin to be clarified", he added.

Aged 77, Michel Fourniret was sentenced in 2008 to life imprisonment for seven murders of young women or girls between 1987 and 2001, preceded by rape or attempted rape. His ex-wife, Monique Olivier, whom he divorced in 2010, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 28-year sentence, for complicity in four of the murders and rape in a meeting of a young man. girl. On November 16, 2018, he was again sentenced to life for the 1988 assassination of Farida Hammiche, whose body was never found, and to 20 years of criminal imprisonment.