VIDEO. Monique Olivier, wife and diabolical accomplice of serial killer Michel Fourniret

"She was the match, he was the match".

It is with this scathing formula that a civil party lawyer described the couple formed by Michel Fourniret and Monique Olivier.

Without this sad-looking woman, the one who has been nicknamed the Ogre of the Ardennes could not have claimed so many victims.

Together, they were convicted of seven murders and are believed to be involved in eleven cases in all.

Love at first sight between Monique Olivier and Michel Fourniret occurred in 1987. Michel Fourniret was then imprisoned in Fleury-Mérogis (Essonne) for sexual assault. From his cell, the forty-something writes an ad: "Prisoner would like to correspond with anyone of any age to forget loneliness." The text is published in the columns of Pèlerin Magazine, a Catholic weekly. Monique Olivier, then 39 years old, mother of two and just divorced, lives in the south of France. She comes across this ad and decides to answer the inmate.

Then begins a fiery letter-writing relationship between Michel Fourniret and Monique Olivier.

In barely three months, they exchanged 217 letters.

He calls her his "tit", his "Natouchka".

She calls him her “beast”, her “Shere Khan”, the nickname for the tiger in the “Jungle Book”.

But mail order lovers don't just exchange sweet words and seal an evil criminal pact.

Monique Olivier asks Michel Fourniret to kill her ex-husband.

In exchange, she promises to help him kidnap young virgins.

The start of a series of murders

In the fall of 1987, Michel Fourniret was released from prison and moved to Saint-Cyr-les-Colons with Monique Olivier. In December of that same year, they put their plan into action near Auxerre. Their first victim is 17-year-old Isabelle Laville. As she walks along the road, the teenager is approached by Monique Olivier who is in the car and who offers her to get on. The young girl accepts. A few meters further, the driver stops to come to the aid of a broken down motorist… This motorist is in reality Michel Fourniret. The trap has just closed on Isabelle Laville. The teenager is drugged, raped and then killed in a country lane.This murder is the first in a long series that will last 16 years during which Monique Olivier will keep her macabre promise and be the active accomplice in her husband's crimes.

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The couple were arrested in 2003 after a failed kidnapping attempt.

It is only at the end of the 121st interrogation that Monique Olivier confesses.

In 2008, the murderous duo was tried by the Ardennes Assize Court for seven murders.

Michel Fourniret is sentenced to life imprisonment, Monique Olivier also, with a security sentence of 28 years.

Two years later, they divorce behind bars.

Michel Fourniret died in the spring of 2021, in a cell room in Pitié-Salpêtrière.

Monique Olivier, still detained, was indicted in new cases, in particular that of the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin in January 2003 in Guermantes (Seine-et-Marne).