This rebellious streak, this shy smile… The face of Estelle Mouzin, who has haunted the walls of all police stations in France for 17 years, will finally be able to leave the sad list of missing children. After years of doubts and suspicions, Michel Fourniret now seems surrounded. Analyzes commissioned by Judge Sabine Khéris have thus made it possible to discover the DNA of Estelle Mouzin on a mattress seized in 2003 in a house in Ville-sur-Lumes (Ardennes) belonging to the serial killer, we learned. this Friday from corroborating sources. According to our information, the investigators also discovered the DNA of Céline Saison, another victim of Michel Fourniret killed in May 2000.
Seventeen years later, this DNA - "partial, but of quality", according to someone close to the file - of Estelle discovered in a house of "the ogre of the Ardennes" is a turning point in an extraordinary criminal investigation that marked France. On January 9, 2003, on her way home from school, Estelle Mouzin disappeared. Battues are organized, dozens of tracks are explored in France and abroad. No result.
Upon his arrest in June 2003 after a failed kidnapping in Belgium, Michel Fourniret interested the judicial police of Versailles. But the track does not convince the police. Guermantes is more than 300 km from the home of the Fourniret couple in Sart-Custinne (Belgium), there was snow that day, and Michel Fourniret made a phone call to his son on January 9, 2003 at 20 hours. An alibi that she helped to keep, explained Monique Olivier, the killer's ex-wife, to Judge Khéris in November 2019. Seventeen years later, the Fourniret track becomes essential again.
PODCAST. Michel Fourniret: in the footsteps of a monster who has not revealed all his secrets
Failing memory when it suits it, the serial killer sentenced to life for seven murders finally claims, last March, to have "taken the life" of the 9-year-old girl. Handling a pervert some think. Confessions extorted from a senile old man, say others.
At the same time, the investigating judge decides to take over all the material elements of the case. The seals of all Fourniret cases, which occupy two rooms of the Charleville-Mézières court, are sent to Paris and entrusted to the gendarmes of the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN) for new analyzes.
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“During a search in 2003, in your sister's house, we found a mattress which went for analysis,” explains the judge to Fourniret last March. Do we have any reason to find one or more DNA from your victims? "" I salute the insight of your investigators, but I do not believe it, retorts Fourniret. The future will tell. The future is these results which, combined with the killer's confession, leave little doubt.
Above all, questioned since Tuesday Paris court, Monique Olivier, 72, has delivered new information on the progress of the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin. This time, she did not simply evoke her conviction as to the guilt of Michel Fourniret, as she had been able to say in January. This Thursday, she gave clear indications on the course of January 9, 2003. “Monique Olivier told the examining magistrate […] that Michel Fourniret had kidnapped Estelle Mouzin, kidnapped her, had taken her on the 9th. January 2003 in Ville-sur-Lumes (Ardennes) to kidnap her, and that he had raped and strangled her ”, explained Richard Delgenes, the historical lawyer of Monique Olivier this Friday noon. A few minutes before this statement, the ex-wife of the serial killer had been indicted for complicity.
PODCAST. Death of Estelle Mouzin: who is Monique Olivier, Fourniret's ex-wife?
"DNA confirms things that we have known for years"
All these elements draw up a fairly clear scenario of the circumstances of Estelle's disappearance. On January 9, 2003, Fourniret left Belgium for Guermantes in his white van. He had already come to scout a few weeks earlier, tried to kidnap a girl without achieving his ends, confirmed Monique Olivier in recent days. Estelle is approached near a bakery. "A suitable berth," Fourniret said with his convoluted words.
Monique Olivier remembers that her husband came home on January 10 at around 4 am at the couple's home, “happy”, “satisfied”. His jeans were then covered with earth. According to the statements of Monique Olivier, Michel Fourniret would have explained to him having kidnapped a girl whom he took to Ville-sur-Lumes, where he would have "raped and strangled". He would have left the next morning in his pavilion in the Ardennes, as confirmed by a receipt in the possession of justice since 2003. The rest, the fate of Estelle's body, elements on which Michel Fourniret must be questioned next week , are undoubtedly the last mysteries of the Mouzin affair.
“This DNA of Estelle found on a mattress is a very important element which confirms things that we have known for years, estimates Me Corinne Herrmann, lawyer for Eric Mouzin. This major element is reinforced by the statements of Monique Olivier who gives us the scenario that we were missing. We didn't know what Fourniret could have done with Estelle after the kidnapping, now, even if the truth is terrible, we know. "
Estelle Mouzin, 17 years of questions
January 9, 2003: Estelle Mouzin, 9, disappears in Guermantes (Seine-et-Marne). It is the beginning of a long investigation where the body is never found.
July 2003: The police suspect Michel Fourniret. But the serial killer, arrested in Belgium, has as an alibi a phone call from his home during the disappearance.
February 5, 2018: Michel Fourniret and Monique Olivier, his ex-wife, are heard by judge Khéris. Estelle Mouzin is briefly mentioned.
November 27, 2019: Michel Fourniret is indicted for "kidnapping and sequestration followed by death" in the case.
March 6, 2020: The 77-year-old serial killer formally admits to killing the child. Unsuccessful searches to find the body of the girl took place in June at her home in the Ardennes.
August 21, 2020: Monique Olivier declares that her ex-husband would have abducted the little girl then would have raped and strangled her. On a mattress seized in 2003 at her home in the Ardennes, a partial DNA of Estelle Mouzin is identified.