For hours, helicopters from television crews have been flying over the forest.
On the ground, the 200 mobilized gendarmes and the excavators dig the clay of the castle of Sautou, a former property of Michel Fourniret in Donchery (Ardennes).
For hours, they find nothing.
Then Fourniret speaks.
On July 3, 2004, the serial killer, arrested a year earlier after a failed kidnapping in Belgium, asked investigators, who stopped two meters deep, to continue digging in the same place, but deeper.
One meter lower, finally, the gendarmes discover the bodies of two young women: Isabelle Brichet and Jeanne-Marie Desramault.
"Without him, we must admit, we might never have found," said an actor of the time.
From this Monday, October 26, sixteen years later, under the leadership of the gendarmes of the Dijon research section (SR) and judge Sabine Khéris, Michel Fourniret, 78, will again survey his native lands in the part of the investigation into the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin, in January 2003 in Guermantes (Seine-et-Marne).
Will the serial killer, as in 2004, help with research?
This is undoubtedly the key to the success of this operation.
"The places where he could have deposited the body"
If he has already admitted the murder of the 9-year-old girl, if Monique Olivier, his ex-wife, assured that he had kidnapped Estelle before taking her to her late sister's house in Ville-sur-Lumes , the Ogre des Ardennes has, so far, given no indication to investigators on the fate of the body.
Last week, transported to Guermantes to reconstruct the circumstances of Estelle's kidnapping, “Fourniret reiterated his confession, gave some details, underlines a source close to the investigations.
However, he did not say anything about what he did with Estelle's body.
On this point, we cannot say that we have really advanced.
"
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From this Monday, Michel Fourniret will therefore return to Ville-sur-Lumes, in this white pavilion where his sister lived and which he renovated for a few months.
The following days, the investigators should also transport the serial killer and Monique Olivier to the castle of Sautou, where they lived for several years, or to Floing or Sart-Custinne (Belgium) other known addresses of the couple.
"The objective is to show him the places where he could have deposited the body and hope that this will bring back memories," said a source close to the investigation.
But he must also be willing to help.
"
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PODCAST. Who is Monique Olivier, Fourniret's ex-wife?
In fact, "for lack of precise indications", the excavations carried out in June in the Ardennes - without the killer - remained unsuccessful.
"The Ardennes massif is quite extensive," had also slipped the Ogre des Ardennes in March during his confession, himself illustrating the difficulty of the work of investigators.
Elliptical responses, fruitless searches
Pressed by the judge, Fourniret had however hinted that a transfer on the spot could help him to tell the truth: "If there is the slightest detail of small relief that can put me on the track, I run immediately. .
"He had also evoked hypotheses on the place where he could have got rid of Estelle's body:" In a place easy to watch, because it is a zone of hunters and it is necessary to be able to make them leave.
I think of a pond, watered by the Clare, which is a stream… ”Before concluding in a much more esoteric way:“ You have a body on your arms and you have to get rid of it, where?
Without being seen, and quickly get rid of it, and tomorrow it may be too late.
Reason and panic collide and you don't know what to do and you do anything.
"
Since these elliptical responses, since these unsuccessful searches, Monique Olivier has again been heard by Judge Khéris.
She gave "indicators, leads", underlines her lawyer, Me Richard Delgenes.
But not the precise location, which she probably does not know: in the 2000s, Fourniret “hunted” most of the time alone.
“There are still many places to explore, believes, for his part, Me Corinne Herrmann, lawyer Eric Mouzin.
And if these excavations do not yield anything, there will be more to carry out.
But all the players in the file nevertheless agree on one point: it will be difficult to achieve a result without a minimum of Fourniret's collaboration.
A killer that Me Richard Delgenes found, "weakened" last week in Guermantes.
“He was no longer the same man he was one or two years ago, also admits Me Corinne Herrmann.
He was physically and mentally diminished.
I do not know her willingness to collaborate, but a lot of things remain suspended from her condition… ”However, since 2006 and the discovery of Isabelle Laville's body in a well in the Yonne, Fourniret has never given a donation again. indication of the fate of his victims: in addition to Estelle Mouzin, at least two of them, Farida Hammiche and Marie-Angèle Domèce, still remain untraceable.