Victim's parents face 'serial killer'

By Steve Knibbs
BBC News, Charleville-Mezieres

A suspected serial killer and his wife are on trial in France for the murder of seven young women between 1987 and 2001.

The parents of a British girl found dead in 1990 attended court to face the man strongly suspected of killing their daughter.

Joanna Parrish was killed in 1990

No-one can imagine what must have been going through the mind of Roger Parrish and Pauline Sewell as they walked up the steps of the courthouse.

Their daughter, Joanna, was brutally raped and murdered and they were about to face the couple who are strongly suspected of killing her.

In 1990, Joanna Parrish, from Gloucestershire, was taking a year out from Leeds University to teach English to children in Auxerre.

She placed an advert in the local paper offering lessons and arranged to meet a man who called her about it.

Days later her naked body was found in the River Yonne. For 18 years her parents have searched for the truth.

Video screens

Separated by the English channel, the language and a very different legal system, it has taken this long to get somewhere close to the truth - which may lie here in Charleville-Mezieres, where Michel Fourniret and his wife, Monique Olivier, are on trial.

Fourniret, the so-called "Ogre of the Ardennes" has confessed to the murder of seven young women. Olivier is accused of one of the murders and being an accomplice in four others.

It is a trial which has captured the imagination of the French public.

Roger and Pauline are the forgotten people in this trial Didier Seban Lawyer

Watching a mass murder trial is the new sport in Charleville-Mezieres.

Every morning hundreds of people queue to sit and watch proceedings.

A huge marquee has been erected for the public and the trial is shown on big video screens.

But there were two extra visitors who had more of a personal interest.

That is because Olivier has mentioned other killings she was involved in that bear the hallmarks of Joanna Parrish's murder.

Fourniret himself has apparently asked to speak to the families of the other victims he is accused of killing.

As a result, French magistrates have made Fourniret the official suspect in Joanna's murder.

Michel Fourniret has already admitted murdering seven women

But does that mean he killed Joanna? That is the big question.

Fourniret and Olivier are not being tried for Joanna's murder.

Didier Seban, the Parrish family lawyer, is also representing some of the families involved in the current case.

He said: "Roger and Pauline are the forgotten people in this trial.

"Unfortunately, the French justice system has chosen to put Michel Fourniret on trial only for those murders he has confessed to.

"It's important for the parents to be here and say to the French authorities that they want a trial for Joanna's murder."

Blank expression

What is so upsetting is seeing the other families. No one else can know how they feel unless they are a parent in this situation Pauline Sewell

Roger and Pauline were in court to not only face Fourniret and Olivier, but to keep up the pressure on the French authorities into charging them with their daughter's murder.

After speaking to the press, they were led into the courtroom to sit with the families of other victims and wait for the accused to appear in front of them.

Behind the glass screen they saw Fourniret.

A confident, self-confessed killer, he has rarely spoken at his trial. Next to him sits his wife, Olivier, a grey-haired woman with a blank expression.

At the lunch recess Roger and Pauline emerged exhausted.

Fourniret owned a chateau close to the Belgian border

After all the build up and all the emotion, they were finally able to look into the eyes of the man who may have taken their daughter away from them.

"He looks bored. He doesn't seem to show any remorse at all", said Pauline.

"What is so upsetting is seeing the other families. No-one else can know how they feel unless they are a parent in this situation. I know how they feel."

Roger looked overwhelmed but relieved.

"It was difficult seeing the other families and hearing details of another case. It was particularly difficult to see those people - Fourniret and Olivier - that we've only seen in photographs and in newspapers," he said.

They both appeared guarded in their reactions - an understandable response, given that they have both built their hopes up in the past, only to have them taken away.

So this time they are being cautious: cautious of everything they hear and say. They will only drop their guard when their fight is over: the fight for that crucial confession or guilty verdict for the people who killed their daughter.