Fourniret cases: an investigating judge recounts her investigation

She praised – emphatically – the “teamwork” which made it possible to resolve these three “cold cases” (or unsolved criminal cases). “I had the impression of being the conductor of an orchestra made up of virtuosos, and with virtuosos, you can do a lot of things,” she said, applauding the work of the investigators and the military on excavation.

Monique Olivier’s revelations during her first interrogation

“This showed that a dedicated team can resolve” these cases, she added, after reading to the court the statements of Monique Olivier and Michel Fourniret, which she had managed to collect on the three cases tried in Nanterre since November 28.

Posted at the Paris judicial court from January 2012, she was seized six months later of the Domèce and Parrish cases, then the Estelle Mouzin case in 2019.

The judge praises the pair she forms with her clerk Valérie Duby. The latter was able to delve into the file for three years to find elements to “feed the interrogations”. It was also Ms. Duby who had the idea “of creating a center which would be dedicated to these unresolved files”, recalls the magistrate. This was done in March 2022, with the creation of the “cold cases” unit that Ms. Kheris currently coordinates at the Nanterre court.

To prepare the interrogations, the judge relied on the work of psycho-criminologists from the gendarmerie, “profilers”, she adds, using the English term.

Accused of complicity, Monique Olivier says she regrets: “Michel Fourniret was hiding. We don’t play”

Because Monique Olivier and Michel Fourniret are “human beings who have their specificities, but who have atypical and very complex personalities” which must be understood in order to better question them.

Ms. Kheris was able to gain their trust, particularly that of Michel Fourniret, by starting by asking him about his life, his career and his interests, she explained. Monique Olivier only wanted to be questioned by Ms. Kheris, telling her to “feel confident” with her.

In the eyes of the investigating judge, if the two remained “unfathomable”, Monique Olivier was “credible” in her statements, despite her “staircase mind”, only delivering confessions little by little, little by little. interrogations.

“He needs time to free” his conscience, underlined the judge, regretting not having been able to find the bodies of Estelle Mouzin and Marie-Angèle Domèce.