Michel Fourniret

Michel Paul Fourniret (4 April 1942 – 10 May 2021) was a French serial killer who confessed to killing 12 people in France and Belgium between 1987 and 2003. After he was arrested in June 2003 for the attempted kidnapping of a teenage girl in Ciney, Fourniret confessed in 2004 to killing nine people, eight females and one male, having been informed on by his then-wife, Monique Pierrette Olivier (born 31 October 1948). Fourniret was convicted of seven of these murders on 28 May 2008 and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole, while Olivier was given life with a minimum term of 28 years for complicity.

In February 2018, Fourniret confessed to killing two more women. On 16 November 2018, Fourniret and Olivier were convicted of the murder of Farida Hammiche, the last of the eight women that Fourniret confessed to killing in 2004. Fourniret was given a second life sentence and Olivier was sentenced to a further 20 years of imprisonment. In March 2020, Fourniret confessed to killing Estelle Mouzin, who disappeared from Guermantes in 2003.

Early life

Fourniret was born in Sedan, France, the son of a metal worker and a homemaker. He claimed to have been sexually abused as a child by his mother. Acquaintances remembered him as a quiet, intelligent child who enjoyed chess and classical music. As an adult, he drifted through a series of menial jobs, including forestry worker and school supervisor.

Fourniret was first arrested at age 24 in 1966 for sexually assaulting a young girl. He was imprisoned in 1984 for sexually assaulting another five girls.