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MICHEL Fourniret is, by his own admission, a "hunter of virgins", a man who "needed" to kill young women twice a year and a man who persuaded his wife to help him to entrap girls and young women and then to watch, in a mirror, while he raped and murdered them.
The full extent of the crimes of Mr Fourniret (62) may take weeks to emerge. In recent days, he has admitted nine murders on either side of the French-Belgian border, making him one of France's worst serial killers of recent times. His wife has implicated him in several other killings, including two motivated by money.
Investigators yesterday began to check his possible involvement in a series of other unsolved murders further south, in the Auxerre area of northern Burgundy, including the killing of the British student Joanna Parrish in 1990. At least thirty unsolved murder cases are to be reopened.
Because of his Belgian connection - he moved to Belgium in 1991 and was arrested there last year after a failed attempt to abduct a 13-year-old girl - Mr Fourniret has been dubbed "the French Dutroux".
His admitted and alleged victims range from young women in their mid-20s to 12-year-old Elisabeth Brichet, from Namur in Belgium, who disappeared without trace in 1989, and whose body was found in the grounds of Fourniret's chateau in the French Ardennes last Saturday.
French and Belgian police, who are likely to pool their investigation on the French side of the border, suspect that Mr Fourniret may be guilty of many more murders. He has admitted to a group of killings in the period 1987-90 and several more in recent years. He denies any killings in the period 1990-2000.
"I am very sceptical about that," the chief public prosecutor for the Reims area of France, Yves Charpanel, said. "He boasts that he 'hunted' two girls a year. So far, the numbers don't add up."
In his written statement to investigators - leaked to the French press - Mr Fourniret said: "I needed to hunt virgins twice a year. When I knew that I was going hunting and that I would bring something back, I dug the holes in advance, three metres deep." Two killings a year would bring his list of victims to over 30.
According to his confessions to Belgian investigators, Mr Fourniret started his murder spree in 1987, with the help of a woman who had become his pen-pal while he was in jail for sexual assault.
Monique Olivier (55) befriended Mr Fourniret after answering a small ad, visited him in prison and married him soon after he was freed. Almost immediately, according to their separate confessions, the couple began to "hunt" young women together.
In December 1987, Monique Olivier - not yet married to Fourniret - halted her white van to ask directions of 17-year-old Isabelle Laville, a schoolgirl walking home near Auxerre. The unsuspecting girl got into the car. A few hundred yards later, Ms Olivier stopped for a "hitch-hiker" - Mr Fourniret. According to the couples' confessions, Isabelle was raped and murdered. Her body has never been found.
It was Mrs Fourniret who approached Belgian police two weeks ago and confessed to her involvement in nine of her husband's murders.
She had apparently been shocked by the 30-year sentence given to Mr Dutroux's wife by a Belgian court for complicity in his crimes. (© Independent News Service)
John Lichfield
in Paris
