‘What we did was monstrous’: Ogre of the Ardennes victim’s family walk out of court as killer’s widow gives first graphic account of how Joanna Parrish was murdered by monster who ‘wanted to have some fun’

Joanna Parrish's parents left a Paris court yesterday as the Ogress of the Ardennes gave the first harrowing account of her murder.

Previously unknown details revealed by Monique Olivier were so harrowing that after two terrible hours, Roger Parrish, 80, and his ex-wife Pauline Murrell, 75, could bear to stop listening.

Patrick Proctor, the 20-year-old student's steady boyfriend when she was killed in 1993, and her aunt, Pauline Harris, 77, also left the room. They had heard Olivier admit that she acted as 'bait' to lure Joanna into the back of a van – 'it was like a game of chess' for her husband, serial killer and 'Ogre of the Ardennes' Michel Fourniret.

Olivier, who is on trial for her part in a kidnapping and two murders, including that of Joanna, ignored the young woman's desperate screams as she tried to fend off Fourniret's blows. The family's torment was compounded when Olivier recalled how Fourniret, who had a perverse obsession with defiling virgins, interrogated Joanna about her sex life.

“He asked her if she had a boyfriend,” she told the court. 'It must have annoyed him when she said she had done that because it meant (to him) that she wasn't a virgin. When it came to sexuality, he always wanted to be the first. That's why he was violent and did what he did.”

By refusing to attend the late morning session, the traveling Parrish contingent was spared the most harrowing part of the proceedings.

It came when lawyer Didier Seban tried to prick Olivier's conscience by confronting her with photos of Joanna. The first images, projected on a screen, showed the carefree young woman enjoying a day in Paris and posing demurely.

The second set, inserted into Olivier's veiny, trembling hand, reminded her of what her victim looked like after her bruised and bloated body was fished from a river.

'Look at her. Do you recognize her?' Mr. Seban asked dismissively. 'What effect does that have on you? What do you say to that? What can I tell Joanna's parents?'

The closest the stone-faced 75-year-old woman came to breaking into the dock. “That's not possible,” she muttered, shaking her head.

'She was beautiful. She deserved to live. I really regret it. She's gone because of me. It's unforgivable.'

His voice trailed off as she added, “If it had been my daughter, I think I would have done something. I would have been looking for…' Olivier said Joanna eventually realized the van was going the wrong way and tried to open the doors. That's when the attack started.

She claimed she was still haunted by the faces of all their victims, but said it was Joanna's smiling image, as shown in court, that had 'marked' her most deeply.

“I'd rather… not have all these horrors in my head,” she said.

Olivier was pregnant with their son when they murdered their second known victim, 18-year-old Marie-Angele Domece, whose body was never found.

“You were going to give someone life,” Mr. Seban noted.

“Yes, and I helped take a life,” she replied. “What we have done is monstrous, but it is now too late.”

Another dramatic day began when Judge Didier Safar Olivier, cutting a scruffy figure in a grimy sweatshirt, recalled that relatives of Joanna and two other murdered girls had come to hear her “explain yourself, free your conscience.”

She stuck her prominent nose through a hole in the bulletproof screen to make herself heard, initially frustrating the court with mumbled answers and claiming she could not remember events 30 years ago.

Gradually, however, the full horrific story emerged. It became clear that Joanna fell into the clutches of the ogre due to catastrophic coincidences.

In May 1990, as she neared the end of a year-long teaching assignment in Auxerre, Fourniret and Olivier had already begun their murder spree, which claimed up to 35 lives. The couple had moved to the French Ardennes but returned that month to collect furniture from their former home in a village near Auxerre.

While they were on their way, Olivier said nauseatingly, Fourniret decided to “have some fun.”

As was their custom, they went through the streets looking for suitable targets. Fourniret also scoured newspapers and billboards looking for small advertisements placed by vulnerable girls, and by chance

Joanna had just offered her services as an English tutor.

He pretended he wanted her to teach their son Selim (then only 18 months old) and called her. A meeting was set for around 7pm in the center of Auxerre.

Joanna was so excited at the prospect that she didn't hesitate to climb into the back of the couple's white Citroen.

Fourniret later told police that without his wife's presence, Joanna would not have gotten into the vehicle and still be alive.

Explaining her husband's maniacal urge, Olivier said, “He told me it was like a cavalry charge in his head that forced him to go hunting (virgins).”

Were you the dog that found its prey, Mr. Seban asked her? “Yes, if you want to put it that way,” she replied miserably.

She insisted she acted under Fourniret's influence, adding: 'I deserve to be in prison because I helped him do all these terrible things. I should have done what I had to do (prevent the attack on Joanna). But I was afraid of him and afraid of what was happening. Fear and panic held me back.'

Mr. Seban snapped back, “Don't tell us you were the victim!”

Olivier said Fourniret planned to kidnap Joanna and take her back to their home in the village. However, for some unknown reason, his plans changed. They drove around for about an hour looking for a quiet place, then he tied her up, raped her and strangled her before throwing her body into a river.

Olivier, who is already serving a minimum 28-year life sentence for four other murders, denied the same culpability in Joanna's case, insisting: 'It was obedience – not pleasure.'

The court heard that 35 young women and girls may have been murdered, even though the Ogre had been convicted of only eight. He died in 2021, aged 79. The process continues.