Murder of Joanna Parrish

Who is Murder of Joanna Parrish?

Joanna "Jo" Parrish was a 20-year-old language student from Newnham on Severn, Gloucestershire, England, who was murdered in the Burgundy region of France while working at a local school as part of her degree course in 1990. Parrish, an undergraduate of Leeds University who was studying French, disappeared after placing an advertisement in a local Burgundy newspaper offering private English lessons, and arranging to meet a man who it is believed contacted her with details of a potential student. Her naked body was found in the Yonne River at Auxerre on 17 May 1990. She had been raped, beaten and strangled. The crime remains unsolved to the present day.

A major suspect in the case was Michel Fourniret, a convicted serial killer known as "The Beast of Ardennes", who detectives suspected because the murder had similarities to crimes he was convicted of in 2008. Fourniret's wife, Monique Olivier, also gave police several statements linking him to Joanna Parrish's death, but she later withdrew the allegations, claiming they had been made under duress. The case was closed in 2011, but re-opened the following year after the emergence of fresh evidence.