Michel Fourniret

Who is Michel Fourniret?

Michel Fourniret is a convicted French serial killer who confessed in June and July 2004 to kidnapping, raping and murdering nine girls in a span of 14 years from the 1980s to the 2000s. He was also accused of 10 additional murders, nine in France and one in Belgium, and was found guilty of seven of these charges. The trials started on 27 March 2008, and ended on 28 May. He is sometimes referred to as the "Ogre/Beast of the Ardennes".

Fourniret was arrested after a failed attempt to kidnap a Belgian girl in June 2003. His wife, Monique Olivier, exposed him after hearing the news of another child murderer's wife being convicted. Fourniret was charged with the abduction of minors and sexual misconduct, and has been in detention since June 2003 for the attempted kidnapping of a 14-year-old girl in 2000. Olivier was charged with one murder and for helping him with a further six.

Fourniret buried at least two of his victims at his Sautou chateau near Donchery in the French Ardennes in the late 1980s. On 3 July 2004, a team of French and Belgian police recovered the bodies of two of Fourniret's victims near the chateau. Fourniret was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 22 years.