Serial killer may hold clues

2004-07-14 18:36

Dinant, Belgium - Accused serial killer Michael Fourniret on Wednesday again faced questioning by French police who are trying to find if he can shed light on a number of unsolved murder cases.

Fourniret has already confessed to murdering eight women and girls and one man, but investigators were searching for links with dozens of other cases.

Sources close to the investigation have said they are re-examining 30 unsolved murders in France while Belgian police were trying to find out if Fourniret was linked to the disappearances of at least 15 other girls over the past 20 years whose bodies have never been found.

Fourniret, handcuffed and wearing a bullet-proof jacket and dark ski glasses was taken in an armoured sedan from prison in Nivelles, Belgium to the police headquarters at Dinant, where he was questioned by officers from Nantes in western France who are investigating the kidnapping and stabbing to death in 1990 of Natacha Danais, who was 13.

Many of the leads in the case came from Fourniret's wife, Monique Olivier, who told police this week that she was with him when he allegedly kidnapped Natacha, but did not witness the murder.

Olivier's lawyer, Pierre Barthelemy, said she was an accomplice by the mere fact of her presence, but added that his client "recognises the monstrosity of the facts" and is clamming up more and more.

She has asked for psychological help, "and doesn't want to hear anything more" about her husband, Barthelemy said.

Fourniret, meanwhile, was "extremely calm," solicitous about his wife and their child and concerned because he does not have enough money to rent a television in his cell, according to his lawyer.

Fourniret was described as having been non-co-operative during recent questioning, although earlier he led police to two bodies he had buried at a chateau he used to own just across the border in France.

A memorial service was scheduled to be held on Saturday for Elisabeth Brichet, whom Fourniret kidnapped in 1989 and whose body was one of those exhumed at the chateau on July 3.

French judicial authorities have called for the extradition of Fourniret, 62, a French national in connection with the murders or Celine Saison and Mananya Thumpong. Belgian officials said the way was open for him to be transferred to French jurisdiction.

- AFP