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Child killer tells of two more
02/07/2004 19:29 - (SA)
Paul Ames
Brussels - Confessed child killer Michel Fourniret has admitted killing two more teenage girls, bringing to nine the number of murders by the former forest ranger, prosecutors said on Friday.
French prosecutor Yves Charpenel said Fourniret had confessed to the killing of Celine Saison, 18, and Mananya Thumpong, 13, during questioning by French and Belgian investigators late on Thursday.
Fourniret, 62, was arrested a year ago by authorities after the botched kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl in southern Belgium.
In a case that has horrified Belgium barely a week after the trial of child-killer Marc Dutroux, prosecutors said Fourniret confessed earlier this week to seven murders - five girls and young women, and two adults where the motive was apparently robbery.
Belgium media have dubbed Fourniret "the French Dutroux". He moved from his native France to southern Belgium in 1987 after serving a prison sentence for child sex offences in his homeland.
Body found in woodland
Investigators were expected to begin digging for the bodies of some victims at the weekend in property owned by Fourniret in the Ardennes forests which straddle the Franco-Belgian border. The search will focus on the grounds of a chateau he once owned near Sedan in northern France.
Mananya Thumpong, disappeared from Sedan in May 2001, her body was found a year later in woodland on the Belgian side of the border.
The body of Celine Saison was found nearby in July 2000, two months after she disappeared from the Charleville-Mezieres, 20km from Sedan.
Aparts from their killings, prosecutors say Fourniret earlier admitted killing five girls, aged 12 to 22, in France and Belgium from 1987 and 1990.
He also confessed to killing an unidentified adult male during a robbery in a highway rest area in eastern France and the murder of Farida Hellegouache, also during a robbery.
Investigators suspect there may be more killings. Belgium on Thursday charged him with the homicide of an unidentified young women from Brussels who disappeared in 1993 after working for Fourniret as an au pair.
Buried some victims in chateau grounds
Fourniret's estranged wife, Monique Olivier, who faces charges of complicity in the crimes, told investigators the woman's body was buried near the couple's home in southern Belgium, prosecutors said.
The breakthrough in the case came last week when Olivier told investigators her husband could have committed at least nine murders.
She said she agreed to talk to police after hearing of the Dutroux trial.
Dutroux was sentenced to life on June 22 for a series of child kidnappings, rapes and murders. His former wife, Michelle Martin, was given 30 years for her role in the crimes.
Media reports said Fourniret used money stolen from Hellegouache to buy the Chateau de Sautou near Sedan where he told investigators some of the victims were buried.
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