The trial of a man accused of the serial rape and murder of seven young women has begun in France.
Michel Fourniret is charged with carrying out the crimes over a 14-year period along the border of France and Belgium. His wife is separately charged with complicity in murder and kidnapping
The parents of young women and girls allegedly murdered by the self-confessed French serial killer heard in court today how he and his wife made a pact to hunt for virgins.
The victims' families, as well as women who survived Mr Fourniret's alleged attacks, sat opposite the accused and his wife Monique Olivier on the first day of the trial for the kidnap, rape and murder of seven young women and girls.
Mr Fourniret, 65, and Ms Olivier, 59, sat with bowed heads behind bullet-proof glass as court officials read out a litany of horrific crimes that began in 1987 and only ended in 2003 when a 13-year-old Belgian girl managed to escape from them and alert the police.
Letters seized by investigators showed that Mr Fourniret, while in jail for sexual assault in the 1980s, made a pact with Ms Olivier that ‘in exchange for the murder of Olivier's first husband, she would find him a virgin to fulfill his fantasies’.
Mr Fourniret, dubbed the ‘Ogre of the Ardennes,’ is accused of the rape and murder of six young women or teenage girls in France and one in Belgium.
Ms Olivier, who spoke only to confirm her identity and name her defence lawyers, is on trial for one of the same murders and complicity in four of his other alleged crimes whose victims were aged between 12 and 21 and who were either strangled, stabbed with a screwdriver or shot.
The trial is set to last at least two months.
