Belgians fail in French ‘serial killer’ body search

SART-CUSTINNE, Belgium, April 22 (AFP) – Belgian police gave up on searches for victims of alleged French serial killer Michel Fourniret at his house here after 10 days of digging proved fruitless, the local prosecutor said.  

“We’ve finished digging … we are certain that there are no bodies here,” said prosecutor Arnoud d’Aspremont Lynden during a briefing in the yard of Fourniret’s former house.   His wife and suspected accomplice, Monique Olivier, has accused her husband of having buried the body of an au pair whom Fourniret is alleged to have killed in 1992 after trying to rape her.  

Olivier has also accused her husband, who is now 63, of killing two other babysitters during the 1990s, but has not given more details. Fourniret denies the murders.  

Fourniret’s wife was herself charged last month in connection with the murders of three girls, having confirmed that she lured three young women as au pairs to her home between July 1992 and January 1997.  

The probe to unearth remains in the garden in this small village in southern Belgium came as investigations continue into just how many people died at the hands of Fourniret and his wife in the late 1980s and 1990s.  

Fourniret was arrested in Belgium in June 2003 over the abduction of minors and sexual misconduct. He is under investigation for six murders in France and two others in Belgium, as well as an attempted kidnapping.  

All of the victims were female, several of them young girls. The crimes date back to 1987. He has admitted to eight of the murders and an attempted slaying.