Kriti Mehrotra
With Netflix’s ‘Monique Olivier: Accessory to Evil’ delving deep into the way a serial killer and his wife broke every bound of morality, we get a complete insight into the dark side of human nature. After all, this duo confessedly worked together to slay at least eleven girls across France and Belgium from 1987 to 2003 to fulfill the former’s depraved desire of essentially mastering virginity. Amongst these victims was allegedly young Estelle Mouzin — so now, if you just wish to learn more about her, her sudden disappearance, as well as its overall aftermath, we’ve got you covered.
How Did Estelle Mouzin Die?
It was on the snowy Thursday of January 9, 2003, when 9-year-old Estelle suddenly vanished without a trace left behind while on her way back home from school in the Guermantes commune. She was actually expected to return to her mother Suzanne Mouzin’s place by early afternoon, sparking a clear sense of worry when she uncharacteristically failed to do so without any prior note. Nevertheless, before jumping to extreme conclusions, the latter did contact her estranged, soon-to-be ex-husband Eric Mouzin in the hopes their daughter would be with him, but to no avail.
Estelle was thus reported missing by Suzanne shortly following 7 pm, leading to an intense search and international media coverage, yet no objective evidence came to light for quite some time. The truth is suspicion from the beginning was that she’d been taken, especially as a girl of a similar age had almost been kidnapped mere two weeks prior from around the same suburban area. This girl positively identified her perpetrator as a European white male in his 40s, wearing glasses and driving a white van, based on which a composite facial sketch was also carefully created.
Therefore, when Michel Fourniret was arrested on June 26, 2003, for another unrelated attempted abduction of a 13-year-old, he was deemed the primary suspect in Estelle’s case as well. That’s because he bore an uncanny resemblance with the male in the sketch, had a massive white van, and was known to target young girls for his depraved sexual pleasure since the 1960s. Moreover, once he finally confessed to being a serial rapist-killer a year later, he even described the clothes his victims had been wearing, only for one pair to be eerily similar to those Estelle had on the day she disappeared.
However, Michel had a seemingly solid alibi — he claimed he’d called his son from home close to the kidnapping window on that fateful January 9, 2003, which his phone records verified. He was hence placed out of the hot seat back then, but because the evidence against him kept on piling as the years passed, he ultimately confessed to being Estlle’s assailant as well. So with this March 2020 admission, it is believed he likely killed the 9-year-old in his signature style with the help of his wife, Monique Olivier — he raped, beat, and strangled her to death before disposing of her remains alone.
Estelle Mouzin’s Body Remains Unfound
Unfortunately, no. Despite a few excavation attempts at the specific areas Monique and Michel had themselves suggested following their 2020 confession, Estelle’s body has never been recovered. It was reportedly the former who first came forth with details of this incident and asserted her then-husband was responsible for the young girl’s kidnapping as well as murder for sexual pleasure. As for his alibi, she elucidated she was the one to have called their son on that fateful evening per Michel’s instructions of hanging up following two rings and then not contacting anyone else.
According to the Netflix original, Michel had brought Estelle home and Monique had watched over her when he went to work to avoid giving the impression anything in their routine had changed. The latter essentially kept her alive, all the while ignoring her cries for her mother and pleas to go home — she even called her “the little one” since she was the youngest of all their victims. Though, the most heinous aspect, apart from the fact she never turned her husband in, was that she also always turned a blind eye to the brutal alleged sexual assaults as well as murders he committed.
All this gave rise to further investigations, just for experts to uncover previously missed genetic evidence and a supermarket receipt that absolutely supported Monique’s every claim. Estelle’s DNA was in the building the couple resided in during early 2003, plus a local store’s receipt dated two days after the vanishing indicates they were in town around this time. Then there’s the fact photos and video recordings of the 9-year-old were found at Michel’s home computer at one point in time as well, practically leaving him with no choice but to confess everything in March 2020.
Monique and Michel’s declaration actually resulted in a re-invigorated intense search for Estelle as well as a criminal court case to be opened to finally bring her family some much-needed closure. But alas, the prime suspect passed away of natural causes at the age of 79 in May 2021; yet Monique will still stand trial for complicity in connection to this abduction homicide towards late 2023.
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