We have the impression of having met her, this child in the red sweater, so much so that her face has appeared to us on television for more than twenty years, since one winter evening, she vanished into thin air. On January 9, 2003, it was snowing in Guermantes, a dormitory town for the upper middle classes who work in Paris. This January 9, Estelle Mouzin, 9 years old, was walking home from school. As usual, she walked alongside the opulent pavilions. But at 6 p.m., she still hadn't arrived at her mother's house… At 8 p.m. either… Immediately, the alert was given, the gendarmerie took the disappearance seriously, a search was organized, the pond was probed . We deployed staff, volunteers and police combed the surrounding area… The village was even cordoned off so that no one left. The 1,400 residents were questioned, their computers checked… In vain. Estelle remained nowhere to be found. What exactly happened to him? Only Michel Fourniret could say it, and he took this secret to the grave. “The ogre of the Ardennes” only recognized in 2020 “having taken the life” of this child. The investigating judge was unable to obtain other information from the serial killer. At 78 years old, he suffered from mental degeneration. Impressive excavations failed to find Estelle's remains.
The symbol of missing children
This Saturday's broadcast therefore traces the thread of this investigation – a colossal file weighing 85,000 pages – which saw eight investigating judges succeed one another and which included its share of years of silence, false leads, dead ends and hiccups. For example, it took a year before investigators received Meghan's testimony. This class friend of Estelle had been approached by “the driver of a white van, bearded, with small glasses”… The same description was made by another kid who escaped his nets in Belgium six months after the disappearance of Estelle… This allowed his arrest.
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From the summer of 2003, therefore, the Michel Fourniret track was studied, then rejected. Because the pedophile serial killer has an alibi: on January 9, he made a phone call from his landline in Sart-Custinne. Physically, it is impossible that he could have made the round trip to Guermantes. Furthermore, in her Belgian home, there is no trace of Estelle's DNA. We will have to wait until 2019 for a former fellow inmate of Monique Olivier to confide the revelations of Michel Fourniret's wife to the police to bring down this alibi. This phone call was made by Monique Olivier… and the couple has another house in France, where Estelle was taken.
This conviction of the involvement of the evil spouses in the death of his daughter, Eric Mouzin had it very quickly. He and his lawyers had to fight for the truth to finally emerge. In 2018, he filed a complaint against the State for “errors in the investigation of the case in an incontestable manner”. Eric Mouzin not only fought for his daughter but for all missing children. Thanks to him, France has put in place the “Kidnapping Alert” system since 2006. And his fight sheds light on this sinister affair.
“At the end of the investigation, the end of the perfect crime? », November 9, 2 p.m., France 2.
France
