The father of an English girl murdered in France 28 years ago spoke of his relief today after her killer finally confessed.
Roger Parrish has battled for justice for his daughter Joanna since her battered and naked body was found dead in the River Yonne in Auxerre, France, on May 17th 1990.
At the time of her death she was living in the Burgundy town 100 miles south of Paris as part of her French degree course at Leeds University.
Her murderer remained unknown despite intensive police investigations and the efforts of Mr Parrish and his ex-wife Pauline who frequently travelled to Auxerre to hand out leaflets appealing for information. They were determined to keep the case in the public eye.
Joanna’s parents, Roger Parrish and Pauline Murrell, continually pushed for the French authorities to carry on with the enquiry, even though it was temporarily closed in 2011
In 2008, mass killer Michel Fourniret, 75, dubbed the ‘Ogre of Ardennes’, was jailed in France for the kidnapping, raping, and murdering seven other girls over a 14 year period from 1987.
The police and the Parrish family suspected he may also be responsible for Joanna’s death. But he has never admitted it until now.
As well as confessing to Joanna’s murder in a secret interview in a Paris courtroom he has also allegedly admitted another unsolved murder – that of Marie-Angèle Domece, a mentally disabled girl who disappeared on July 8, 1988, and whose body has never been found.
Mr Parrish, a retired Land Registry official of Newnham on Severn, Gloucestershire, said he was relieved that at last it appears he and his family can have closure after almost three decades of fighting for the truth about Joanna’s death.
He said he had not received any information from the French police so far about Fourniret’s confession but he had heard from his own sources in France and his lawyers in Paris hope to have fuller details within a day or two.
‘It’s something that we’re pleased to hear about. We’re relieved in many ways. Let’s hope it’s something which we can take forward,’ he said.
‘If we can get that kind of certainty it would be a huge relief. It’s the final hurdle that we’ve faced for the last 27 years.
‘We try to get on with our lives as best we can do. But there are times with it comes back when you least expect.’
‘Our lawyers are confident that this has a degree of positivity which we’ve not had up to now,’ he said.
‘We’re being guarded about it because of our past experience.’
It was widely reported in the French press yesterday that Fourniret has admitted the two unsolved murders within the last few days.
Joanna was working as an English teaching assistant at the Jacques-Aymot high school in Auxerre when she was killed. Her naked body was found at Moneteau in the River Yonne. The autopsy revealed that she had been raped and beaten before her death.
Detectives had never been able to prove that he murdered Joanna Parrish (pictured), a Leeds University language student who was killed in Burgundy countryside in eastern France in 1990
Michel Fourniret had always disputed his involvement in this case, including during his trial at the Assize Court of the Ardennes, where he was sentenced on May 28, 2008, to life imprisonment for seven murders. His ex-wife Monique Olivier was also sentenced to life for complicity in five of the murders.
‘It’s been 28 years since Joanna Parrish passed away – years that we have been fighting for justice on this issue,’ said the Parrish family lawyer Didier Seban. ‘Michel Fourniret has now confessed to the two murders – for us that’s a breakthrough.’
It was during an interview with a magistrate in Paris last week that Fourniret made ‘repeated’ confessions about the murders of Joanna and Marie-Angèle, he said.
Michel Fourniret, 75, (pictured) had already admitted kidnapping, raping and murdering nine girls over a 14 year period from 1987
Retired Gloucestershire police detective chief superintendent Bernie Kinsella, who had helped French police investigate Joanna’s death, said he was delighted that the case finally appeared to have been solved.
‘Roger, Pauline and Joanna’s brother have been to hell and back over the last 28 years,’ he said. ‘At last they can have closure. This is a long awaited breakthrough.’
Fourniret was the prime suspect in the case for years, and was finally arrested in 2005 with his wife Monique Olivier in connection with the other deaths.
Olivier was also jailed for complicity after it was revealed she would sometimes pick up the victims for him as she drove in their car around the wooden Ardennes area, close to France’s border with Germany, with their baby son in the backseat.
It seemed as though the case would come to a close when Olivier made a statement suggesting she was present at the murder of a young woman in Auxerre in 1990.
But Olivier later withdrew her statement claiming it had been made under pressure, after it emerged a prosecutor had slapped her during an interview.
Joanna’s parents continually criticised the the French authorities haphazard investigation into the death over the last three decades. In 2015 Pauline Murrell said that there had been ‘Absolute cock-ups from beginning to end.’
Referring to the comic detective played by Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther films, she added: ‘This is Clouseau-esque. I’ve said it in France. They knew what I meant.’
The desperate parents, who split up shortly after Jo’s death, kept up pressure for a last push from the police to find their daughter’s killer.
Their son Barney Parrish, who was 17 when Joanna was murdered, has launched a social media campaign to garner support for their efforts to get justice for Jo.
Fourniret is already serving life in prison, without the possibility of parole, and his latest confessions mean he is unlikely ever to be let out.