Joanna Parrish 'fought back' serial killer before murder
BBCThe ex-wife of a serial killer told police a British student "fought back" during a violent assault by her husband, a court has been told.
Joanna Parrish, 20, was found dead in a river near Auxerre, in in 1990.
Monique Olivier, who is 75 and already serving a life sentence, is on trial over charges of helping the late Michel Fourniret commit two murders, including Miss Parrish, and a kidnap.
Olivier later retracted the confession given in a 2005 interview with police.
In court on Wednesday she said that she itted to "all the facts" of which she is accused.
The crimes date back to 1988 in the case of Marie-Angele Domece, who disappeared aged 18 from Auxerre, and 1990 for Miss Parrish.
The third charge is for complicity in the 2003 disappearance of nine-year-old Estelle Mouzin, whose body has never been found.
Fourniret was nicknamed the Beast of the Ardennes after he was convicted in 2008 of the murders of seven young women. In jail 10 years later, he confessed to also killing Miss Parrish and one other.
Olivier was also convicted in a 2008 trial, during which her role in aiding Fourniret's murderous sex obsession was revealed.
The parents of Miss Parrish, from Newnham-on-Severn, in Gloucestershire, are due to give evidence in the case next week.
The court in Paris has been hearing from Francis Nachbar, the ex-prosecutor of the 2008 trial of Olivier and Fourniret.
He recounted how Olivier had told them during a police interview that her husband used her to reassure the victims and that they had tried to kidnap a girl at the station in Auxerre, but that had not worked.
She said they then went back a few months later.
Raped and killed
Mr Nachbar said they did not know about Miss Parrish then but that Olivier gave very clear and precise details about what she was wearing, what she was carrying and what happened to her.
She said that Miss Parrish "fought back" against Fourniret's attack. Fourniret raped and killed her.
Mr Nachbar said that Olivier suddenly went very quiet and lowered her head during the interview and stayed silent for half an hour.
He said: "She was like a statue. I put my hand on her shoulder and said 'Are you ok":[]}