“We have been waiting for the answer for more than twenty years. An answer which will arrive during the trial but which will be a partial answer, of course, since the main culprit is no longer there, since he is dead.” This is how Eric Mouzin described the very particular feeling of a helpless father faced with the extent of the horror he has experienced with his family since the disappearance of his daughter, Estelle Mouzin, in 2003, on the microphone by Amandine Bégot, on RTLthis Monday, November 20, 2023. A major criminal case of recent decades in France, the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin is part of the sordid tapestry of barbaric acts committed by Michel Fourniret and his ex-wife Monique Olivier, alleged accomplice, which consist in eleven murders confessed by the main culprit, and many others of which he is suspected. He died in prison at the age of 79 in 2021. Since then, Monique Olivier remains the only accused in the trial over the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin. An event which, according to Eric Mouzin, terribly affected his family.
Estelle Mouzin’s brothers and sisters suffered from her absence
“Certain elements of the procedural file show that she kept Estelle for at least a day. So for a day, you have time to ask yourself questions, to know if what you are doing is right or wrong”, affirms Eric Mouzin when asked about the guilt of the ex-wife of the Ardennes killer. He regrets her continued silence – she refuses to say where her daughter’s body is – and explains thathe hopes to get a conviction “as severe as possible”. Deeply marked by this tragedy, Eric Mouzin’s two other children, Arthur and Lucie, showed a lot of “strength”just like those of his wife, Yann and Estelle, who became civil parties in the trial, he says. “Testify to what they also suffered indirectly in the same way as my children – to a lesser degree (…) The children, since we lived together, had developed an extraordinary bond, in particular the two Estelles (Estelle Mouzin and her half-sister, editor’s note). Suddenly everything stops and we’re stuck with an absence like that, for 20 years. They all put up with this absence, they all put up with the lack of response (…) and the absence of Estelle’s body too.” Estelle Mouzin’s father also filed a complaint against the State, for its inaction for sixteen years before the late indictment of Michel Fourniret. “A serial killer in France is a bit messy“he mentions in an attempt to explain this long – and unacceptable – inaction.