A 17-year long investigation that could finally see progress. In 2003, Estelle Mouzin, aged 9, disappeared without a trace. Last March, serial killer Michel Fourniret acknowledged the kidnapping and forcible confinement of the girl, without giving details on the location of the body. The investigators therefore decided to excavate several properties in the Ogre of the Ardennes: the Sautou castle, where the serial killer lived with his wife, Monique Olivier, but also in a house in Ville-sur-Lum, which belonged to his sister.
>> READ ALSO: STORY - Disappearance of Estelle Mouzin: from the first suspicions to the confessions of Fourniret
The use of a GPR and a drone
During the excavations at Ville-sur-Lum, the investigators focused on the cellar, the floor of which was clay in the early 2000s but that Michel Fourniret had then covered a concrete slab. Experts used a sophisticated technique to probe the subsoil: a GPR. The latter makes it possible to establish an X-ray of the underside of the house, before starting to dig in search of possible human remains.
At the same time, a drone flew over the surroundings of the house. He was equipped with a camera to spot changes that had appeared over time in the vegetation, in the event that a body had been buried in the garden.
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The presence of Fourniret attested
For the moment, no information has filtered on the result of these initial investigations. This property of serial killer Michel Fourniret had never been excavated. Justice suspects the Ogre of the Ardennes to have taken Estelle Mouzin there, two days after his abduction. A hypothesis that he himself had deemed "relevant" before the investigating judge.
The presence of Michel Fourniret at that time in his property is evidenced by the presence of a supermarket ticket, found during a search. For the lawyers of Estelle Mouzin's father, Eric, this is the main track here which will allow us to find the child's body.