Eloïse Bertil 12:45 p.m., May 30, 2022
In the Estelle Mouzin case, there is an image that we all know: it is this photo on a light blue background of the little girl, dressed in a red woolen sweater, which illustrated her wanted notice .
A photo that hides a very moving family story.
In "L'Ombre", the Original podcast produced by Spotify and Europe 1 Studio, Eric Mouzin, Estelle's father, confides for the first time on the sentimental value of this red sweater.
Which subsequently constituted an important clue to implicate the serial killer Michel Fourniret.
PODCAST
The contrasting photo of Estelle Mouzin's wanted poster, with her chestnut hair, her green eyes and her red sweater, has remained etched in the memory of the French.
This red sweater that we see in the photo is the one she wore on the day of her disappearance, January 9, 2003 in the small town of Guermantes, in Seine-et-Marne.
For Eric Mouzin, Estelle's father, this garment is all the more symbolic as it has actually been passed down from father to daughter.
“The red sweater is quite a story…”, he confides for the very first time.
"That sweater was mine."
With palpable emotion, Eric Mouzin tells in the podcast "L'Ombre" that at the start, it was Estelle's grandmother who knitted it for him.
“A sweater like that, made with love, doesn't get thrown away,” she had protested when he wanted to get rid of it.
The sweater was therefore unknit and re-knitted in a smaller size so that it could be worn by Estelle.
Until the day the little girl was kidnapped on her way home from school one winter evening in 2003.
Years later, when investigators find a piece of red woolen thread on a mattress that belonged to serial killer Michel Fourniret, a terrible scenario unfolds.
“You have to know if this red thread can match the sweater”, sums up Eric Mouzin.
However, like all grandmothers who knit, that of Estelle Mouzin “keeps bits of wool to repair the holes”, he confides again.
This time, the police therefore hasten to go to the home of Estelle's grandmother to compare the remains of wool corresponding to the red sweater she knitted for Estelle with the sample taken from Michel Fourniret.
The tests carried out will confirm that it is indeed the same wire.
“There is therefore this 'red thread' which is established in space and time, between the end of thread found [chez Michel Fourniret, NDLR] and the end of thread which was used to knit the sweater.
The analysis of the red thread, which bears its name well, I found it very symbolic, in fact”, underlines Eric Mouzin, still upset today by this detail.
To discover other elements hitherto unknown to the public on the Estelle Mouzin affair, listen to the Original podcast "L'Ombre", a counter-investigation by Chloé Triomphe produced by Spotify and Europe 1 Studio.
"L'Ombre", an Original podcast produced by Spotify and Europe 1 Studio
Journalist: Chloe Triomphe
Director: Christophe Daviaud
Production Europe 1 Studio: Fannie Rascle
Spotify production: Laura Cordier and Claire Hazan
Want to listen to this podcast?
"L'ombre" is a podcast of five episodes of about thirty minutes each, to be found free of charge and exclusively on the Spotify listening platform.