Joanna Parrish: Parents of murdered Gloucestershire student say trial verdict is a 'big relief'
The parents of a Gloucestershire student who was murdered in France in 1990 have said they are relieved but still angry, following the sentencing of her killer's accomplice.
A French court found 75-year-old Monique Olivier guilty of being complicit in the murder of Joanna Parrish, following a trial in Paris, which concluded on Tuesday 19 December.
Ms Parrish, from Newnham on Severn, was aged 20 and working as a sign language assistant at a secondary school in Auxerre when she went missing.
Her naked body was found in the river Yonne on 17 May 1990 soon after she'd disappeared.
An autopsy found she had been raped and beaten.
She was murdered by Michel Fourniret, who was jailed for life in 2008, for murdering at least eight girls or young women between 1987 and 2001.
He died in 2021 before he could be tried for the murders of Joanna and two other women.
Now 33 years on from her murder, parents Pauline Murrell and Roger Parrish have shared their thoughts on the trial.
Roger said: “It’s a big relief for a start. We’ve been doing this 33 years, but we would have gone on doing it even if we hadn't received what happened in the last few days.”
Pauline added: “It’s difficult really because I just feel she’s not going to get any punishment. I wish there was still hanging over there, but Roger doesn’t agree.”
When asked about how the process was handled from start to finish, and the work of the French authorities, the pair were critical.
Pauline said: “They were terrible at the beginning, they didn’t take it seriously.
"They were very kind to us when we first went over, but completely ineffective I’m afraid.”
She said she recalls one evening the authorities were ‘laughing and joking’ over a meal and she shouted at them: “How dare you do that? You’re supposed to be looking for my daughter’s killer.”
Roger said: “It’s been very frustrating, to put it mildly. Chances have been missed, opportunities have been missed.
"If some of those opportunities had been taken, maybe some of these victims would still be alive, and that’s made us angry.
“But you know, we’ve now obtained the only element of justice we could hope to do, so there is some relief and degree of satisfaction at being able to do that.”
Roger recalls one situation they heard about in the case of a girl who was walking from school when approached by Fourniret.
After a long pause, he said: “She made the decision not to go in his vehicle… that decision…that one decision…she wouldn’t have been here now.
"It makes you think, doesn't it? One decision changed her life and saved her life.”
Pauline said the conclusion of this trial isn’t going to “make a vast difference”.
She added: “The feeling is still there, she’s not coming home, but at least we know who it is, who it was.
“She didn’t stand a chance really. They set out to find her, to trap her. He crossed her path and killed her, they killed her.”
Roger feels it was the presence of Monique Olivier that caused Joanna to get into the car with Fourniret.
She said: “As soon we found out there was a woman there, this man had an accomplice, I remember that was a bolt of lightning.
"I remember thinking ‘yes that might well have persuaded Jo’ because she would never believe a woman would be involved in that kind of thing.
“It’s quite clear through the trial that all these cases were planned, [Olivier] was as much part of that plan as he was”
Now years on, Joanna’s parents try not to let her murder dominate their lives.
Roger said: “You find yourself thinking, when you see people of her age, what would have happened with Jo?
"You’re inevitably going to think those things, but we hope it doesn’t dominate our lives.”
Instead, they try to focus on hobbies and their grandchildren.
When asked what she would be like to meet now, Pauline said: “If you met her you’d love her. Everybody did.”
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