Joanna Parrish: Devastated family of British student murdered in France to see justice three decades after her death
In a quiet graveyard in Gloucestershire, the only sounds are the bells ringing at the top of the hour, and the birds in the trees.
You look over the fence and see the River Severn, and the hills of the valley in the distance.
It is a beautiful, peaceful spot, but it is also a place linked to crime, violence and decades of anguish.
Joanna Parrish is buried here, her gravestone written in English and French.
She was murdered 33 years ago hundreds of miles away, in the French city of Auxerre.
Joanna was 20 years old, a university student teaching in France as part of her degree.
She went missing and then, not long after, her body was found in the River Yonne.
Nobody has ever been convicted of her murder, but we know who did it.
A serial killer called Michel Fourniret, who was already in prison for seven murders, admitted to killing Joanna five years ago, but died before he could be put on trial.
But now, after decades of despair and tragic errors, justice may be within sight.
Because Fourniret did not act alone.
Joanna Parrish was 20 years old when she went missing
He was helped in his murders by his wife, Monique Olivier, who lured girls and young women and allowed them to be attacked, raped and murdered by Fourniret.
She is still alive, now aged 74 and serving a 28-year sentence for complicity in the murders.
She once confessed to seeing Fourniret murder a young woman in Auxerre – clearly Joanna – but then retracted that statement.
Now, though, she is about to go on trial for being an accomplice in three further murders, including that of Joanna.
It has taken a third of a century, but perhaps justice is finally going to be delivered, for Joanna and for the parents who have spent decades searching for a form of closure.
Lives changed forever
At home in Gloucestershire, Pauline Murrell tends to her pet budgie and offers us a cup of tea.
From the sofa, her former husband, Roger Parrish, asks for a coffee.
The pair have been divorced for decades, but are still evidently close, caring and friendly. They finish each other’s sentences.
Joanna’s parents, Pauline and Roger, said their daughter was a ‘kind, bright and smart person’
Their lives changed, instantly and horribly, when they were told that their daughter had been murdered.
“It’s impossible to take in,” says Pauline. “They said she was found in the water, and I was staring out of a window and I simply couldn’t take it in. I couldn’t cry for six months.
“Then I got the post-mortem report and I opened it on a Sunday morning, and I wasn’t able to get out of bed.”
Roger wipes away a tear, the memories still so haunting. “She deserved a long and happy, fulfilled life. She worked hard and she deserved it. She was helpful, part of the community. People still remember her. She did well.”
Pauline’s last phone call with her had ended with a declaration of love from the parents to their daughter. It is a memory that offers some solace.
The devastation of grief was followed by frustration about the police investigation.
Roger and Pauline heard little from the French authorities. Instead, they went to France themselves and started asking questions, looking for information and demanding more effort.
And then came the arrest of Fourniret, and the pieces began to fall into place.
As it slowly became apparent that his wife had helped him, so Roger and Pauline became convinced that he had killed their daughter.
“Jo was a kind person,” says Roger, “but she was also bright and smart.
“She was not likely to have trusted a man who was by himself.
“When we found out that there was a female accomplice, I remember thinking that we had never thought of that. Why would we have done? But right from that moment, I thought, ‘this is it – this is the person’.”
But still the police could not put together the evidence to link Fourniret with Joanna’s murder.
In fact, they had bungled the investigation, mishandling the crime scene and mislaying crucial forensic evidence.
French police ‘lost some really important evidence’
Bernie Kinsella was a detective who worked as a liaison between British and French police.
He discovered an investigation that struggled to link multiple crimes, or to manage its resources. He’s still in touch with Roger and Pauline.
“The French lost some really important evidence,” he told me. “The semen sample from the original rape had just been lost, which is unthinkable in terms of any major investigation like that.
“Losing an exhibit like that is a glaring error, so that had a massive impact on their ability to investigate this properly.”
Desperate, Pauline even took the step of writing to Monique Olivier.
“I remember just saying that, from one mother to another mother, I wanted to know what happened. Her lawyers said it was a trick, that it wasn’t proper, and I was upset about that.
“It wasn’t a trick. It was heartfelt.
“It’s just such a horrible, horrible thing. I can’t imagine that any mother would be able to live with themselves.
“And now she’s pushing the victim bit, but I certainly don’t consider her the victim.” Her voice echoes with contempt.
Olivier has always suggested that she was coerced and intimidated by Fourniret, a claim that has been roundly dismissed by prosecutors.
When she was first convicted, in 2008, the court concluded that, far from being easily influenced, she was highly intelligent and capable.
The convictions of Olivier and Fourniret did not bring justice for Joanna. Olivier had originally made a statement linking her husband to the murder, but she then withdrew it.
The case went quiet and was eventually closed.
But in 2018, 28 years after he killed her, Fourniret admitted to the murder.
A court case beckoned before being delayed by the pandemic. Then, to the frustration of Roger and Pauline, Fourniret died.
“When he died, it wasn’t a great surprise because we knew he’d been ill, but we did feel cheated. I wanted to face him in court and that was taken away.
“We’re glad that he died. The world is a better place without a person like that but, at the same time, we would have wanted to face him – to look him in the eye.”
‘Trial is the last hurdle’
Now they have another chance. Both parents will be travelling to Nanterre, just outside Paris, for the trial.
“We probably look on it as the last hurdle,” says Roger. “It’s been a long time. It’s over 30 years so we’re glad it’s taking place.
“Until it’s over, we can’t get to whatever will be the next stage of our lives.”
Pauline adds: “I keep saying that it’s not going to bring her back.
“It’s almost as if you feel that once it’s over, everything will go back to normal. But it’ll never be like that.”
“No, it won’t be,” says Roger, nodding, holding his head.
“But it will stop us having to think all the time about what we are going to do next, what’s the next step, what are we going to do.
“Hopefully, that will be it – that it will clear our heads a little bit. We’ll never forget Jo. She’ll always be there.”
Roger and Pauline are warm, charming people, whose lives have been blighted in the most horrendous way.
If Olivier is convicted, it will surely bring some kind of closure.
But you wonder – after waiting so long for something so important, can it ever really be enough?
Israel is beginning a major expansion of its military operation in Gaza and will seize large areas of the territory, the country’s defence minister said.
Israel Katz said in a statement that there would be a large scale evacuation of the Palestinian population from fighting areas.
In a post on X, he wrote: “I call on the residents of Gaza to act now to remove Hamas and return all the hostages. This is the only way to end the war.”
He said the offensive was “expanding to crush and clean the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure and capture large areas that will be added to the security zones of the State of Israel”.
The expansion of Israel’s military operation in Gaza deepens its renewed offensive.
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that had begun in January ended in March as Israel launched various air strikes on targets across Gaza.
The deal had seen the release of dozens of hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, but collapsed before it could move to phase two, which would have involved the release of all hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
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26 March: Anti-Hamas chants heard at protest in Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had already issued evacuation warnings to Gazans living around the southern city of Rafah and towards the city of Khan Yunis, telling them to move to the al Mawasi area on the shore, which was previously designated a humanitarian zone.
Israeli forces have already set up a significant buffer zone within Gaza, having expanded an area around the edge of the territory that had existed before the war, as well as a large security area in the so-called Netzarim corridor through the middle of Gaza.
This latest conflict began when Hamas launched an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages.
The ensuing Israeli offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Read more:
Father demands protection after Gaza aid workers’ deaths
Anti-Hamas chants heard at rare protest in Gaza
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Bodies of aid workers found in Gaza
Aid group Doctors Without Borders warned on Wednesday that Israel’s month-long siege of Gaza means some critical medications are now short in supply and are running out, leaving Palestinians at risk of losing vital healthcare.
“The Israeli authorities’ have condemned the people of Gaza to unbearable suffering with their deadly siege,” said Myriam Laaroussi, the group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza.
“This deliberate infliction of harm on people is like a slow death; it must end immediately.”
“Liberation day” was due to be on 1 April. But Donald Trump decided to shift it by a day because he didn’t want anyone to think it was an April fool.
It is no joke for him and it is no joke for governments globally as they brace for his tariff announcements.
It is stunning how little we know about the plans to be announced in the Rose Garden of the White House later today.
It was telling that we didn’t see the President at all on Tuesday. He and all his advisers were huddled in the West Wing, away from the cameras, finalising the tariff plans.
Follow the events of Liberation Day live as they unfold
Three key figures are central to it all.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the so-called ‘measured voice’. A former hedge fund manager, he has argued for targeted not blanket tariffs.
Peter Navarro is Trump’s senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing. A long-time aide and confidante of the president, he is a true loyalist and a firm believer in the merits of tariffs.
His economic views are well beyond mainstream economic thought – precisely why he appeals to Trump.
The third key character is Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary and the biggest proponent of the full-throttle liberation day tariff juggernaut.
The businessman, philanthropist, Trump fundraiser and billionaire (net worth ranging between $1bn and $2bn) has been among the closest to Trump over the past 73 days of this presidency – frequently in and out of the West Wing.
If anything goes wrong, observers here in Washington suspect Trump will make Lutnick the fall guy.
What are Donald Trump’s tariffs, what is ‘liberation day’ and how does it all affect the UK?
And what if it does all go wrong? What if Trump is actually the April fool?
“It’s going to work…” his press secretary said when asked if it could all be a disaster, driving up the cost of living for Americans and creating global economic chaos.
“The president has a brilliant team who have been studying these issues for decades and we are focussed on restoring the global age of America…” Karoline Leavitt said.
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‘Days of US being ripped off are over’
Dancing to the president’s tune
My sense is that we should see “liberation day” not as the moment it’s all over in terms of negotiations for countries globally as they try to carve out deals with the White House. Rather it should be seen as the start.
Trump, as always, wants to be seen as the one calling the shots, taking control, seizing the limelight. He wants the world to dance to his tune. Today is his moment.
But beyond today, alongside the inevitable tit-for-tat retaliation, expect to see efforts by nations to seek carve-outs and to throw bones to Trump; to identify areas where trade policies can be tweaked to placate the president.
Even small offerings which change little in a material sense could give Trump the chance to spin and present himself as the winning deal maker he craves to be.
One significant challenge for foreign governments and their diplomats in Washington has been engaging the president himself with proposals he might like.
Negotiations take place with a White House team who are themselves unsure where the president will ultimately land. It’s resulted in unsatisfactory speculative negotiations.
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Treasury minister: ‘We’ll do everything to secure a deal’
Too much faith placed in the ‘special relationship’?
The UK believes it’s in a better position than most other countries globally. It sits outside the EU giving it autonomy in its trade policy, its deficit with the US is small, and Trump loves Britain.
It’s true too that the UK government has managed to accelerate trade conversations with the White House on a tariff-free trade partnership. Trump’s threats have forced conversations that would normally sit in the long grass for months.
Yet, for now, the conversations have yielded nothing firm. That’s a worry for sure. Did Keir Starmer have too much faith in the ‘special relationship’?
Downing Street will have identified areas where they can tweak trade policy to placate Trump. Cars maybe? Currently US cars into the UK carry a 10% tariff. Digital services perhaps?
US food? Unlikely – there are non-tariff barriers on US food because the consensus seems to be that chlorinated chicken and the like isn’t something UK consumers want.
Easier access to UK financial services maybe? More visas for Americans?
For now though, everyone is waiting to see what Trump does before they either retaliate or relent and lower their own market barriers.
A man inside Mandalay has told Sky News bodies remain under “collapsed and inclining” buildings after the Myanmar earthquake – as a woman was freed from rubble after 91 hours.
The local inside Myanmar said many of the structures in the city were wrecked or badly damaged after the 7.7 magnitude quake on Friday, adding: “There are some bodies, some dead bodies, that still remain and other destruction”.
Meanwhile, in a televised address, Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing said the number of dead had risen to 2,719 and is expected to exceed 3,000.
Some 4,521 people have been injured, while a further 441 are missing.
More than 10,000 buildings are known to have collapsed or been severely damaged in central and northwest Myanmar, the World Health Organisation said.
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Before and after: Myanmar earthquake
Smell of dead bodies near destroyed buildings
In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, which was close to the quake’s epicentre, 50 children and two teachers were killed when their preschool collapsed, the United Nations said.
The local in the city told Sky News that “a lot of local assistance associations like charity groups are still struggling with digging out the corpses, the dead bodies, from the destruction”.
He said that “when we pass near the destructions, the collapsed building or very damaged building, we can smell” dead bodies.
“The smell of the dead bodies after four days… it still remains,” he said, before adding: “For the social assistance association… they need permission [to give aid] especially from the government.
“If they don’t have permission, then they cannot do anything.”
People sheltering in a makeshift tent camp in Mandalay. Pic: Reuters
He also said others in Mandalay are struggling after the earthquake, which followed the city being affected by cyclones, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the civil war in Myanmar – where a junta seized power in a coup in 2021.
“Some people, they say they have nothing at all,” the local added. “They have no more home, they have no more belongings, because its already damaged.”
Woman freed after 91 hours under rubble
It comes after the fire department in Myanmar’s capital freed a woman trapped under rubble 91 hours after the building collapsed.
The 63-year-old woman was freed early on Tuesday in Naypyidaw.
As the country continues to recover, a worker from the International Rescue Committee said people fear aftershocks and are sleeping outside on roads or in open fields.
Communities are struggling to meet basic needs such as access to clean water and sanitation, and emergency teams are working “tirelessly” to locate survivors and provide aid, the UN said in a report.
Rescue efforts have been complicated by the civil war, as rebel groups say the junta has conducted airstrikes, even after the quake, while NGOs fear that certain areas could be denied vital supplies.
“Myanmar’s military has a longstanding practice of denying aid to areas where groups who resist it are active,” said Joe Freeman, a researcher with Amnesty Myanmar.
“It must immediately allow unimpeded access to all humanitarian organisations and remove administrative barriers delaying needs assessments.”
Read more:
Military regime targeting ‘civilian areas’ in ‘wake of disaster’
Myanmar earthquake leaves some areas almost completely destroyed
The quake was the strongest to hit the southeast Asian country in more than a century.
In neighbouring Thailand, rescuers are still scouring the ruins of a collapsed, unfinished skyscraper for any signs of life.
“There are about 70 bodies underneath, and we hope by some miracle one or two are still alive,” volunteer rescue leader Bin Bunluerit said.
Six human-shaped figures have been detected by scanners, said Bangkok’s deputy governor, Tavida Kamolvej.
Thirteen deaths have been confirmed at the building site, with 74 people still missing, while Thailand’s national number of dead stands at 20.
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