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?
Sharon Holland sits surrounded by fresh flowers as she scrolls through photos on her phone of her daughter, Chloe.
Warning: This article contains references to suicide and domestic abuse
Beautiful, poised, Chloe stares back at her from the screen. She was a fun, independent young women – until she wasn’t.
Caught up in an abusive relationship with a former partner, who her mother calls a “monster”, Chloe became a shadow of her former self.
Sharon never met him as Chloe kept the ongoing relationship a secret but she had suspicions when her daughter, who had moved out of home, retreated from her friends and family.
“As far as I knew, they’d split up in September 2022 and she was living happily in Southampton,” she says.
But Sharon began to suspect the relationship might be back on after she spotted her daughter liking some of her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook posts.
Chloe was full of life before she met her abuser
“I saw a few hearts on his pictures, and thought ‘here we go’. But she would always deny it and say she would never get back with him. Of course, she was lying to me.”
Increasingly isolated from her loved ones, Chloe’s only communication with Sharon was through text messages and the occasional phone call.
“She turned up at people’s houses with black eyes and made excuses for marks around her neck and everything else,” says Sharon. “No one told me.”
Chloe took her own life in February 2023.
Her family is not alone in their grief. There are now more victims of domestic abuse who take their own life, than those who are killed by their partners.
Between April 2022 to March 2023, there were 93 people who took their own lives following domestic abuse. A 29% rise compared to the previous year.
Sharon and Sky News’ Ashna Hurynag
Assaulted with a dumbbell and handed a knife
Marc Masterton, Chloe’s boyfriend at the time, was routinely assaulting her, controlling her appearance, isolating her from friends and family, belittling her and encouraging her to self-harm.
On one occasion after he assaulted her with a dumbbell, Chloe threatened to take her own life.
In response, Masterton handed her a knife.
“She said on a few occasions, his eyes went from blue to black and it terrified her,” Sharon says.
The abuse was happening in plain sight – in hotels, hostels and on public transport. Chloe eventually chose to report the abuse to police. But two weeks later, she attempted to take her own life.
At the intensive care unit she was taken to before she died, Sharon didn’t leave her bedside. It was here she learnt from a police officer about Chloe’s testimony a fortnight before.
Chloe and her mother, Sharon
Chloe’s evidence
“They told me she’d done a video statement for over two hours and were investigating him,” Sharon says.
“I’ve watched it. She was crying for lots of it and was distraught. I was devastated and angry. He was telling her to take her life. He was giving her knives up against her neck and then saying, you do it.”
Her evidence led to the conviction of her abuser. Masterton admitted coercive and controlling behaviour and was jailed for three years, nine months.
Justice which, Sharon feels, fell well below her expectations.
“We needed to get over four years for him to go on this dangerous person’s list, so he could be monitored as high risk,” she adds.
Sharon is now calling for tougher sentences for those convicted of coercive control.
The current maximum sentence a perpetrator can get for the offence is five years, but Sharon points to countries like France where the maximum sentence is 10 years.
“No amount of years is going to bring her back… But he needed to get more than that.”
The overlooked victims of a growing crisis
It’s incredibly rare to get a criminal investigation in these cases, says Hazel Mercer from the national charity, Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse.
“Most of the families that come to us where there’s been a suicide as result of domestic abuse, the biggest issue for them is the lack of acknowledgement of what has happened to their loved one. Is there going to be any justice that says this domestic abuse was a crime against this person who’s now dead?
“They ask, is anything like that going to happen, and at the moment, nine times out of ten, the answer is no.”
Hazel Mercer advocates for families who have a lost a loved one after domestic abuse
Hazel works with families who feel a lack of “professional curiosity” by authorities means critical connections are often missed.
“When we have a homicide, resources are put into it, there is a real investigation… For a suicide, we seldom see that investigative desire or professional curiosity to look behind that suicide and why it happened.”
Fighting for change
The Crown Prosecution Service is investigating the link between suicide and domestic abuse more closely.
Efforts are being made to educate police and prosecutors on coercive control’s deadly trajectory after the high-profile death of mother Kiena Dawes, who was abused before she died by suicide on 22 July 2022.
Sky News has learnt the CPS is actively assessing similar cases, but Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown says “it isn’t straightforward”.
Kiena Dawes was abused before she died by suicide
“Invariably because of the nature of coercive and controlling behaviour, a lot of that offending happens in private. So without the victim, that’s quite difficult,” she says.
They are working with police to unpick the detail of the abuse a victim suffered in the lead up to their death. Collating evidence from family, friends or even doctors if the victim’s medical records show there’s been a history of physical violence.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown
The Ministry of Justice told Sky News: “This government is committed to halving violence against women and girls. The independent sentencing review is looking at sentences for offences primarily committed against them.
“Victims of controlling and coercive behaviour will also now be better protected through a new law that ensures more abusers are subject to joined-up management by police and probation.”
For Sharon, her campaign is a way of honouring her daughter’s memory. “I won’t stop till I get justice for Chloe,” she says.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
A man has been convicted of drugging and raping 10 women in London and China between 2019 and 2023.
Chinese PhD student Zhenhao Zou, 28, filmed nine of the attacks as “souvenirs”, and kept a trophy box of women’s belongings, jurors in his trial were told.
Warning: This article contains details of sexual offences
He was accused in court of drugging and raping three women in London and seven in China between 2019 and 2023.
Jurors at Inner London Crown Court found him guilty of 11 charges of rape against 10 women, including two who have been identified and another eight who have yet to be traced.
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Moment police arrest student guilty of rape
The mechanical engineering student was also convicted of three counts of voyeurism, 10 of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one of false imprisonment and three of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
He was cleared of two further counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image and one of possession of MDMA with intent to commit a sexual offence.
The trial heard Zou kept a ‘lost property box’ full of women’s belongings. Pic: Met Police
The jury has not reached verdicts on four counts of possession of drugs with intent to commit a sexual offence.
Zou – who first moved to Belfast in 2017 to study mechanical engineering at Queen’s University before moving to London in 2019 – showed no visible reaction as the verdicts were read out in court.
Catherine Farrelly KC, prosecuting, told jurors during the trial that Zou “presents as a smart and charming young man” but is “also a persistent sexual predator; a voyeur and a rapist”.
A discreet camera belonging to Zou. Pic: Met Police
Zou, who also used the name Pakho online, befriended fellow Chinese students on WeChat and dating apps, before inviting them for drinks and drugging them at his flats in London or an unknown location in China, the court heard.
The jury heard how he would secretly film his attacks using a mobile device and hidden cameras, and was shown evidence found on SD cards at his accommodation of him raping unconscious women in London and in China.
Senior Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor Saira Pike thanked the “incredibly strong and brave” women who came forward to report his “heinous” crimes.
“Zou is a serial rapist and a danger to women,” she said.
“In some instances, we have not been able to identify Zou’s victims. Without knowing who these women are, we have not been able to support them through a deeply distressing period of time.
“We have always been determined to seek justice for both the unidentified and identified victims in this case.”
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