A self-confessed French serial killer is expected to be named as a formal suspect today in the unsolved rape and murder of a British student in Burgundy 18 years ago.

Michel Fourniret will be questioned for the first time over the death of Joanna Parrish, 20, whose body was found in the River Yonne near Aux-erre in May 1990.

Monique Olivier, Fourniret’s wife and alleged accomplice, will also be quizzed by two investigating magistrates under a procedure which may finally lead to a trial.

The couple are due to be placed under formal investigation on suspicion of Miss Parrish’s murder following their interrogations, said Maître Didier Seban, her family’s lawyer.

Roger Parrish, her father, said: “We’re very pleased because this is something we have been trying to get done for over two years.”

Mr Seban added: “It is totally incomprehensible and unacceptable that they have not already brought Fourniret to trial.”

Miss Parrish, from Newnham in Gloucestershire, was spending a year in France as part of her language degree. She disappeared after an appointment with a man who answered her advert offering English lessons.

Fourniret, 65, and Olivier, 59, are due to stand trial on March 27 for the murder of seven other girls in France and Belgium between 1987 and 2001.

The so-called “Ogre of the Ardennes” has confessed to these killings, but denies involvement in the Leeds University student’s death. He became a suspect after his wife described the murder scene with such accuracy that detectives concluded that she must have been a witness.

A former prison visitor who met Fourniret in jail, Olivier lured victims into her husband’s van. He told investigators that he raped and killed them before disposing of the bodies.

Mr Parrish said: “Joanna was an intelligent young woman and we have always wondered how the killer gained her confidence. The presence of a woman would explain that.”

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