text: After years of denials, Michel Fourniret admits killing Joanna Parrish, 20, in 1990 
   
   A French serial killer has confessed to the murder of British language student Joanna Parrish in France nearly three decades ago, the family lawyer told AFP on Friday. 
   
   Jailed for life in 2008 for killing seven girls and young women, Michel Fourniret was dubbed the Ogre of the Ardennes. 
   
   He was interviewed last week by two instructing magistrates in Paris and, according to lawyer Didier Seban, admitted murdering 20-year-old Parrish, a student at Leeds University, and French teenager Marie-Angele Domece. 
   
   “He made detailed and repeated confessions. He clearly recognises, and this several times over, having killed Joanna Parrish and Marie-Angele Domece,” Seban said. 
   
   “It’s a new development, a resolution of the affair, it seems, in a remarkable way,” he added. “It’s hard (for the family), but the end of a long legal battle.” 
   
   Parrish, from Newnham on Severn, Gloucs, had been working as a language assistant at a secondary school in Auxerre, in the Burgundy region. 
   
   Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joanna Parrish. Photograph: PA 
   
   Seban said he hoped a trial would soon go ahead now. 
   
   Paris prosecutors would not comment on the revelations, with investigations under way. 
   
   Fourniret’s lawyer made no comment when contacted by AFP. 
   
   Parrish’s body was found on 17 May 1990, soon after she disappeared. She had been raped and beaten, the autopsy found. 
   
   Domece, who had learning disabilities, disappeared on 8 July 1988. Her body has never been found. 
   
   Fourniret was charged in 2008 with kidnapping and murdering the two girls, but the court of appeal dismissed the case on 14 September 2011. 
   
   Fourniret’s wife Monique Olivier had twice accused him of the two unsolved murders but later retracted. 
   
   “Monique Olivier will in turn have to be questioned,” Seban added. 
   
   Fourniret had always denied involvement in the two cases, including during his trial in the northern Ardennes area where he was found guilty on 28 May 2008 of murdering seven girls. 
   
   Olivier was found guilty of complicity in five murders and jailed for life with an order that she serve at least 28 years behind bars. 
   
   In June 2012 the court of appeal in Paris cancelled the dismissal order on Fourniret and asked for investigations to resume based on new leads. ||||| A convicted serial killer has reportedly confessed to killing a British woman in France 27 years ago. 
   
   Joanna Parrish, 21, from Gloucester, was raped and murdered in Auxerre in 1990, while working as an English teacher during her gap year. 
   
   Convicted rapist and murderer Michel Fourniret, dubbed “the Ogre of the Ardennes”, had for a long time been the prime suspect in the brutal attack on the student. 
   
   And according to Ms Parrish’s family lawyer the killer has finally admitted to her murder. 
   
   Lawyer Didier Seban told the BBC that over the past week Fourniret had appeared in court “two to three times” and admitted the killing on each occasion. 
   
   He added that Fourniret would now be questioned further, which “should lead to charges”. 
   
   Ms Parrish’s father, Roger Parrish, told the broadcaster the confession had come as a ”shock” and that he hoped it was not another “false lead”. 
   
   In May 2008 Fourniret was sentenced to life in prison for the joint rape and murder of seven girls. ||||| A notorious French serial killer known as the ‘Ogre of the Ardennes’ has finally confessed to the murder of British student Joanna Parrish 28 years ago, her family's lawyer said on Friday. 
   
   Michel Fourniret, 75, was already serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of seven other young women, but until now police had been unable to prove that he killed Joanna. 
   
   The naked body of the 20-year-old Leeds University language student was found in the River Yonne near Auxerre, Burgundy in 1990, a day after she was reported missing. 
   
   She had been raped, beaten and strangled following her abduction after placing an advertisement in a local newspaper offering English lessons. 
   
   Her father, Roger Parrish, who had long suspected Fourniret despite the killer’s repeated denials, spoke of his relief last night. Mr Parrish, a retired Land Registry official from Newnham on Severn in Gloucestershire, told local reporters that his family would have “closure at last”.
target: – British student Joanna Parrish disappeared in France after posting an advertisement for her services as an English teacher in a local newspaper, the Telegraph reports. A day after she was reported missing, her naked body was found in a river; she had been raped and strangled to death. That was nearly 30 years ago. This week a French serial killer known as the Ogre of the Ardennes is said to have confessed to the crime, according to AFP. Didier Seban, a lawyer for Parrish's family, tells the BBC that 75-year-old Michel Fourniret confessed to the 1990 murder of Parrish—as well as the 1988 murder of Marie-Angele Domece, whose body was never found—to judges "two to three times" over the past week. The Press Association reports Parrish's family was shocked by the confession. Fourniret was given life in prison in 2008 after being found guilty of raping and killing seven women between the ages of 12 and 21. His wife, Monique Olivier, was also given life in prison for picking up a number of his victims while driving around with their baby. Fourniret was charged with the murders of Parrish and Domece in 2008 after Olivier said he was responsible for them, only to have the cases dismissed in 2011 after Olivier recanted. A court of appeal later cancelled that dismissal and ordered investigations into new leads. Now Seban says a trial should go forward after Fourniret "made detailed and repeated confessions." Parrish's father says he hopes the family will have "closure at last." (It seems an infamous serial killer couldn't cheat death after all.)