Families denied justice as French serial killer dies at 79

French serial killer Michel Fourniret, the "Ogre of the Ardennes" who confessed to killing 11 people, died Monday aged 79, taking his final secrets to the grave and denying families of victims long-awaited justice.

Fourniret, whose victims were mostly girls and young women, died at the La Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris where he was admitted on April 28 from the nearby Fresnes prison where he serving two life sentences, Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said.

An investigation has been opened into his death, Heitz said. This always happens when any person dies in custody in France.

He confessed to 11 murders, including British student Joanna Parrish, who was killed in May 1990 while she was in France as part of her university course.

But he has been linked to other disappearances, most of them in the Ardennes region that straddles the French-Belgian border.

The death of Fourniret, who was reportedly suffering from heart problems and Alzheimer's, dashed the hopes of those families still awaiting justice for murders he may have committed.

His lawyers said they now expected the judiciary to end all investigations against him, adding that they had recently asked for his term to be suspended due to his ill health.

Fourniret's victims included nine-year-old Estelle Mouzin, who he raped and killed just months before he was caught in Belgium in 2003.

Fourniret finally admitted to the girl's murder in March 2020 but her body has yet to be found despite intensive searches, including over the last few weeks.

"There is a feeling of anger after so many years of inaction," said Didier Seban, the lawyer for several families of girls who disappeared including the relatives of Estelle Mouzin.

"There will be no trial and no possibility to have the responses that are expected."