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.