Police in France on Monday launched a new search for the remains of a 9-year-old girl who disappeared 18 years ago and was subsequently murdered.
Serial killer Michel Fourniret, who died in May at the age of 79, confessed to her murder in 2020.
The police hope that Fourniret's former wife, who is also in prison, will give them new leads for their search, according to a report in Le Parisien newspaper on Monday.
Fourniret was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of seven young women and girls in France and Belgium in May 2008. He earned another sentence for life in 2018 for a separate murder.
Police believe he killed significantly more women than is yet known.
Fourniret, dubbed the "Monster of the Ardennes," was aided by his former wife, who was also convicted in 2008. She confirmed last year that her former husband had kidnapped, raped and strangled Estelle, the 9-year-old girl.
Estelle had disappeared on her way home from school in her hometown outside Paris, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the site where the current search is under way.
Nothing was found during earlier searches in a forest area near the municipality of Ville-sur-Lumes.
In 2004, the bodies of two other victims of Fourniret were found near the Ardennes castle of Sautou.
