Serial killer

The DNA of a former gendarme who later joined France's national police force has matched that found in evidence from a series of murders and rapes dating back to 1986, it has been confirmed, shortly after he was found dead on Wednesday alongside a suicide note containing a confession.

French serial killer Michel Fourniret, 79, dubbed 'the ogre of the Ardennes', who was serving a life sentence without possibility of parole for the murders of eight girls and women, who was expected to stand trial again for four other murders, including that of British student Joanna Parrish, died in a Paris hospital on Monday.

Stéphane Bourgoin, 67, who for several decades has enjoyed a role as leading expert on serial killers in France and abroad, author of more than 40 books on the subject and a regular media guest offering insight into the minds of murderers, has admitted that his claims of training with the FBI, interviewing 70 serial killers and having lost an American wife to one, were all made up.

Notorious serial killer Emile Louis, jailed for life in 2004 for the murders of seven young women in northern Burgundy, has died aged 79.

The principal suspect in a series of killings in suburbs south of Paris is to face murder charges, a local prosecutor announced.

Police hunt a serial killer after a series of murders in suburban Paris in which the victims were shot with the same arm by a man on a motorbike.