Police dig for serial killer's possible victim

Belgian investigators began digging up the garden of the home of confessed serial killer Michel Fourniret today for traces of a girl who disappeared in 1993 after working as his family’s au pair.

Philippe Morandini, a prosecutor in the southern city of Dinant, said they were following new leads, but did not elaborate.

The digging was outside Fourniret’s house in Sart-Custinne.

Fourniret has confessed to killing nine people, mostly girls and young women, in Belgium and France since 1987, but he denies involvement in his former employee’s disappearance. Authorities have not identified the au pair.

The 62-year-old Frenchman was questioned by French detectives for 12 hours yesterday about one of the girls he says he killed. Isabel Laville disappeared in December 1987 on her way home from school in Auxerre, France.

At an extradition hearing yesterday, Fourniret said he would not voluntarily go to France. A decision is expected in two weeks.

Fourniret has been held in Belgium since June 2003, when he was identified by a 13-year-old girl who said she had escaped a kidnap attempt.