Jonathann Daval’s mother read the letter sent in 2018 by her son after the murder of his wife Alexia. He confides in it his regrets and his desire to end his life.
The Daval case is a feminicide that occurred in October 2017, whose trial was held in November 2020. The accused was sentenced to 25 years of criminal imprisonment, after admitting in June 2019 the murder of his wife Alexia. This case and this trial received a lot of publicity, when Jonathann Daval went from grieving husband to suspect. Sunday July 25, 2021, the magazine Seven to Eight Life devoted part of the program to the consequences of this affair. Her mother, Martine Henry read a letter sent by her son to her and her companion at the beginning of the year 2018: “I would so much like to explain to you the circumstances of all this. I also wanted to thank you for all that you did for Alexia, for me. I lost everything”. He adds: “I think about all of you all the time, I miss you terribly. I wanted to take advantage of spending some time with you every now and then before I left to join her, but I failed to do so.”
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In November 2020 Jonathann Daval confesses during his trial the motives for the crime:
“I gave her death (…), I killed Alexia to keep her quiet” he explained to the president of the court Matthieu Husson. According to him, Alexia accused him of “not to be a man” and humiliated him. He also described his wife to an expert psychiatrist as “violent in word and deed”.
He explained at the trial that during the argument with Alexia, it was “the anger of all these years which has emerged (…) Hence the strangulation for it to be silent”, he said. Before continuing: “Yes, I did, although still, I find it hard to admit it”; “When I felt she was sagging, I let go.”
“Anyway, I gave him death, yes, when you strangle someone like that it is to kill”, he explained to the president of the court, Matthieu Husson, according to a dispatch AFP. Alexia’s parents, for their part, had their daughter’s name changed on her grave, so that she could return to her initial surname.