Eight psychologists and psychiatrists looked at the patient Nordahl Lelandais to try to identify his personality.
“Finally, he ticks all the boxes…”, slipped the president of the court to Raphaël Loiselot, one of the psychologists called to the bar. Psychotic, psychopath, narcissistic pervert. “Yes, and it’s extremely rare”, answers the shrink who has seen in his long career only one such case. We don’t ask which one. “A serial killer of animals”, he confided to us after his hearing. It took him five interviews, which is rare, to try to understand Lelandais. But each time Lelandais presented him with a different facet. “He judges you, challenges you. Skilled speaker, he says nothing that his interlocutor wants to hear. He captures the other to better appropriate and destroy him, like a right of life and death”.
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It’s a black and terrifying picture drawn up for two days by no less than eight psychologists and psychiatrists, who in turn tried to unravel the mystery of the death drive and give the keys to its impenetrable perversity. One wonders: did the accused suffer abuse in his childhood, or even later, in the army? The majority of experts are convinced of this. “Never”, says Lelandais who says he grew up convinced that his father was a doctor because of his Vidal-type books at home and… this “plastic” fetus, he specifies, which sat enthroned in his jar. “Idealized, deified by his mother, he could never say that he was suffering, that he was vulnerable,” says psychologist Magalie Ravit. Only his dogs comfort him. In the background, this central question: how, for thirty-four years, has the good prevailed over the bad? Implied: has he committed other criminal acts? “Let’s say that questions” say some speakers. How suddenly, in four months time, without apparent warning signs, he kills Corporal Arthur Noyer, touches two little cousins, then kidnaps and kills Maëlys? For the experts, a completely failed life does not explain everything. In the head of Lelandais “cohabit two worlds, two divisions”, which must in no case meet because it would be for him “to submit to reality and collapse”. One “adapted” world, the other “invasive” between which he is “surviving”. He accumulates conquests “to avoid experiencing separation, loss”.
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Problem: Lelandais “doesn’t talk about himself, he can’t do it, he can’t”. In addition, shrinks agree that all his words are subject to caution. “He adapts and manipulates”. Thus, before we discover Maëlys’ bloodstain at the bottom of the trunk of his Audi, he will explain that he saw Arthur Noyer’s head come out of Maëlys, that he watched himself kill her. “It’s not him who kills, it’s not Maëlys that he hurts, it’s Arthur Noyer who comes back” suggests Nathalie Ravit. To Raphaël Loiselot, he speaks, in the third person, of a devil, of a monster: “He killed Maëlys. It’s not Nordhal. I would like to know who it is to kick his ass. Lelandais is then convinced that he will be released from prison. “My detention is a nightmare”. François Danet, psychiatrist: “He tried to convince us by simulating these hallucinations, without saying anything about his affects, his “experiences”, which is exceptional. Its goal: to lead us towards criminal irresponsibility. He is fully responsible.” The proof, “his aplomb when he returns to marriage”, adds Dr. Blachère, convinced that these hallucinations are fabrications. Lelandais speaks to the mother of the child, whom everyone is looking for, as if nothing had happened.
“A serial liar”
Then, confronted six months later with the bloodstain, Magalie Ravit finds him in detention “with his face defeated, unrecognizable”. His analysis: “The cleavage farted. His whole secret, unspoken life was about to be exposed. But he had no guilt, only the shame of this display, like a narcissistic pain”. To Dr. Loiselot he will then use this food metaphor: “I need to digest”. By leading investigators and parents of Maëlys to the place where the body is, “he brings Maëlys back to life by allowing his parents to see his remains. He hid it, not killed it”.
Answers from the experts to these few questions: Sadistic? “No, he does not feed on the suffering of others”. How to explain this appetite for both an adult, Arthur Noyer, and a child, Maëlys de Araujo? “He’s firing on all cylinders. The undo mechanism causes the restart”. Pedophile? “Rather an attraction for what is new, like his homosexual relations”. His two cousins are asleep: “Then they are objects. He avoids eye contact. The gaze of a victim, we can’t get over it. Zero sexual satisfaction: “His sexuality has shifted to perverse voyeurism.” A doubt remains, for some, as to the rape of Maëlys, when others are convinced of it. Lelandais fiercely denies it. It is in his interest: ten years of detention and a heavy incompressible sentence are at stake.
The risk of recurrence seems to be beyond doubt. “Extremely significant criminal danger” according to Dr Danet, which Dr Blachère estimates at 60% when studies, for long sentences, place it at 1%. It all depends on his questioning. It is “the work of a lifetime”, at the cost of a “depressive or even suicidal collapse”. Unfavorable development? “Denial, and let him get back on his feet.” For all, the prognosis is gloomy “but there are atypical cases”. They are asked about his “confession” last week, where he said he kidnapped and deliberately killed Maëlys. Are they felt, when no real remorse accompanies his repeated apologies? Experts are skeptical. “It’s utilitarian.” “They go in the direction of his interest”. “He makes sure that things go as well as possible in terms of his sentence. But isn’t that human nature? “.
This Tuesday afternoon, Lelandais also returned in part to said confessions. He no longer kidnapped Maëlys voluntarily. “Failing to be a serial killer, Lelandais is a serial liar,” commented Bernard Boulloud, lawyer for Arthur Noyer’s family.
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