This Thursday was devoted to the hearing of the gendarmes. A trying ordeal for the parents of little Maëlys.
Beautiful photos, bathed in the August sun, show the wedding venues. Photos from the instruction file, taken in 2017. The large trees in front of the facade of the Pont de Beauvoisin village hall (Isère). Inside, the part where the guests enjoyed themselves, the one where the children played, on Saturday 27. For the parents of Maëlys: the images of an ordeal that they relived this Thursday, February 3, devoted to the police hearing.
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At the helm, Olivier Doudet, head of the investigation at the Grenoble Research Section. Nordahl Lelandais is questioned on Sunday August 28 and Monday August 29, in the same way as all the guests, who report to the gendarmes his “particular behavior” while everyone “is panicking” then “busy” to look for the child . Him, he leaves “discreetly” the place. In the hearing, he explains that he had no contact with Maëlys, while a witness, who was resting for a moment in his car around 2 a.m., heard him say to the little girl: “You, you go through the front door , me, I pass by there”, indicating the small access door of the DJ. Lelandais is then in his Audi. Her lawyer, Me Jakubowicz insists on where she is parked. “Near the DJ’s door”, replies Olivier Doudet. Nordahl Lelandais, the lawyer continues in substance, did not “conceal” or “stash” his car in front of which “the guests who left the wedding necessarily had to pass”. Argument that he will no doubt use in future debates to convince the Court of the absence of premeditation. From the gendarmes, however, his client hides the existence of a second telephone line. The in-depth study of the one he uses will establish on August 31 that the device is in airplane mode “at key moments of the evening”, continues the gendarme.
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The Court then projects video surveillance images from the town’s cameras. The Audi is driving, it’s 2:47 a.m. and you can make out a small silhouette on the passenger side, dressed in light. Last images of Maëlys alive. President Valérie Blain makes them go back to slow motion several times. Dead silence in the courtroom. Maëlys’ father and Collen, her sister, leave the room. “Are you the one we see in this video? she asks Lelandais. And this white shape, is it Maëlys? » – Yes Madam President. “You said the opposite at the time. Why ? » – I didn’t assume. “What’s going on in the car at that time, what do you remember?” – We talk about dogs on the way home. “She asks you questions? Are you talking to him? What is happening ? – I have a more exact recollection of what we said to each other. We talked about the dogs, the car, she said that she liked the car, that she liked the dogs. “Why is she up front?” » – As I leave the wedding, she is up front. “She spontaneously climbed to the front? I imagine that she must get into the back of her parents’ vehicle… She seems to be against the window. She’s tied up? ” – Yes. I don’t remember it being against the door. “There, she’s not crying?” She doesn’t ask to go back to the village hall? ” – Not at all. “Is it in the next two or three minutes that she’s going to cry?” That she received beatings? ” -Yes Madam.
A cleaning to erase the traces of Maëlys
August 28, the day after Maëlys disappeared. Images projected from the video surveillance of a service station. From 5:27 p.m. to 7:32 p.m., Lelandais, shirtless and white jogging bottoms, cleans his car. It will evoke a “brief” wash but takes 47 minutes in the trunk, 27 on the passenger side door. Save the wipes instead of throwing them in the nearby trash can. Uses products that will make three dogs vomit. “Do you recognize that this cleaning was to erase the traces of Maëlys? – Yes, Madam President.
Finally, at the helm, an expert in criminal sciences from the gendarmerie. In view of the videos of the service station, the Audi is taken to Pontoise, to the Criminal Research Institute of the Gendarmerie. Its mission: complete stripping of the trunk interior. Because the samples taken before are not convincing. “I am a dad, I have three children, I was thinking of the parents, explains, moved, the expert gendarme. I told myself that it was not possible that we could not find anything in this trunk, there must be a trace of something. » February 14, 2019: a tiny stain of blood in the trunk. Lelandais is heard. Complicated, now, to continue to deny. He asks to speak with his lawyer, then takes the investigators to the place where he “deposited” Maëlys’ body. In the town of Attignat Oncin, a forest, a waterfall, an undergrowth whose president asks that we project the photos. Snow-covered, sloping ground. A hole of 80cm by 40cm. “The body remained six months in this nature, where predators passed. » Pieces of cut-out dress. The back part of the panties is missing. A few meters away, a shoe. Further, a lock of hair. “Maëlys’ body was found in a fetal position, on the left side. “A 14-kilo stone was placed on this body” At this point in the story, Maëlys’ mother left the courtroom.
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