At the trial of Nordahl Lelandais, the medical examiner Michel Mazevet tried to reconstruct the precise circumstances of the death of Maëlys.
Of the multiple hypotheses mentioned Thursday, February 10 afternoon by Michel Mazevet, medical examiner, on the circumstances of the death of Maëlys, one froze the assistance: the child of eight and a half years may not have died immediately after Lelandais gave him four very violent blows in the face. The doctor modestly evoked a “survival period” when the Advocate General Jacques Dallest asked him more bluntly: “Could Maëlys be in agony for thirty minutes, an hour?” His answer was immediate: “Yes”.
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Her body was found six months after the wedding, in February 2018, in the then snowy woods of Attignat-Onçin (Savoie). Was Maëlys alive when Lelandais got rid of her before returning to the wedding? After the passage of the predators, the coroner was only able to work on six seals containing “bone elements and a tooth”. A “puzzle” he adds, which he tried to piece together. On the 3D reconstructed skeleton, whose photo was projected in the courtroom, Michel Mazevet lists the missing parts: left hand and foot, bones of the right arm and forearm, elements of the hand right and pelvis. Alas, after six months in nature, no piece of skin, muscle or organ that would have helped to elucidate the causes of death, to date it and to rule out sexual violence or not. “The skin is the memory of traumatic lesions” specifies the pathologist. From the bones, he will discover a fracture of the own bones of the nose as well as two fractures of the mandible, this bony arch which forms the lower jaw and articulates with the skull.
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In March 2018, during the investigation, Lelandais indicates – first version – having dealt a single very violent blow to Maëlys with his right arm and fist in a circular movement from left to right. He claims to be at the wheel of his car, the child in the passenger seat. She has, he says, emitted no sound, has bled through the mouth and through the nose. For him, she was dead, which is why he did not call for help. This description, affirms the pathologist, is incompatible with the injuries noted: “A single blow, even violent, could not cause an almost instantaneous death. Three bone fractures, it’s painful but not fatal.
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Lelandais served a second version around the time of the crime reenactment, September 24 and 25, 2018, held in the same timeslot of the wedding, from 8:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. It is now three very violent blows that he will say to have carried. Even bleeding from the mouth and nose. Maëlys would not have cried, her head, after the blows, fell forward. Lelandais immediately took the pulse of his left hand and pronounced him dead. “It is quite possible, indicates the coroner, that Mr Lelandais failed to perceive the pulse due to the very significant drop in blood pressure”.
This Thursday, February 10, the president of the Assize Court had the photos of the reconstruction projected in front of the parents of Maëlys, impassive. A mannequin represents their child. Maëlys in the car at the time of the beatings. Maëlys then deposited on the grass, along the railway line below Domessin, the home of Lelandais. Then Maëlys lifted from the grass and placed in the trunk. Maëlys finally out of the trunk and abandoned in the woods. Again, the findings contradict this version of the accused. He only had blood on the shorts which he threw in a trash can before returning to the wedding. No trace on his blue t-shirt, while he carried Maëlys who was bleeding profusely. Finally, he claims to have, in the trunk, installed Maëlys on his back. How, in this case, could a trace of blood have flowed to the bottom of the trunk, on a metal part? All afternoon this Friday, Lelandais will be questioned on the “facts of aggravated crime”. A turning point in this trial, assuming that “this wall of indifference, coldness, silence and denial”, as described by Me Laurent Boguet, lawyer for the little girl’s father, does not deliver the truth, which everyone world is seriously beginning to doubt.
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