Seven to Eight: the heartbreaking words of the mother of little Maëlys

“She came to see me. I asked her if she wanted dessert (…) She sat on me, I gave her a taste on my plate. And then she left. It’s the last time that I saw her. If I had known, I would have kept her to myself.” Almost five years have passed since the disappearance of little Maëlys, 8, kidnapped on August 27, 2017 during a wedding reception held in Pont-de-Beauvoisin, in Isère. But for his parents, the wound is still gaping. A few days before the trial of Nordahl Lelandais, scheduled for January 31 to February 11, 2022 in Grenoble, Jennifer Cleyet-Marrel, the girl’s mother, spoke on the show seven to eight.

At the microphone of Audrey Crespo-Mara, the latter returned to her last exchanges with Maëlys. On the evening of August 26, 2017, the little girl and her parents celebrated a wedding in an Iséroise village hall. It was then that in the middle of the party, a mysterious guest started a dialogue with Maëlys. He invited her to go see her dogs, which the little girl, enthusiastic, hastened to repeat to her mother. “It seemed strange to me that someone brought dogs to a wedding, remembers Jennifer Cleyet-Marrel. It could be dangerous so I said to myself that I didn’t want her to be bitten, so I asked her where they were, these dogs, of her boyfriend, and she answered me ‘They are not there, it’s on his phone. She showed me the direction he was in and he was sitting at the wedding table.”

“He showed me pictures of his dogs”

Without suspecting that she was facing the future kidnapper of her daughter, the mother of Maëlys agreed to exchange with the one who seemed to be a guest like the others. “She asked me to come see the pictures on the cell phone. He showed me the pictures of his dogs. Afterwards, he asked Maëlys if she had any dogs, and what breed of dogs they were. Maëlys answered her and I let her answer and I went back to sit at my table. Maëlys left shortly after. She’s gone back to playing.”

Around 3 a.m., however, Jennifer Cleyet-Marrel and her companion, Joachim de Araujo, noted with horror the disappearance of their daughter. “We looked everywhere, we went back outside, to the parking lot, and she wasn’t there., says Maëlys’ mother. We searched everywhere. For about an hour, we searched. We looked in the fridges of the caterer, even in the trash cans, well everywhere! In vain, Maëlys will never reappear again. Abducted then sequestered by the former dog handler, Nordahl Lelandais, the 8-year-old girl was found dead on February 21, 2018 in the Chartreuse Massif. His murderer, who to this day claims accidental death, will have to answer for his actions from January 31 before the assizes of Isère.

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