4:45 p.m.: “The only time I saw Nordahl Lelandais was when I went out to smoke a cigarette. I heard Maëlys tell him ‘stop uncle’. I asked my ex if she knew this man and she told me said no.”
President: “You have been heard twice. The first time (August 27) you said that you had seen him having a drink and playing with other children. 31 (2nd hearing) Why?
Witness: “At the time I don’t know. Panic, in the head we are lost.”
President: “Do you understand that it can be questioning? Four days later as for your former companion?”
Witness: “After I remembered”
President: “And you have no explanation?”
Witness: “No.”
4:37 p.m.: New witness on the stand, a 30-year-old man.
4:31 p.m.: The hearing resumes.
4:18 p.m.: The hearing is adjourned. Resumption at 4:30 p.m.
4:10 p.m.:
Master Jakubowicz: “According to the information you give, you come back around 12:10 a.m. You are at the back of the parking lot and you are waiting for Nordahl. He arrives around 12:23 a.m. Do you have a little chat?”
Witness: “Since he didn’t arrive, I called my brother and I came back and went to park his car”.
Master Jakubowicz: “Can you visualize Maëlys during the evening?”
Witness: “No.”
Master Jakubowicz: “Have you seen Nordahl Lelandais talking with a child?”
Witness: “No, I was partying.”
4:05 p.m.:
Lawyer for the civil party: “The next day you have him on the phone?”
TWitness: “We were all called for an audition but he wasn’t there. I called him and he said ‘but you found her?’ I said no and he came. He gave us a kiss like nothing had happened.”
The lawyer: “Can you elaborate?”
Witness: “I don’t know, I have a conscience. How can you hit a kid? He fooled us to build his alibi. And he continues today. He knows it deep inside.”
3:57 p.m.:
President: “You smoke a joint what does it do?”
Witness: “He told me that he didn’t touch anything anymore, that he had quit drugs.”
President: “How long since you last saw him?”
Witness: “One year. I was happy to see him again at the wedding but nothing more.”
President: “When everyone is worried about Maëlys, do you end up with him?”
Witness: “No, he didn’t do any research. The last memory I have of him is that I see his Audi A3 leaving before the gendarmes arrive. I said to myself that it’s because he had cocaine in the car. My biggest regret is there.”
President: “What state is he in during the evening?”
Witness: “For me he was normal. Nothing more, really not. He was partying like everyone else.”
3:52 p.m.:
President: “Do you have any interactions with Maëlys?”
Witness: “I just have a memory of giving her a ball back but I’m not 100% sure it was her.”
3:47 p.m.: He found Nordahl Lelandais in the parking lot of the village hall at night with another friend to return to the wedding. “It was really a party. And then the little one disappeared. And we started the search.”
President: “Where are you going back?”
Witness: “If I don’t talk nonsense through the DJ door.”
3:42 p.m.: A new witness on the stand. A 34-year-old man. He knew Nordahl Lelandais. He was at the wedding, at the aperitif. “I don’t even know where to start…..excuse me. Everything was going well at the aperitif. Then I came back to the party, it was not planned. I asked the groom if I could come back, my brother was the witness.”
3:41 p.m.:
Master Rajon: “There is the essential and there is the accessory. The essential is the proximity created by Nordahl Lelandais to approach Maëlys. She uses the term boyfriend, there is the attraction of dogs and she Train you to see who it is? Shall we agree?
Maëlys’ mother: “Yes.”
3:32 p.m.:
Jacques Dallest, Advocate General: “There would have been an earlier scene where your daughter talked about dogs with the accused?”
Maëlys’ mother: “Yes, certainly.”
Master Jakubowicz: “You were asked if it was customary for your daughter to call an unknown man uncle. Did you hear it yourself?”
Maëlys’ mother: “No.”
Master Jakubowicz: “When she talks to you about going to see her boyfriend’s dogs. Are you sure of the term boyfriend?”
Maëlys’ mother: “Yes.”
Master Jakubowicz: “I’m sorry but there is a problem of temporality. If she says boyfriend, it means there was a familiarity before. When do you place it since he wasn’t there before?”
Maëlys’ mother: “When I don’t know. It was maybe 5 or 10 minutes before. It was he who approached him, it was not my daughter who went to him.”
Master Jakubowicz: “What allows you to say that?”
Maëlys’ mother: “My daughter would not have gone to someone she did not know.”
The President: “Is it possible that there was an interaction before? At the wine reception?”
Maëlys’ mother: “Yes it’s possible.”
3:22 p.m.:
President: “This scene where your daughter is looking at the accused’s phone. You didn’t say the same thing as your cousin. Can you explain it to us again?”
Maëlys’ mother: “I got up to go to the toilet, I met Maëlys and she said to me ‘can I go see my boyfriend’s dogs?’ and that’s when I accompanied her to the table.”
President: “What do you understand about it?”
Maëlys’ mother: “That he had spoken to her about it before.”
3:16 p.m.: President Blain brings Maëlys’ mother back to the bar.
3:15 p.m.:
Master Jakubowicz: “You say if we wanted to kidnap her, she would have screamed, we would have heard her?”
Witness: “Yes I think we would have heard it.”
Master Jakubowicz: “Did we hear the music outside?”
Witness: “Not like inside but yes we can hear.”
3:09 p.m.:
Maître Jakubowicz: “The devil is in the details, your testimony is important. Can we imagine that Maëlys is driving around and that she stops near Nordahl Lelandais?”
Witness: “I don’t know, I didn’t attend the start of the scene but it’s possible.”
Master Jakubowicz: “When do you place this scene?”
Witness: “I know the cake was already past…I don’t know.”
Master Jakubowicz: “When you were questioned at the time, you said at the end of the entries. Hence the weakness of human testimony and its limits.”
Witness: “If I may say so, we were at a wedding party, we were partying, we didn’t have our eyes on the watch.”
2:56 p.m.:
Master Jakubowicz: “I would like to come back to very material things. In fact there are only 2 interactions. That of the telephone and that of the return of Nordahl Lelandais. On the first element, when you see a gentleman presenting his telephone to Maëlys .Where are you seated and where is he seated?
Witness: “I’m facing the dance floor and he’s at the wedding table.”
Master Jakubowicz: “When you are heard the first time, you say ‘he showed me his back on the left side’?”
Witness: “Yes it is.”
A seating plan of the room is projected for the courtyard to view well.
2:49 p.m.:
Master Rajon: “Have you received threats from Sven Lelandais?”
Witness: “Yes. It wasn’t just this gentleman, there were also strangers.”
Maître Remond: “Did you talk about a beautiful wedding, one of the most beautiful you’ve had?”
Witness: “They had put their heart into it, it was the fulfillment of their love.”
2:43 p.m.:
Master Rajon: “What about after, the following weeks and months?”
Witness: “I remember them. It was just people around a table waiting for a call. The weeks go by, we begin to understand what could potentially have happened. We put words on social networks to find witnesses. And we are insulted with disgusting remarks. We are threatened by telling us that we were not watching our children, that we were a family of drug addicts. I filed a complaint but it was closed no follow-up.”
“There was the creation of the Maëlys collective which helped us a lot. People who helped us organize research in the field. I don’t know if that helped the investigation progress but there was humanity in all this inhumanity.”
2:37 p.m.:
Civil party lawyer: “How does it happen when Maëlys disappears?”
Witness: “A lot of people have already left. And then comes this moment, the music cuts off and we say that we are looking for little Maëlys. We go from a festive moment to this moment when the atmosphere becomes heavy. And the more the As time goes on, the more we tell ourselves it’s not possible. And we can’t find it. And when we start looking in cold rooms, garbage cans, it’s hell. The gendarmes arrive with dogs and he nothing happens. We find ourselves in a suit with nice shoes near a river to shout his name… and it’s silence.”
2:31 p.m.: “It’s a slap in the face, a tidal wave, we try to remember everything when we are questioned.”
2:26 p.m.:
President Blain: “Do you remember the last time you saw her?”
Witness: “I have a memory where I see her after she won a packet of sweets. After when she was playing with other children and after I have no memory.”
President “Can you explain how she was as a child?”
Witness: “She did not let herself be approached so easily even though we were part of the family”.
2:17 p.m.: “I met the accused three times during the wedding. Once during the aperitif. Once when he showed the images of dogs on his phone. And once when we were looking for Maëlys and Jennifer asked if he had seen her. The gendarmes arrive, we find ourselves stupidly at a loss to know what to do. I hear that people are starting to have doubts and are looking for ‘Nono’ but I know who it is. J was idle, I didn’t know what to do. My family is shattered. We spent months not knowing what to do. And here we are today, still wondering why? It would never have something like this must have happened.”
2:14 p.m.: “It was a wonderful wedding night. Until the tidal wave that toppled my family.”
2:13 p.m.: A new witness on the stand. He is 41 years old. He was invited to the wedding. He is the cousin of Maëlys’ mother.
2:09 p.m.: The hearing resumes.
1:45 p.m.: The hearing is due to resume at 2 p.m.
VIDEO : After the testimony of the bride and groom, Stéphane Blézy, journalist at Dauphiné Libéré, returns to the few words exchanged between Nordahl Lelandais and the bride, when he had just killed Maëlys shortly before.
1:40 p.m.: Already sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder of Corporal Arthur Noyer, Nordahl Lelandais appears before the Assize Court of Isèrein Grenoble, since Monday January 31 for the murder of Maëlys de Araujo.
Currently imprisoned in the penitentiary center of Saint-Quentin-Fallavier (Isère), the former dog handler of Domessin (Savoie) must explain the circumstances in which the 8-year-old girl died on the night of August 26 to 27. 2017. It must also respond to the offenses of sexual assault on two 15-year-old minorsafter the touching committed, this same summer of 2017, on two of her little cousins then aged 5 and 6, as well as the recording and possession of child pornography images, always during the same period.
A highly publicized trial, with a verdict expected on Friday, February 18.