A former French soldier was in court Monday on charges of kidnapping and murdering Maelys De Araujo, whose disappearance in August 2017 shook France and dominated the news for weeks. In the first day of the trial, he admitted her death was a "mistake".
In court, speaking directly to Maelys’ family, Nordahl Lelandais, 38, who is already in prison for beating a fellow serviceman to death, offered his “apologies” for the death.
“I did indeed cause her death but I didn't want to, I will explain during the trial," he said, sobbing.
Lelandais confessed to killing eight-year-old Maelys in August 2017 after she disappeared from a wedding in Pont-de-Beauvoisin, near the town of Chambery in the Alps in eastern France.
A massive hunt for Maelys ended after police arrested Lelandais, who was also a guest at the wedding and denied any involvement until investigators found traces of her blood in his car. He finally led them to her remains in February 2018.
But he has insisted her death was an accident.
Some 250 reporters have been accredited for the trial in Grenoble, which has drawn a lot of media attention.
The first day was spent laying out Lelandais' personality, and the lead investigator took the stand, along with his half sister and mother, who talked about drug and alcohol problems with her son, making it “difficult” to be his mother.
Looking for answers
Lelandais himself will take the stand for questioning starting Wednesday, and the family is hoping to finally learn what happened.
There is still uncertainty about why the girl got into Lelandais’ car, and the specifics of how she died.
"I am hoping that he will stay in prison as long as possible," the girl's father, Joachim De Araujo, told journalists as he entered the courthouse with his wife and daughter, who both carried portraits of Maelys.
If convicted, Lelandais, a former military dog handler, is facing up to life in prison.
He is also standing trial on charges of sexual assaulting two of his cousins - girls aged five and six at the time - in the summer of 2017, and for recording child pornography.
Verdicts are expected to be announced around 18 February.
Lelandais has been serving a 20-year prison sentence since he was convicted in May 2021 for killing Corporal Arthur Noyer in April 2017 in Chambery.
Lelandais claimed he accidentally killed Noyer during a fight between the two in a parking lot where Lelandais had stopped after giving Noyer a ride home after leaving a nightclub. He then put Noyer's body in the boot of his car before dumping it on the side of a road.
The murders raised fears that Lelandais might have been involved in other unsolved disappearances in the region, and prosecutors reopened several cases, but have so far found no evidence he was involved in other crimes.
(with AFP)
