On the ninth day of Nordahl Lelandais' trial, the scientific experts who examined Maëlys' body and clothes came to testify at the bar.
Far from providing answers, they mostly highlighted the latest mysteries surrounding the kidnapping and murder of the 8-year-old girl in August 2017.
Among the unanswered questions: Why were locks of Maëlys' hair cut?
Why were his clothes torn?
Was she in agony?
Was she raped?
At the Assize Court of Isère,
On a dark night in September 2018, the magistrates organized a reconstruction of the murder of Maëlys, 8 years old.
A breastplate – a double – took on the role of the accused.
The victim tonight is a small model, wearing a white dress.
On a stony path near Attignat-Oncin, in Savoie, the man carries the girl in his arms and places her under a cavity in a forest, before leaving.
A few hours earlier, he had mimed in front of the gendarmes the brief violent blows to the face of the girl he had kidnapped during a wedding in Domessin, in Isère.
But this reconstruction, the images of which were broadcast this Thursday before the Assize Court of Isère, did not make it possible to unravel the last mysteries surrounding this affair.
And the experts, who testified at Nordahl Lelandais' trial, raised more questions than they answered.
How did Maelys die?
Dr. Michel Mazevet, medical examiner who examined the body, revealed three fractures on the child's skull.
One from the nose (“a missing piece of bone”), and two from the mandible.
They are compatible with the blows that the accused indicated, during the reconstruction, to have given to Maëlys.
Moreover, "no lesion elsewhere than on the skull" of the girl was found, underlines Franck Nolot, 49, expert in criminal anthropology at the gendarmerie.
Dr. Mazevet believes that the death is undoubtedly “neurological”.
"There may have been brain or spinal cord lesions that led to death," he said from Cayenne, Guyana, from where he testified in video.
Strands of cut hair
Nevertheless, he considers "very unlikely" that Maëlys died instantly, as Nordahl Lelandais said during the investigation.
“There is a survival time that is possible,” he adds.
It is quite "possible" that the girl was in agony for several minutes.
Without the accused trying to save her.
Another inconsistency in the scenario.
The place that the accused indicated as being the one where he deposited the body of his victim is not where it was found.
It is located a few meters away.
In addition, he had explained “having laid the body flat on his back.
However, we found him on the left flank in a fetal position, ”notes the Advocate General, Jacques Dallest.
“Yes, there is an inconsistency.
Animals cannot move a body to this extent, ”replies the coroner.
At the crime scene, the gendarmes found locks of Maëlys' hair.
Some fell naturally, with the decomposition of the body.
But Nathalie Caron, 51, a technician at the IRCGN, observes that some have been cut on both sides, with scissors or a knife.
“A priori, an animal cannot cut hair in this way?
asks the Advocate General.
“No”, assures the expert.
Me Boguet, the lawyer for Maëlys' father, wants to know if "this little girl has had locks of hair taken" by Nordahl Lelandais.
Did he want to keep this hair as a “trophy”?
The president, Valérie Blain, decides to ask him the question directly.
- Do you have an explanation to give Mr. Lelandais?
- Not at all Madam President.
-Have you cut any locks of Maëlys?
- Not at all Madam President.
I have never used a sharp or sharp object.
“We are at an impasse”
The expert also took samples from Maëlys' clothes.
Panties, a strappy top and “other fragments of textiles that cannot be analyzed because they are too degraded”.
She noted traces of laceration but was unable to determine the origin.
On the other hand, Nathalie Caron found that part of the girl's dress was missing, "especially on the lower part".
Mr. Boguet wonders if the accused would not have wanted to get rid of a part of the garment which would have been “soiled”.
Questioned by the president, Nordahl Lelandais, who denied on Monday having raped Maëlys, assures that he did not damage "voluntarily or involuntarily the little girl's dress".
He has no explanation for these lacerations.
“I have never used sharp or cutting objects.
»
Other IRCGN specialists analyzed Maëlys' panties.
Among them, Emmanuel Pham Hoai who was, at the time, an expert in genetic fingerprints.
But the underwear was covered with "putrefied material", which caused them problems to assess it.
They concentrated their efforts on "the bottom of the panties".
But on it, there was “vegetable matter, organic matter”.
Impossible to look for the slightest trace of semen that the accused could have left.
As for the analysis of the bones of Maëlys, it does not allow to say if the girl was abused.
"It does not generate any particular bone lesions and we only had the bones to examine" since the body was in a state of decomposition.
"We are at an impasse," breathes the president.
The trial continues until February 18.
The accused, who will be heard on Friday, faces life imprisonment.
Follow the course of this trial on the Twitter account of our journalist @TiboChevillard
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