On the second day of Jonathann Daval's trial, at the Haute-Saône assizes, Tuesday, two theses put forward by the civil parties were rejected.
The first was the subject of a possible post-mortem rape of his wife Alexia Daval and the second, a possible premeditated murder he admits to having committed.
Tuesday afternoon, a confrontation was organized between Jonathann Daval and his in-laws.
The thesis put forward by the civil parties of a post-mortem rape of Alexia Daval by her husband Jonathann was challenged by an expert on Tuesday in front of the assizes of Haute-Saône, pending a crucial confrontation between the 'accused and his in-laws.
The track of a rape, put forward by the civil parties, was never retained by the investigation and is not reproached to Jonathann Daval before the assizes of Haute-Saône, where he answers exclusively for "murder on spouse" , is liable to life imprisonment.
Asked by one of the accused's lawyers, Me Randall Schwerdorffer, on the existence of "evidence of post-mortem sexual intercourse" involving his client and Alexia, Antoine Tracqui, one of the forensic pathologists, a replied in the negative: "not only do I have no proof of a post-mortem report, but I have no positive arguments for it".
This hypothesis is now "completely removed from the debates", welcomed Me Schwerdorffer during a break, calling for "refocusing on the file".
Civil parties accuse Jonathann Daval of premeditating the murder
To support the thesis of the rape, the lawyers of the civil parties had pointed out Monday the presence of spermatozoa in the body and on the clothes of the victim, Jonathann Daval assuring to have had a sexual intercourse three days before the murder committed on the night of 27 to October 28, 2017. "It is not at all abnormal that we still find spermatozoa three days after" a report, again ruled Antoine Tracqui, who did not detect either "signs of proven sexual violence" on Alexia Daval's body.
The latter received "five to ten blows" to the face and head and the strangulation, which lasted "five to six minutes", is the cause of death, he recalled.
Alexia's parents, Isabelle and Jean-Pierre Fouillot, left the room for a moment not to hear the details of her report, which also addressed the cremation of the body.
Jonathann has blocked his ears several times.
The civil parties also suspect Jonathann Daval, 36, of having premeditated his action and sought to poison his wife by administering drugs to her over a long period and without her knowledge.
Here again, these assumptions were not retained at the end of the investigation.
"The day or never"
Tuesday afternoon, Jonathann Daval will be confronted with his former in-laws, determined to hold the accused to account, who has long played the grieving widowers.
"I know that it is a very important day, that it is the day or never when I will be able to speak to him" and to say to him "what I have on the heart", declared on his arrival in court the mother. Alexia, Isabelle Fouillot.
She expects this audition which promises to be decisive and intense that Jonathann "crack once again".
The role of Isabelle Fouillot was "decisive" during the investigation: "every time she met (Jonathann), something happened", underlined her lawyer, Me Gilles-Jean Portejoie, as when she had extracted new confessions during a shocking hearing in December 2018. Monday, the first of the five days of this trial, the Fouillots had announced their desire to challenge their former son-in-law, whom they considered to be a son .
A verdict expected Friday
Often on the verge of tears on Monday, the thirty-something, who multiplied the versions during the investigation, again assumed having killed his wife, a 29-year-old bank employee found dead on October 30, 2017 in a wood near the marital home in Gray -la-Ville, in Haute-Saône.
He had given the alert by asserting that she had not returned from a jog.
Arrested in January 2018, he had admitted the murder after multiple reversals, admitting in fine having also set the body on fire.
According to him, the drama followed a heated argument, as the couple struggled to have a child.
He indicated during the investigation that he had "strangled her to keep her silent", assuring that his wife "humiliated her" but that he had not wanted to kill her.
A time accused by Jonathann of having killed Alexia, his brother-in-law Grégory Gay will also be called to the bar on Tuesday, as will his wife Stéphanie, Alexia's sister.
The verdict is expected Friday.