After three weeks of testimony that has riveted France, a verdict is expected in the trial of an former soldier accused of killing an 8-year-old girl during a wedding celebration in a French Alpine town.
Prosecutor Jacques Dallest is seeking the maximum of life in prison, for Nordahl Lelandais who is accused of kidnapping and killing Maelys de Araujo in 2017 after luring her into his car as wedding guests partied into the night.
The prosecutor had argued that the suspect represents a “considerable social danger” despite efforts to rehabilitate himself while in prison, including reading books on Buddhism.
Lelandais, a dog trainer, broke down in court and admitted to luring the young girl into his car and striking her violently “three or four times” when she cried. He said he had not meant to kill Maelys, whom he invited at 2:40 a.m. to see his dogs. He himself was a last-minute guest at the wedding, providing cocaine to some guests.
He had earlier led investigators to the site where he buried Maelys, several miles from the wedding fete. Investigators were never able to prove that the young girl was raped.
The suspect is also accused of molesting two cousins, aged 4 and 6 - one of them two weeks before Maelys' death in August 2017.
Lelandais, who turned 39 on the day of the verdict, has been described by psychiatric experts as psychopathic, narcissistic and a pathological liar. He was convicted last year for the bludgeoning death of a soldier.
In a statement before the court recessed to consider the verdict, Lelandais admitted all charges against him and offered an apology.
“I know the families will never accept my excuses, but I present them with the greatest sincerity,” he said, adding that he understood the “lengthy” period of introspection ahead of him which he said he has already started.
Lelandais' lawyer Alain Jakubowicz called his client's confession during the trial “a small ray of hope on the road to redemption,” and asked the court not to hand down a life sentence.
Lelandais was convicted in 2021 in the murder of a hitch-hiking soldier after he left a gay discotheque, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The French public keenly followed Lelandais' trial and Maelys' face taken from a family photo her mother had clutched in court had become a staple on the nightly news. Maelys' parents wore black t-shirts on Friday bearing a picture of their daughter whose portrait stood outside the courtroom's entrance.
It was Maely's disappearance that put investigators probing the soldier's disappearance on Lelandais trail.
