Vesoul, judicial capital ... for a week.
From Monday 16 to Friday 20 November, Jonathann Daval, 36, appears before the Assize Court of Haute-Saône and Territoire de Belfort for the murder of his wife Alexia.
41 media are accredited to cover the trial of the one facing life imprisonment.
Read also: Daval case: from the missing jogger to the husband's trial
The facts date back to the fall of 2017. On October 28, Jonathann Daval reported Alexia's disappearance to the Gray Police, indicating that his wife never returned from her morning jog.
Two days later, the 29-year-old young woman was found dead, partially charred, in a wood near her town of Gray-la-Ville.
The announcement of the death of the banker at Crédit Mutuel plunges the region into psychosis, but also into a media whirlwind.
Who killed Alexia,
"the child of the country"
?
The question intrigues, excites, worries.
To read also: Alexia Daval, the murder which upsets Haute-Saône
On January 30, 2018, a thunderclap in Gray.
The husband of the disappeared has been placed in police custody by investigators from the Besançon research section, who have patiently and discreetly accumulated evidence against him for three months.
The hearings are linked, Jonathann Daval is faced with overwhelming elements: a neighbor heard his car being moved during the night of October 27 to 28, the vehicle's tracker was activated several times and was bounded near the place where the corpse was found, tire prints found in the wood of Velet correspond to those of his car, the sheet which covered the remains comes from the marital home, the cork picked up near the body corresponds to a foam bomb discovered in the couple's garage ... Cornered, the computer scientist admits to having killed his wife, but claims that it is an accident.
Strangled for four minutes
At the end of June 2018, Jonathann Daval reconsiders his confession and accuses his in-laws Isabelle and Jean-Pierre Fouillot, his sister-in-law Stéphanie Gay and her brother-in-law Grégory Gay of having hatched a "family plot".
According to his statements, Grégory Gay would have killed Alexia while trying to calm the latter, in the middle of a
"crisis"
.
This version collapsed at the end of confrontations organized between the thirty-something and his in-laws on December 7.
Faced with Isabelle Fouillot, Jonathann Daval cracks.
Collapsing to his knees in front of his stepmother, in tears, he confesses to Alexia's murder, but persists in denying the cremation of the body.
Read also: Jonathann Daval cracks and confesses again to be the murderer of his wife Alexia
In June 2019, during a reenactment of the drama, he tells the story of a dispute that would have degenerated.
Explaining that he
"went crazy"
, he says he hit his wife's skull against a wall, hit her five to ten punches in the face, then strangled her for four long minutes.
Transported to the wood of Velet with the other participants in the reconstruction, he finally admits to having tried to burn the remains of his wife.
Read also: Jonathann Daval admits to trying to burn his wife's body
"Why did he do this?"
Returned to the assizes for "murder on spouse", Jonathann Daval will be defended at the hearing by a trio of lawyers made up of Me Randall Schwerdorffer, Me Ornella Spatafora and Me Samuel Estève.
In front of him, Alexia's parents, the young woman's sister and brother-in-law as well as their two young children, uncles, aunts and their spouses, all represented by Me Gilles-Jean Portejoie with the exception of brother of Isabelle Fouillot and his wife.
“My clients are serene, determined, eager to have Jonathann Daval in front of them and to get an answer to the only question that really arises: why did he do this?”
, indicates the lawyer in
Figaro
.
Will the trial shed light on the last gray areas in this case?
To understand who Jonathann Daval is really, the most central but also the most mysterious character of the file, and what couple he formed with his wife?
To be fixed on the trail of "slow poisoning", in which Alexia's relatives strongly believe but which was dismissed by the examining magistrate, the latter considering that premeditation is
" not established with regard to the elements of the procedure ”
?
To know more about this sperm, identified as that of Jonathann Daval, found on shorts, panties and in Alexia's vagina?
All stakeholders hope so.
But for that, the accused must surrender.
What he does only in moments of
"great emotion"
, as his counsel Me Schwerdorffer confided.
See also
- Jonathann Daval: his lawyer welcomes his confession (06/17/2019)
