Back in custody for Nordahl Lelandais. The ex-soldier, suspected of having killed the little Maëlys and the corporal Arthur Noyer, was extracted from his cell in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier (Isère) this Friday February 7 in the morning in order to be heard by the gendarmes from the Reims (Marne) research section. The custody of the 36-year-old former dog handler was finally lifted at the end of the day after he "explained the facts". Since April 2019, the Gendarmes in Reims have been seized of a complaint filed by a young cousin of Nordahl Lelandais who accuses him of having sexually assaulted him during his father's funeral in March 2017, so that she was 14 years old.
According to our information, the girl has been heard by investigators since and reiterated her accusations against her cousin. According to her, during this ceremony organized in the east of France, Nordahl Lelandais would have taken advantage of his dismay to "hug her and caress her buttocks". He also allegedly touched her chest before threatening to "kill" her if she mentioned the attack. In the days that followed, Nordahl Lelandais also sent him several inappropriate text messages. "His testimony is serious, says a source close to the investigation. She does not seem to be a fabricator and the rest seems to have proved her right. "
"The beginning of his criminal journey"?
The facts denounced by the girl would indeed have occurred only a month before the murder of Corporal Arthur Noyer, in April 2017, for which Nordahl Lelandais was indicted. "This attack is enlightening, because it shows the evolution of Lelandais, breaths someone close to the case. This could be the first attack on Lelandais and marks the start of his criminal journey. "
A few weeks after this first alleged sexual assault, Nordahl Lelandais is indeed suspected of having committed sexual abuse on two of his grand-cousins, aged four and six years old at the time of the facts. Facts for which the thirties have been indicted since.
These are also the revelations of these sexual abuses as well as the murder of little Maëlys who had pushed the teenager to tell her assault to her mother, two years after the facts. “She spoke about it with her mother at the time of the Maëlys affair, but she was not ready to testify, underlined, in July Me Caroline Rémond, her lawyer. However, she felt a strong sense of guilt, told herself that if she had spoken, he would have been arrested earlier. It is only a child, it was hard to live. "