" Let the accused enter ".
It is 9:05 a.m. on Monday, November 16.
Full of solemnity, President Matthieu Husson declares open the debates of the Assize Court of Haute-Saône.
Due to the media affluence, the consecrated formula also inevitably echoes its televisual twin, which entitles the famous program devoted to the various facts: 41 accredited journalists and almost as many who wait on the steps of the courthouse of Vesoul, watching for each suspension of the Daval trial, the reactions of the players in this extraordinary case.
A frenzy that will never be denied, throughout the week.
" Yes ".
On this first morning, Jonathann Daval, fearful face and drawn features, confirms that he is indeed the author, and the only author, of the crime of which he is accused: the murder of his wife Alexia, beaten, strangled and burned. on the night of October 27 to 28, 2017 in Gray.
In front of the horror of the photos, the room freezes
But how could it be otherwise?
The investigators march to the bar.
From day one, the husband is suspect.
Everything is already there: the first inconsistencies, the couple's misunderstanding, the scratches, the bite.
The feedback - the GPS snitch, the molding of the tires, the aerosol can, the tapping - will transform suspicions into certainties.
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Soon the technique gives way to horror.
At the end of the day, Alexia's relatives desert the room, plunged into darkness and facing the unbearable: the photos of the discovery of the body are projected on a giant screen.
The room freezes in front of this charred, annihilated corpse.
The harsh reality of this crime that the accused does not want to see in the face, hidden behind the railing of his box.
Nor does he seem to want to hear the autopsy report, detailed on Tuesday, November 17 by the coroner.
Jonathann Daval covers his ears, curled up on himself.
Did he even rape Alexia after her death?
Did he poison her?
Traces of semen and drugs cast doubt.
Doctors share their research, their hypotheses.
Their limits, too.
The day ends without certainty, and without further explanation of the mysterious "crises" of Alexia.
"I still have a hard time admitting that I did it ..."
A hysterical and violent woman, as her husband portrays her?
Or a woman in love with a man with two faces, this "atypical being as nice as a devil", whom she describes in a vibrant love letter, read by her mother Isabelle Fouillot?
At the bar, Wednesday November 18, Alexia's parents deliver a moving plea for their daughter, betrayed like them by a man to whom she addressed these words, four years before her death: “My Valentine.
I just need you.
If you love me, take care of me.
Fill me up.
I love you.
"
PODCAST. The Daval case. From tears to the confession of a husband in a lie
"I would first like to apologize, even if it is not excusable what I did".
The accused, finally called to express himself on the facts, presents, moved, his regrets to have "lied", to have "destroyed" the relatives of Alexia.
Then begins, in a robotic tone, his account of that fatal night and this dispute, born of a badly lived injunction to procreate.
“She was fixated on the pregnancy,” he said of Alexia.
It was: the child, the child, the child.
The president tells him his doubts about the reality of this request for sex, inconsistent that evening.
Caught at fault, Jonathann Daval collapses, victim of vagal discomfort.
It is 7:35 p.m., he is taken to the emergency room of the Vesoul hospital, where he will spend the night.
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The next day, Thursday, November 19, the interrogation resumed, in a clinical tone: the argument, the reproaches, the "extra words" about his erection problems, then the bite.
"There, I went crazy, it put me beside myself, I was in rage," says the accused, devoid of emotion.
“I put her against the wall.
I hit her head twice before hitting her ”.
Then: "I grabbed her by the neck, I squeezed.
So that she is silent ”.
Yes, he wanted to "kill" that night, he admits for the first time, before suddenly, splitting the armor ... or pretending to do it: "I still have trouble admitting that I have it. did, ”he cries.
"I need to know"
Earlier in the morning, psychiatrists and psychologists had rightly described this double face, one "smooth and proper", the other "solid and much more aggressive", revealed by the criminal act.
A "pathological personality", a "chameleon" who adapts to the expectations of the other to feed on him, managing to lie while offering undeniable accents of sincerity.
As evidenced by his tears in the office of the examining magistrate, during a confrontation with his mother-in-law on December 7, 2018, and whose film is screened at the opening of the hearing, Friday, November 20.
Surrealist judicial moment: we see the criminal, the liar buried in the denial of his version of the "family plot", again give way to the "nice" Jonathann and fall to his knees.
The one Isabelle Fouillot ends up taking in her arms to thank him for having confessed.
However, for the cremation, he was still lying ...
VIDEO. Murder of Alexia: Jonathann Daval sentenced to 25 years in prison
"This is the last time I will see you, this is the last time we both speak.
I need to know ”, states Alexia's mother in the wake of the bar, maternal gaze towards the accused.
Everyone has tried it, but only Isabelle Fouillot can still hope to give Jonathann Daval a truth - if he has not already said everything.
Of this indecipherable accused, and of this file still marked by several inconsistencies, one can imagine everything, and even the worst.
Her mother-in-law simply believes that Alexia wanted a divorce.
“Don't tell me you killed her just for a few words…” The exchange is extraordinarily intense, the room caught up.
But his son-in-law refuses.
"No" there was no question of separation.
" No.
No.
No.
»Of which act.
“I wish you a good time in prison, Jonathann.
Farewell ".
"A decision commensurate with our suffering"
“Coolness, detachment, horrifying cynicism!
», Castigates in the name of Fouillot Me Gilles-Jean-Portejoie.
Alexia, this young woman "massacred", "dragged like a vulgar sack of potato in the brambles", then burned "to ensure that she never existed", indignant the president: "We await a decision up to our suffering, ”he asks at the end of his plea, closing, on this evening of Friday, November 20, five days of extremely dense hearings.
The next day, the Advocate General requests life imprisonment.
Sentenced to 25 years in prison, Jonathann Daval said he would not appeal.
