An umpteenth time, probably the last, they handed him a pole.
This Monday, May 10 in the evening, on the eighth day of hearing, the Assize Court of Savoy has just watched the reconstruction of the murder of Arthur Noyer.
Black jogging, black eyes, we see the accused, puffed up by drugs, methodically boxing the model supposed to represent the young alpine hunter, who died that night of April 12, 2017. An accidental death during a fight, argues without convincing Nordahl Lelandais - just like for the murder of Maëlys, for which he will be tried in Grenoble in 2022.
"You will not have much opportunity to express yourself ... If you want to say something else, now is the time", therefore tries the president.
Light blue shirt, graying hair and folded hands, the accused repeats it again: “What I explained to you is what happened.
I offer my apologies to Arthur Noyer's family ”.
"Your apologies, she hears them like a big slap in the face," snaps back Me Bernard Boulloud, lawyer for relatives of the victim.
However, should we hope for more from the accused, "encysted in defense mechanisms", as summed up by one of the psychiatrists and psychologists who took the stand on Monday?
"No trace of guilt or shame"
Normal intelligence, even superior, absence of mental illness but major personality disorders, a certain dangerousness - up to six on a scale of seven, estimates Dr. Patrick Blachère… With a few nuances, the experts are unanimous in their diagnosis , portraying a Nordahl Lelandais with a fragile personality, emotionally deficient from childhood, unable to stand abandonment.
Evidenced by his violent reactions when his companions leave him, or his passion for dogs. Didn't he mention his malinois Tyron as "the love of his life" and broke up with a companion who asked him to place Câline, another of his animals? “With animals, there is the idea of never being disappointed. He needs to be loved forever and ever ”, considers Magali Ravit, psychologist, for whom his multiple relationships with women constitute a form of“ emotional buoy ”.
Nordahl Lelandais, he does not like himself, estimates the psychologist, who has met him six times.
So he summons everything to please and feed his narcissism, even if it means falling into mythomania.
He was thus able to invent a descent with Richard the Lionheart, several missions abroad when he was a dog handler in the army… A professional impasse, in reality - he will leave it after four years.
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Nordahl Lelandais: Maëlys, Arthur Noyer, the story of four years of investigation
"No access to remorse, we do not notice any trace of guilt or shame in him," said Dr. Patrick Blachère, who still considers him "devoid of empathy".
For psychologist Hélène Dubost and her colleague Magali Ravit, her “need for control”, her lies, her displayed coldness actually hide a “vulnerability”, the objective being to avoid “psychic collapse”.
This is what experts call the cleavage, "two parts of his personality which coexist without meeting", summarizes Dr François Danet, psychiatrist.
The origin of the act remains a mystery
Hélène Dubost was able to see him cry "as if we were pressing a button". Magali Ravit, she discovered a Nordahl Lelandais "collapsed, in tears, unable to speak, very touched for the parents of Maëlys". It was February 16, 2018, the day after transport to the scene and his confession in this case. “This is the mark of narcissistic collapse. He then showed himself in this aspect of vulnerability that he tries to fight. For him, it is an abyssal abyss: he measures what he is. The same evening, he will be hospitalized.
Dr François Danet, who met him at the same time, will then evoke a “risk of suicide”.
For him, manipulation and concealment go hand in hand with this cleavage which allows Nordahl Lelandais not to sink.
He would therefore not use them "for utilitarian purposes, to make a shorter prison sentence", he insists on clarifying, but for his psychological survival.
“If it advances towards evoking more authentic facts, the risk is that it collapses.
It's like falling off a cliff… But if it closes, there is no way forward ”.
To read also "I was a vagabond": on the first day of his trial, Nordahl Lelandais said to have switched in 2017
As for the origin of the passage to the act, on Arthur Noyer then Maëlys, the question still remains a mystery. All agree on a form of “turning point”, in 2016, a time when the accused multiplied relationships, experienced homosexuality, increased his cocaine use… “As if he needed that to feel he existed… », Notes Magali Ravit. "What is it that at that time, there was an escalation of arousal, drug use and sex scene?" Neither she, nor her colleagues, nor the accused, have so far found an answer.
