He was 14 years old at the time of the events. Sunday in the show “Sept à Huit” on TF1, Mario Leblanc, sole survivor of the Flactif family, murdered in 2003 in Grand-Bornand in Haute-Savoie, returned to this tragedy which turned his life upside down.
At the time, the teenager, who lives with his father, must spend the holidays with his mother, Graziella, his stepfather, Xavier, and his three brothers and sisters, Grégory, 7 years old, Lætitia, 9 years old and Sarah , 10 years. When he arrives at the family chalet in Grand-Bornand, he finds the door closed and no one answers his calls.
The next day, when he returns to the chalet, he still has no news from his family. “Everything is perfect, there is nothing lying around,” he remembers. When we go upstairs, I see that there is no longer a sheet on the beds. At the time, I don't really understand. » In the kitchen, he even finds dirty dishes and leftover food.
1/2 He welcomes us into his home, 21 years after the horror. His mother, his brothers and sisters and his stepfather, killed in Grand-Bornand. The Flactif affair, one of the biggest criminal cases of the 2000s. This evening, Mario, the surviving son, testifies exclusively. pic.twitter.com/Iy3LOhaPrr
— Sept à Huit (@7a8) April 7, 2024
Joined by his paternal family, Mario does not realize what is happening. The authorities first thought it was a car accident, then an organized escape. In reality, the family was murdered the day before the teenager's arrival by David Hotyat, the tenant of a chalet belonging to the Flactif family, jealous of the standard of living of the entrepreneur and his family.
Arrested five months later, he confessed to the quintuple homicide and the incineration of the bodies in the forest, with the complicity of his partner, Alexandra Lefèvre, the family's former housekeeper, and a couple of friends.
“How do they know everything that’s in the garage? »
During the investigation into the disappearance of the family, which attracted media attention, David Hotyat participated in several reports, notably that of “Sept à Huit”. In front of the cameras, he makes a hypothesis: “A lot of people also think that it could be staged. Or maybe someone caused a carnage in there. »
“In what healthy mind would this idea come, to say that there may have been a massacre,” underlines Mario, remembering the scene. We were still researching the possibility of an accident. It immediately seemed strange to me. »
Also read “It feels weird”: these killers who were spread in the media before being confused
In this same report, David Hotyat and his partner, Alexandra Lefèvre, denigrate Xavier Flactif and point out the extent of his possessions. “Hearing them talk like that, I especially want to take the TV and smash it against the wall,” says the young man, who talks about his doubts. “How do they know everything that’s in the garage? »
It is also the animosity of this neighbor that will put the investigators on the trail of David Hotyat, who will end up confessing to the quintuple homicide and will lead the police to the place where he burned the bodies. “When the remains of the whole family were found in the forest, my father told me about it in the evening after school. I’m collapsing,” confides the young man. “How do we get here? I don't understand what leads to killing two people and three children out of jealousy, out of envy, out of hatred,” he asks.
Mario knows he narrowly escaped the massacre. He was supposed to arrive the day before for the holidays, but his father had finally refused to let him miss a day of college. This thought has been with him ever since. “If I had been there, maybe Sarah, Laetitia and Grégory would have been able to come out,” he confides. Perhaps I would have created a diversion, opened a door, they would have run to alert someone…”
A thought “every day”
On June 30, 2006, the Haute-Savoie Assize Court found David Hotyat guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment with an irreducible security period of 22 years. His partner, Alexandra Lefèvre, was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment and their couple of friends, Stéphane Haremza and his wife Isabelle, received 15 and 7 years' imprisonment for complicity and criminal association.
After the verdict, for Mario, it was the aftermath. In his twenties, he tried at all costs to “clear his head” and “no longer think about anything”, excessively consuming illicit substances and alcohol. But more than twenty years later, he has found peace, even if he thinks “every day” about the tragedy. “I have a stable life, a job, a partner, a house. I'm doing everything I can to become someone my mother could have been proud of,” he says.
While David Hotyat will be able to request his release from September 2025, the survivor wants to testify to “keep” his family in memory and “so that we do not forget them”.