French Court Sentences Nordahl Lelandais to Life for the Murder of Eight-Year-Old Maëlys
Already serving 20 years for killing Corporal Arthur Noyer, the former army dog handler was convicted in Grenoble of the girl's abduction and murder.
Published
Maëlys de Araujo was eight years old when she was taken from a wedding in the Isère department of southeastern France in August 2017. On Friday, February 18, 2022, after a closely watched three-week trial in Grenoble, the Isère cour d'assises found Nordahl Lelandais guilty of her abduction and murder and sentenced him to life in prison with a minimum term of 22 years, the heaviest sentence the court could impose.
The jury had deliberated for about seven hours. The verdict matched the sentence demanded by the advocate general, Jacques Dallest, who had called the defendant "an absolute danger to society." The court also ordered ten years of socio-judicial supervision, including compulsory treatment. Lelandais, a former army dog handler, stood calmly in the dock as the verdict was read. By chance of the calendar, it was his 39th birthday.
Over the course of the investigation and the trial, he had given shifting versions of what happened that night. On the final morning, in his last words to the court, he acknowledged all the facts he was charged with, while continuing to deny any sexual assault on the girl, and apologized once more to her family. "I know the families will never accept my apologies, but I owe it to them to offer them with the greatest sincerity," he said. His lawyers had asked for a sentence of 30 years so that he might "keep a hope, however distant."
Maëlys's family showed no visible reaction when the sentence was announced.
It was the second time in less than a year that a French jury had convicted Lelandais of killing someone. He was already serving 20 years for the murder of Arthur Noyer, a young army corporal whose path crossed his in April 2017, four months before Maëlys disappeared. At the Grenoble trial he also faced charges of sexually assaulting two young cousins, aged four and six, that same summer.
What this verdict covered. The life sentence was for the abduction and murder of Maëlys; the same trial also heard the separate sexual assault charges involving the two cousins. Lelandais admitted killing her but denied any sexual assault on her. The two killings he had been convicted of by this date were those of Maëlys de Araujo and Arthur Noyer.
Sources
- Meurtre de Maëlys : Nordahl Lelandais est condamné à la réclusion criminelle à perpétuité, Lyon Capitale, Camille Belsoeur
- Affaire Maëlys : Nordahl Lelandais condamné à la réclusion criminelle à perpétuité, France 24 (with AFP)