Already sentenced to 25 years of criminal imprisonment, Jonathan Daval is on trial this Wednesday for slanderous denunciation of Grégory Gay, his ex-brother-in-law whom he accused of the murder of Alexia in 2017.
This Wednesday, April 10, 2024, Jonathan Daval – already sentenced to 25 years of criminal imprisonment for the murder of his wife Alexia – is tried before the Besançon criminal court for slanderous denunciation. The facts date back to June 2018. While his wife has died eight months ago, Jonathan Daval has been indicted for six months after admitting to having killed his wife “by accident”.
But to everyone’s surprise, in the office of the investigating judge, the latter had retracted, indicating a completely different version. According to him, Alexia Fouillot was killed by her brother-in-law, Grégory Gay, by strangulation at her parents’ home, while trying to control her during an attack of hysteria. At the time, he also spoke of a “family plot” to cover up the affair. Problem is, in December 2018, he reversed this decision once again by admitting to having lied during a confrontation with his accusers, reaffirming having killed his wife during an argument.
A direct citation for “slanderous denunciation”
From then on, Jonathan Daval had maintained this version of the facts, he had indeed killed his partner. “He had to free himself from this straitjacket of denial in which he was” indicated his ex-mother-in-law, Isabelle Fouillot in the columns of BFM. So, if the murderer has been serving his sentence for three and a half years now in Esisheim prison in Alsace, this period of lying seems to have left its mark on Alexia’s family. “Jonathan Daval is accused of lying for six months when he accused Grégory Gay of having strangled Alexia with the complicity of his family,” Jean-Hebert Portejoie, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, explains to AFP.
Jonathan Daval’s in-laws had initiated a direct summons against him for “slanderous denunciation” concerning his accusations against Grégory Gay. So why did Jonathan Daval lie for six months? “As he saw that I was in pain and that I did not want to admit, I think he said to himself, in his head, if I put someone else, mom will be happy” explained the mother of the accused in February 2024.
60,000 euros in damages claimed by his in-laws
For such a lie, he faces five years in prison. A sentence which should be confused with his conviction for the murder of Alexia Fouillot. At the same time, his in-laws are demanding the sum of 60,000 euros in damages, including 30,000 euros for Grégory Gay, 10,000 euros for Alexia’s sister and 10,000 euros for each of the deceased’s parents. . For Jonathan Daval’s lawyer, Me Schwerdorffer, “the sole logic of this trial is to demand as much money as possible from Jonathan Daval: the amounts speak for themselves, if it had been a question of principle, they would have demanded a symbolic euro” he regrets in 20Minutes.
As a reminder, Jonathan Daval strangled his wife on the night of October 27 to 28, 2017 at their home in Gray-la-Ville (Haute-Saône). Before transporting the body, the next day, to a wood and then setting it on fire. He then raised the alarm, pretending to be worried because the latter had not returned from her jogging. The victim’s body was found two days later after major citizen raids.