Nordahl Lelandais, doubly sentenced to perpetuity for two crimes – the infanticide of little Maëlys and the homicide of another soldier – appeared today before the Colmar Criminal Court. He is suspected of having violated his partner during a visiting room last June, in front of their 19 -month -old son. This child was born from their union when the former dog handler was already incarcerated. A situation that questions: how could this woman have conceived a couple, and even to start a family, with a murderer found guilty of crimes of such gravity?
Hybristophilia: attraction for crime
It is not the first time that a criminal, even a serial killer, has established an intimate relationship with a woman. Criminals such as Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Marc Dutroux or Guy Georges all have in common to have received thousands of letters from women, parcels, gifts and even requests in marriage.
“Some have had children designed in detention, sometimes called” baby and “baby” “ recall The Parisian. We often talk abouthybristophilia. That is to say, attraction for a person who has committed a crime, especially if the case is publicized.
But in the case of Lelandais’s partner, it seems that it is something else. The 33 -year -old woman has always talked about a relationship of “Intellectual curiosity without fascination“, Who would have turned to love.
A kind of “nurse syndrome”
For Johanna Rozenblum, clinical psychologist, this type of relationship also has its origin in a very special psychic mechanism.
“There may be a form of saving syndrome, a kind of nurse syndrome. Some women are developing a fascination for criminals or serial killers, she explains. But they see more victims than the culprits. It is a bias of thought that leads them to believe that they can repair them, listen to them, rehabilitate in a way. “
It is in this logic that the current partner of Nordahl Lelandais would be written: despite her two perpetuity convictions in 2022, she started with him an epistolary relationship, which quickly turned into love, and gave birth to a child in November 2023.
Nordahl Lelandais, like other criminals before him, also attracts because he embodies a paradoxical figure: that of the dangerous man, but which can be saved with the right encounter.
“It is a narcissistic functioning, continues Johanna Rozenblum. These women perceive themselves as unique, like those capable of bringing a second chance. But they are wrong. We are talking about men who have no questioning, no self -criticism “.
Evidenced by Lelandais’ reactions after the suspension of his visiting rooms: he would have said that his partner and his son “needed him” and not the opposite, thus minimizing the gravity of the alleged violence.
Fragile women under control
But according to the psychologist, these women are not simply fascinated: they can also be under the direct influence of the criminal.
“What is worrying is that they are often under control. In the case of Lelandais, the violence it would have exercised was before a 19 -month -old child. This questions the ability to protect the mother’s free will, and her own psychic mechanisms”.
Moreover, as recalled The Parisianthese women often share a common point: loneliness. In general, these women “are not particularly balanced, often fragile“, Advises Daniel Zagury, daily psychiatrist expert. “Sometimes childhood trauma explain a failing relationship to the masculine”.
Women or even children to protect?
Finally for our psychologist, this file should not only question the attraction exercised by criminals, but also on collective responsibility:
“Of course, the partner of Nordahl Lelandais probably did not have bad intentions at the start. But when a woman exposes a child to a man found guilty of infanticide and homicide, this raises the question of her discernment, his critical mind. Our duty is then to protect these women and these children, more than preserving the visiting rooms of a criminal who refuses any self -criticism” she says.