The Case of Accused French Serial Killer Nordahl Lelandais

Key points

• Nordahl Lelandais is currently on trial for murder and officials in France suspect he may be tied to several unsolved cases.
• Witness testimonies have revealed that Lelandais has a lot in common with sexually motivated serial killers in the United States.
• One pattern that has emerged in Lelandais’s case are his repeated lies. Although friends describe him positively, evidence suggests otherwise.

The Night Stalker. The Son of Sam. The much-anticipated story of Jeffrey Dahmer. As U.S. true crime fans spend 2021 watching the ever-streaming sagas of serial killers who preyed on their victims in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s — the heyday of American serial murder — France is watching the actual trial of an accused serial killer whose alleged crimes were a lot more recent.

Nordahl Lelandais, a 38-year-old former military dog handler, is charged with the April 12, 2017, murder of a 24-year-old soldier, Arthur Noyer. Mr. Noyer was last seen hitchhiking after leaving a club. He will later be tried for the murder of 8-year-old Marlys de Araujo, who vanished on August 27, 2017, while attending a wedding with her family. Law enforcement officials believe he could be linked to several more unsolved cases in the area although this had yet to be…