Facebook messages reveal slain teen ending relationship
As Jonathan Mahautière bowed his head in the prisoner’s box, a Montreal police officer read aloud to a jury the last online conversations Mahautière had with his girlfriend, before he allegedly strangled her to death in a cheap hotel later that day.
It was June 7, 2014, and the Facebook messages exchanged between Mahautière and Gabrielle Dufresne-Élie, then 18 and 17 years old, reveal the end of a twoyear relationship, as the girl tries to let him down gently — and the boy doesn’t want to let go.
Mahautière, now 20, is on trial for second-degree murder. The jury had heard that around 10:45 p.m. that same day, he himself called 911 from a Couche-Tard across the street and had a 15-minute conversation with the dispatcher about having done something “very serious” and that his girlfriend needed help in Room 101 of the hotel.
“I did something and I will get life in prison,” Mahautière, now 20, told the dispatcher, never revealing exactly what happened.
It would take paramedics another 27 minutes to arrive and wait for police backup before finding Dufresne-Élie’s body, her face covered by a pillow.
A supervisor at Urgences-Santé, Jean-François Coornaert, testified Thursday that he was the one who told paramedics to wait for police, because the Chablis Hotel had a reputation for violent incidents involving drugs and escorts, and he didn’t know who else might be in the room with the girl.
In the meantime, Coornaert went to speak to Mahautière. “He couldn’t tell me what he did, but that it was very serious and he was afraid for his girlfriend,” Coornaert told the court. “He said maybe I would be the last person to see him as a free man.”
Asked why he did not let the other paramedics know immediately that the girl was alone in the room after Mahautière told her, he said, “I was in conversation with the young man and I didn’t want to interrupt it.”
In the hours leading up to the couple’s last night at the hotel, in messages filled with alternating happy faces and frowning emojis and repeated questions — what are the chances you’ll change your mind? — Dufresne-Élie’s Facebook messages to Mahautière urged him to accept that it was over between
them. While he declares his love for her, and hopes for a “miracle” that would change her mind, she tells him over and over again that she doesn’t want to stay.
“I don’t want you to be angry with me,” Dufresne-Élie writes to him. “I just don’t think my feelings for you will return,” she wrote on the morning of her death.
They agree to figure it out later and go to a therapist together. He tells her he wants them to end their relationship, if that’s what they decide, on good terms.
(On Friday, that therapist is expected to testify, one of the last witnesses to be presented by the Crown.)
It was after their session that they went to the hotel, where Mahautière had booked a room for four hours.
Forensic pathologist Yann Dazé testified Thursday that the cause of death was strangulation, likely using one hand, or both.
Mahautière’s DNA was found under the victim’s nails and on her neck, the jury heard. Traces of his sperm were also found in the victim.