Lindsay suicide: the schoolgirl's best friend explains why she wrote her farewell letter herself

“If you are reading this letter, it is because I have surely left (…) I could no longer stand the insults morning and evening, the mockery, the threats”. A year and a half ago, this farewell letter, signed by Lindsay, 13, a victim of school bullying, shocked France. This missive pointed to a person in charge, the principal of the college in which the teenager was educated: “I couldn’t even confide in the director, because he didn’t want to hear anything”.

But today, the investigation reveals that this cry for help, written three months before her suicide, was not written by Lindsay, but by her best friend, Maëlys. She confides in the report from the magazine “Sept à Huit”, broadcast this Sunday on TF1, to be found at the top of this article. “She told me not to tell anyone that it was me who had written this letter. It may be written in my hand, but it is not my words. She said a sentence to me and I copied it”she assures.

Graphological expertise

On May 12, 2023, at the end of the day, Lindsay was found hanging in her room. For several months, she said she was the victim of harassment from a group of young girls from her college, in Vendin-le-Vieil, in Pas-de-Calais. Three months before her fatal act, Lindsay's mother filed a complaint against three schoolgirls. She also sends a file to academic services in which appear medical certificates attesting to assault and battery on Lindsay, as well as the famous farewell letter. A cry for help that her stepfather allegedly found under the teenager's mattress. Wasted effort. Lindsay ends her life. After his suicide, a judicial investigation was opened at the Béthune court. Four schoolgirls are indicted for harassment leading to suicide. The principal is placed under the status of assisted witness.

During the investigation, several schoolgirls were interviewed. One of them expressed her doubts about Lindsay's farewell letter, as told by Master Frank Berton, the college principal's lawyer. “This comrade comes to say: 'That seems curious to me. It's not his way of writing, it's not his writing. It's not even the same way we write Maëlys'. So the investigating judge, clearly alerted to this, will order a graphological expertise. What is presented as Lindsay's suicide note is not in her handwriting at all. And the expert goes further by giving the name of the editor and says: 'It's Maëlys, his friend, who wrote this letter,'” he says.

I wrote what she told me to say. Sometimes she thought of sentences. But I didn't write anything on my own.

Maëlys, Lindsay's best friend

Maëlys explains it alongside her mother in front of the TF1 camera. “Lindsay tells me about this letter. She explains to me that she had written a suicide note. That her stepfather had found it under her mattress”she says, before her mother continues: “And then they had a discussion with Lindsay and Lindsay tore up that letter.”. Betty, Lindsay's mother, then asks her daughter to rewrite the letter. That day, Maëlys was present. “Betty it reads: 'You need to rewrite this letter to send it to the academy so that they can help you'”, continues Maëlys' mother.

The young girl adds: “She started trying to rewrite this letter, but rewriting a letter word for word, especially about suicide, was complicated. She was crying. That's when she asked me if I could do this letter. So I didn't really know how to react to that. I preferred to have a discussion with her first, but I needed her to promise me that later, she wouldn't do anything stupid. nothing at all. So I said. ‘oui’ to write this letter. I wrote what she told me to say. Sometimes she thought of sentences. But I didn't write anything on my own. I didn't tell anyone about it.”she explains.

According to Maëlys, Lindsay had one objective: to target the principal of the college. “In fact, she wanted at all costs to make it known that the principal was not helping us, that he did not have his role as principal. That he did not know how to manage a college perfectly because he left things like that happen, when it was not normal. So, she wanted to get this message across at all costs.” explains Maëlys to justify his action.

“An error of judgment”

According to Lindsay's mother's lawyer, Maître Pierre Debuisson, she did not notice that this letter was not in her daughter's handwriting. “First of all, it seems that the writing of Maëlys and Lindsay is extremely close, especially at the time this letter was delivered, it is obvious that Betty was in such a fragile psychological state in relation to the harassment to which her daughter was a victim. (…) that she was not able to distinguish between her daughter's letter and another letter with extremely similar writing”he decides. And to continue: “What is certain is that the content of this letter is perfectly consistent with all the statements which may have been made by Lindsay, verbally, but also in writing, in particular in relation to a complaint which was made to the police (…) So, the fact that she was not at the origin of this letter does not pose any difficulty and above all does not at all call into question the school harassment from which she suffered the consequences for almost six months” , he insists.

It was only last February, during a doctor's appointment, in the presence of her mother and Lindsay's mother, that Maëlys allegedly admitted to having written the letter. “That's when she explained to us what Lindsay was like. That Lindsay was incapable of writing, that it was already hard to have written that first letter and that she had to write a second one, so it “It was hard for Maëlys, if she did it, it was precisely to help Lindsay.”underlines Maëlys’ mother. In addition to the letter, another element points to the responsibility of the principal: a report from the General Inspectorate of the Ministry of National Education, written in July 2023, two months after the suicide. This document that Sept à Huit reveals exclusively is unequivocal. “The principal committed an error of judgment of the file leading to an unsuitable response”, can we read.

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According to this report, the conflict that the principal had with Lindsay's family made him underestimate the scope of the case and question the young girl's intention to end her life. “The investigations that we requested revealed very serious failings, with serious errors on the part of this principal. (…) And this is also quite indicative of a particular state of mind of National Education which prefers to transfer and perhaps promote people who commit mistakes rather than simply firing them. I find it unacceptable that the director of the college is director of a new college.” advances Maître Debuisson, Lindsay's mother's lawyer.

But for Franck Berton, the principal's lawyer, “we can’t blame him for not having listened.” “In any case, this is not something that has been singled out as being a serious fault, a fault really serious enough for this man to be involved both on a judicial level, but also on the administrative plan”he adds. Beyond the principal, the academic report denounces the failure of the entire anti-harassment alert chain, in particular of the departmental commission in charge of the issue, which examined Lindsay's file a month before her suicide. The Inspection points “an underestimation of several elements of the file leading to an error of assessment”and the case was finally closed in April 2023.

Furthermore, the academic inspection, like the judicial investigation, reveals another element which could have played the role of trigger in the suicide of the teenager. A rumor relayed on social networks claiming that she would have filmed naked videos of herself. This completely unfounded rumor was allegedly launched by her ex-boyfriend, as explained in the report from “Sept à Huit” to be found in full at the top of this article.