France - Karen Carter, 65, stabbed to death, Dordogne, 29 April 2025

[ZaZara]

I understand. Karen’s parents moved from Britain to SA in the 50-es, didn’t they? So she probably had it through parents.

Kids live in different parts of the world, right. “Residence” and “citizenship” are different things. What about AC?

(One problem that confuses me: he used to live and work in London at one point but there is East London in SA so I get befuddled, tbh. Did he work in Britain for a while or was it SA?)

AFAIK he was born in the UK, and made part of his career in the UK, including in London (UK) before moving to SA.

 

[Charlot123]

AFAIK he was born in the UK, and made part of his career in the UK, including in London (UK) before moving to SA.

So basically, citizenship is a non-issue.

And, Dr. Carter is an environmental cleaning the ocean and its life from plastic.

Personality-wise, doesn’t fit. JMO.

 

[Officer Dibble]

Let us try not oppose MLA and KC but compare their situations because I see a certain dimilarity

Two women in the same age group

Both pleasant

You can imagine that in their time both were very attractive

Still attractive

Not super well-paid jobs, but one, a teacher, another, a nurse

Both had kids

Both had husbands; I am not sure about Alan’s money but at one point he bought Karen that gite

We don’t know MLA’s former husband but probably what they had was enough to live comfortably in the village

Comes JFG. First, he is financially well better-off MLA. Her brother says something about her life being much better off had she married G. So, some financial interest.

However: was MLA delusional when she divorced her husband and ruined the family? Hard to tell. However, it is a fact that at least at one point in time JFG was taking her out, isn’t it so? So, not an imagination, there was some connection between them. Then he "backpedaled" I guess. But, MLA still had her job, her hobby, was living a life. Not crushed, although, predictably unhappy.

Did MLA overrate the widower’s general willingness to marry? Perhaps, but hard to tell what she’d been told. It is possible that he just was “telling tales”, and lost interest when she became too serious about it.

So maybe MLA was naive in assessing the seriousness of JFG’s intentions, but nothing more "delusional" than that.

But then, enters Karen. Karen, who’s hard-working, a cancer survivor, slowly building up business with the gite. Very pleasant, very gracious, but she comes across as a serious person and a planner. She is a reasonable woman, married for the second time, who lived in several countries and is the mother of four kids. Very worldly. Stable.

Suddenly this epitome of practicality, KC, is engaged in a quiet but passionate relationship with JFG, and she, too, files for a divorce. After years of marriage, you don’t just abandon the family. You have to have an alternative plan.

So we have two women who, having dated JFG for a while, headed exactly the same way, towards the divorce! And rather rapidly.

How many more could there be under his belt? What was JFG’s life before? From the villagers account, women came to visit him. What happened to them?

In my life, I knew a man who was a “serial relationship-wrecker”. I can’t say “home wrecker” because I was 20 and he, 30, but he had a train of stories about broken engagements, or being engaged and suddenly marrying someone else. I thought these were his fantasies, but I later i did meet several sobbing young women, befriended some. At this, he was viewed as "solid" by adult people. An unusual type, but...if you know that the pattern exists, you start wondering.

So...Was JFG the man who kept someone with his promises on the hook for too long? Broke one marriage too many? Was there someone else who, too, divorced and rearranged her life? Who then watched him dating other women and finally, snapped?

So, I am not in "Alan Carter did it" camp. If I heard that the Carters were splitting a diamond mine in the divorce, I might reconsider. But what we know about is some property in South Africa and some in France and a man who seems to be a good father. Not the type.

My feeling is, either someone who had a crush on Karen and was angry that his rival was older and richer. (Seriously, I do have the "class jealousy" vibe).

Or look at someone from JFG's past.

The phrase "a hotbed of affairs" could simply mean that JFG lived vicariously through "romances" because he knew what follows 75. But to break two marriages tells me that he might have been persuasive in his promises. Could have been a pattern, and someone could have been angry.

To add: if MLA has an alibi, her only known connection with the murder is, sadly, tought luck at having had some relationship with JFG in the past. We don't know of any threats of KC, nor any pen-poison letters, nor any toxicity. Yet her name is smeared, she is probably ashamed, moved away.

If you look at it not as "love triangle" and I don't see any triangle just a persuasive man, then "one woman is dead, another one has her good name smeared", looks too unfair.

"Suddenly this epitome of practicality, KC, is engaged in a quiet but passionate relationship with JFG, and she, too, files for a divorce. After years of marriage, you don’t just abandon the family. You have to have an alternative plan.

So we have two women who, having dated JFG for a while, headed exactly the same way, towards the divorce! And rather rapidly.

How many more could there be under his belt? What was JFG’s life before? From the villagers account, women came to visit him. What happened to them?"

You make some very good points here. Thanks for sharing them.

 

[Mayb]

"Suddenly this epitome of practicality, KC, is engaged in a quiet but passionate relationship with JFG, and she, too, files for a divorce. After years of marriage, you don’t just abandon the family. You have to have an alternative plan.

So we have two women who, having dated JFG for a while, headed exactly the same way, towards the divorce! And rather rapidly.

How many more could there be under his belt? What was JFG’s life before? From the villagers account, women came to visit him. What happened to them?"

You make some very good points here. Thanks for sharing them.

If KC and JFG conducted their affair discreetly as earlier posters here have said, then I wonder how many people knew of it ?

 

[Charlot123]

If KC and JFG conducted their affair discreetly as earlier posters here have said, then I wonder how many people knew of it ?

The population of Tremolat is 624 people.

My personal guess is: everyone, except for maybe the Airbnb guests.

 

[Sor Juana]

Here’s one of the earlier links. Divorced 'love rival', 69, of Brit expat found brutally murdered in French village is 'innocent' and 'devastated' by the crime

The body of Mrs Carter was found on Tuesday evening sprawled on the driveway close to her car, thought to be a Dacia Duster.
She had just left a wine-tasting event at the home of a local businessman Jean-Francois Guerrier, who she had recently started a relationship with.

I’m not sure it’s been shared in this thread yet. It includes a few interesting details that haven’t really come up in the discussion so far. I haven’t seen any information about MLA’s children, how many she had, who they are, or whether any of them lived nearby. She does have children, more than one. The real question, I suppose, is whether any of them might have felt resentful or overly protective of their mother. MLA appeared cool about her breakup with JFG in public, but was she equally composed in private? It’s simply a line of inquiry, nothing more. MLA did have an alibi. I haven’t seen any media coverage about that wine‑tasting event. It raises the question of whether Karen might have given someone a lift, or stopped at her place with someone in her car for some reason. The event itself seems worth considering: someone attending it could have had too much to drink, which might have triggered something. So it’s an angle that shouldn’t be dismissed.

 

[ZaZara]

Here’s one of the earlier links. Divorced 'love rival', 69, of Brit expat found brutally murdered in French village is 'innocent' and 'devastated' by the crime

I’m not sure it’s been shared in this thread yet. It includes a few interesting details that haven’t really come up in the discussion so far. I haven’t seen any information about MLA’s children, how many she had, who they are, or whether any of them lived nearby. She does have children, more than one. The real question, I suppose, is whether any of them might have felt resentful or overly protective of their mother. MLA appeared cool about her breakup with JFG in public, but was she equally composed in private? It’s simply a line of inquiry, nothing more. MLA did have an alibi. I haven’t seen any media coverage about that wine‑tasting event. It raises the question of whether Karen might have given someone a lift, or stopped at her place with someone in her car for some reason. The event itself seems worth considering: someone attending it could have had too much to drink, which might have triggered something. So it’s an angle that shouldn’t be dismissed.

No need to go down the rabbit hole and involve anyone's children. They would have been identified by DNA via kinship in a jiffy. Apparently, that did not happen, so end of that line of inquiry.