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

[Mayb]

SBM. We don't know for sure, but I don't see why she would lie to her best friend about it. I also don't see the friend making it up. If it wasn't true, the police would find out and the friend could be put under suspicion.

I doubt she had multiple suitors at her age, especially if most thought she was still happily married. Perhaps it is more likely that JFG, as a well off bachelor, had several older women interested in him.

 

[Mayb]

I don't think this investigation is over by a long shot.
Regarding " well off bachelor"
It might be found that JFG - unknowingly to him - is the key to solving who was behind this dreadful event.

 

[Sor Juana]

DNA from Karen's car is a useful lead, but it’s not automatic proof of guilt. It can point investigators in the right direction when the profile is clear and backed up by other evidence, but it can also be misleading - think secondary transfer, lab contamination, or someone who’d simply been near the car earlier. Police have tested 15 people who attended the wine tasting, but people who weren’t there could still matter.

Reports say MLA was questioned and briefly detained, and when someone is held like that investigators usually take dna to compare with traces found at a scene. But that doesn’t mean anything definitive on its own. The dna found on a car could be from innocent contact, or even secondary transfer. Contamination and mixed samples also complicate interpretation. So a mismatch doesn’t prove innocence in every possible sense, and a match doesn’t prove guilt without supporting evidence.

The Bergerac prosecutor has publicly said investigators are examining the relationship between Karen and JFG as a potential source of tension - described in press reports as a possible “personal grudge.”

 

[Sor Juana]

Do we know if she really served him papers? It is what she said in France. To her friend. (That’s the thing. I see two different versions of the same story coming from SA and France and wonder if there are more).

RSFF. Only anecdotally. A neighbour, Beverley Needham, told The Telegraph that Karen said she had “given him the papers” and was formalising her separation from her husband the evening before the attack. But there is no court record released in the media that independently confirms a formal divorce filing or shows legal paperwork.

 

[Sor Juana]

Question is, could Karen be afraid of someone else? Someone who perhaps made his interest clear but whom she didn’t find attractive or worth getting divorced for? Someone who got very angry on seeing her ultimate choice?

RSFF. It doesn’t look like she was being intimidated, at least on the surface. If someone had been bothering her, you’d expect her to tell friends or neighbours, change routines, ask someone to walk with her, or even change the locks - things that would probably have been noticed by police or by FJG. I’m more inclined to think of a random attacker - a crazy burglar, or MLA (or maybe someone connected to her). The river near her home makes a quick escape plausible: an attacker on foot could run to the water, ditch bloodied clothes, and walk off. I don’t recall a thorough river search beyond the area near the bridge. JMO

 

[Mayb]

I'm not sure if the husband was aware of JFG's presence in SA less than a month before the murder. The husband likely didn't attend Karen's football matches. According to Google maps, his home and the tournament venue (Tzaneen) are 850 miles apart. I don't remember if she even visited the family home while in SA, but she reportedly consulted lawyers about property division during that time. Divorce papers were probably served at some time after her return.
Karen's affair with JFG was new-ish and she was discrete, though the neighbors (and perhaps the village) were aware of it. If the husband had an informant, he knew.

jmo Husband probably knew. Bush telegraph, social media gossip- or informant

 

[Kemug]

I hope LE have interviewed Karen's sister in South Africa. And whatever Karen told her, the sister who grew up with her would probably know if sbe was telling the truth or not.

 

[FromGermany1]

I don't think this investigation is over by a long shot.
Regarding " well off bachelor"
It might be found that JFG - unknowingly to him - is the key to solving who was behind this dreadful event.

When police said, that "sexual jealousy" might be the reason for the murder, would that be because of stab wounds in specific areas of the body?

 

[FromGermany1]

I hope LE have interviewed Karen's sister in South Africa. And whatever Karen told her, the sister who grew up with her would probably know if sbe was telling the truth or not.

Karen's sister should know more to it, I think. When Karen said to her, she didn't really want to file for divorce, then her sister might have asked, why Karen would do it anyway. What could the answer have been? Because Karen thought, he didn't deserve it?

 

[indicolite22]

Karen's sister should know more to it, I think. When Karen said to her, she didn't really want to file for divorce, then her sister might have asked, why Karen would do it anyway. What could the answer have been? Because Karen thought, he didn't deserve it?

Perhaps Karen would have stayed married to him if Alan moved to France? Long distance marriage didn't work for her. OTOH, if they drifted apart, it wouldn't have mattered.

 

[indicolite22]

When police said, that "sexual jealousy" might be the reason for the murder, would that be because of stab wounds in specific areas of the body?

One of the eight stab wounds was to the lower abdomen, although no indication if the location was sexually motivated. IMO sexual jealousy could imply that someone felt physically cheated on OR wished they were in Karen's (or JFG's) place. OTOH, if they wanted to replace JFG, then they would have murdered him, not Karen.

ETA: Eight serious wounds were reportedly noted in total, including to the “chest, abdomen and forearm”, as well as “superficial ones on the thigh, shoulder and thumbs”.

Dordogne murder mystery: British woman’s death confounds detectives

Brutal stabbing of Karen Carter, 65, in France has been followed by talk of affairs and speculation over the culprit

www.theguardian.com

ETA2: Of the eight deep knife blows that rained down on her, one penetrated her liver, another her right kidney right through to her spine, another cleaved her aorta. Her right arm was almost severed by the injuries she sustained.

Detectives convinced 'sexual jealousy' key to British mother's murder

Close to a year on from her brutal murder, Karen Carter's abandoned Dordogne home is a heart-rending sight.

www.dailymail.com

ETA3 (BBM): A preliminary autopsy revealed she had sustained eight stab wounds to her chest, groin, arm and leg in what authorities describe as an “exceptionally violent” attack.

British woman’s murder in Dordogne: ‘personal grudge’ motive investigated

Police are reported to be concentrating on people likely to wish direct ill of Karen Carter who was fatally stabbed on April 29

www.connexionfrance.com

 

[Kemug]

When police said, that "sexual jealousy" might be the reason for the murder, would that be because of stab wounds in specific areas of the body?

I don't believe so. I hope not.

 

[ZaZara]

Karen Carter was murdered right outside her home. One year on, clues are elusive


(....) Hammouche [ lawyer for the Carter family ] said investigators remained determined to solve the case and were undertaking an “enormous amount” of inquiries, notably of a “scientific and technical” nature.

An investigating magistrate in Périgueux in the Dordogne is in charge of the inquiry. Detectives from the gendarmerie’s “search section” in Agen, also in the southwest, are working on the case.

The Times understands that officers have profiled a wide range of people who may have come into contact with Carter. They are also studying mobile antenna data to determine who was in the area on the evening of Carter’s death. It is a long and fastidious process, the antennae in rural Dordogne being spread far and wide, which means that the target zone is vast. Many cars drove through it that evening. Each has to be checked. Nevertheless, investigators are said to be hopeful that one will provide them with a breakthrough.

Jacques-Édouard Andrault, the state prosecutor in Périgueux, said inquiries were “continuing actively” but declined to comment further.

(...)


Through it all, the Carters have stayed upright, according to their lawyer.

“I have rarely seen people so dignified in the midst of such a frightful drama,” said Hammouche.

“I have never heard words of hatred or brutality from them. They are extremely gentle. They are determined but at the same time they trust that justice will be done. I am extremely impressed by their humanity.”

BBM

 

[Cedars]

I don't believe so. I hope not.

"There are 3 main reasons why people are driven to kill.

"Years of tracking down killers taught Lt. Kenda that there are a very limited number of overarching motives for murder…

"There’s money, of course. It makes the world go round, after all. Folk will do almost anything to get rich. Then there’s sex. Love, lust and jealousy can cause even the most reasonable person to lose control. Finally, there’s revenge. A feeling of righteousness is powerful and can drive someone to take another’s life."

Homicide Hunter: Joe Kenda's most revealing insights into murder

Few people on the planet have experienced the psychology of murder quite as intensely as Lt. Joe Kenda has

www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk

IMO, examining each of these potential motives in light of the circumstances of Karen's murder, what they know about Karen, and the forensic evidence, would lead to them ruling out motives like money and revenge, as well as sexual assault, and lead them to jealousy

JMO

 

[Charlot123]

When police said, that "sexual jealousy" might be the reason for the murder, would that be because of stab wounds in specific areas of the body?

Not to my understanding.

It was a very bloody scene. Karen was attacked from the back when she tried to fetch Haku from the car. One blow severed the aorta. From what I understand, Karen was trying to fight, as recently they mentioned wounds on the fingers. There was a groin wound, but it is described as an aggressive attack meant to kill.

Now, about “sexual jealousy”. I just wonder if it is the result of 1) something being written in French and 2) it being translated from French.

French is a tasty language, with a different cadence, so any description sounds slightly exalted in translation. That village cafe being “a hotbed of affairs” is one example. (And then they write that Karen was concealing her relationship with G). Leaves a lot to the imagination, doesn’t it?

So I wouldn’t make much of it so far. Just the police telling the civilians that they are doing something.