British-South African woman killed in stabbing attack in Dordogne village

French prosecutors in Périgueux have placed a 70-year-old woman under formal investigation over the killing of Karen Carter, a 65-year-old British-South African mother-of-four found in the Dordogne village of Trémolat. In France, that step is the formal equivalent of being charged in the UK, marking a significant escalation in the murder inquiry.

Carter was discovered lying near her car by a friend after suffering multiple stab wounds. An autopsy found that she died from severe blood loss, and investigators treated the death as a murder investigation from the start. Police also appealed for witnesses as they tried to reconstruct what happened in the small village in south-west France.

Carter had lived in Trémolat for more than a decade, making the violence especially stark for a place described locally as quiet and tranquil. Alan Carter, her husband, said she was someone with a “good heart” who loved to have fun. He later said he could not imagine “the terror and the fear she must have gone through”.

The woman under investigation had previously been described in reports as a female friend of Carter, and later accounts said investigators were looking at whether a grudge may have played a role. Other reporting said police had also examined possible links to people involved in renovations at Carter’s house, widening the inquiry beyond the immediate scene near her car.

The case has drawn attention well beyond Trémolat because Carter was not a short-term visitor but a long-standing resident with deep ties to the village. For Britons living in rural France, the killing is a reminder that visibility abroad can be fragile: when a British national dies in a small community, family, police, prosecutors and consular officials all become part of the response, and the details can quickly travel across borders.

Trémolat sits in the Périgord region of Dordogne, an area better known for its villages and river landscapes than for violent crime. That contrast has sharpened the sense of shock around Carter’s death, as French police continue to examine motive, witness accounts and the relationship between Carter and the woman now under formal investigation.