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British mother killed in Dordogne ‘had filed for divorce'

British mother killed in Dordogne ‘had filed for divorce'

Telegraph08-05-2025

A British mother who was stabbed to death in Dordogne revealed to her close friend the night before she died that she had filed for divorce.
Karen Carter, 65, was in the process of buying a one-bedroom cottage worth £135,000 in Trémolat, in the south-west of France, where she planned to permanently settle and live alone, The Telegraph was told.
The night before her death on April 29, Carter told Beverley Needham, her neighbour and fellow expatriate, over dinner that she was formalising her separation from Alan Carter, her husband, who lives in South Africa.
The next evening, she was found with multiple stab wounds in the driveway of her gîte 10 minutes after returning from a wine-tasting event at the home of Jean Francois Guerrier, her 74-year-old alleged secret lover.
Mr Guerrier was the first to discover Carter and phoned emergency services as she lay dying from eight injuries to her 'chest, groin, arm and leg'.
A local woman, identified as Marie-Laure Autefort, a 69-year-old retired carer, was arrested in connection with the attack and held by the gendarmes for 48 hours before being released after police checked her schedule.

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