FRESH details about the last moments of Brit expat Karen Carter’s life have been revealed.
The shocking finds could now sharpen the focus of the investigation into her murder after months of riddles and dead ends.
French detectives have reportedly learned that Karen, 65, unlocked her front door and turned on the lights before walking back to her car to fetch her puppy.
Her friends say the detail is crucial as it suggests she wasn’t ambushed the moment she arrived home, raising questions over whether she may have been speaking with someone she knew, or simply unaware she was seconds from a frenzied attack.
Another element noted is that she wasn’t wearing makeup at a wine tasting just an hour earlier, which pals described as strikingly out of character for the mum-of-four.
One friend recalled: “Karen hadn’t been wearing any make-up. It was very unusual because she was a glamorous woman. She looked tired and pale.”
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What happened next remains at the heart of a sprawling probe that has now stretched eight months since the Brit was stabbed to death in April.
A chilling pause
Investigators now believe Karen parked as usual on the gravel drive of her 250-year-old home in the Dordogne village of Trémolat, opened the front door, lit the house, and then returned to her Dacia Duster to get her dog, Haku.
She had just opened the rear passenger door when she was stabbed eight times with what police describe as “exceptional violence”.
Friends say the new sequence raises the same haunting question of why didn’t the killer strike earlier?
“Why the delay? Was the killer an assassin hiding in the darkness or was it actually someone she knew? Maybe Karen didn’t realise in that moment that her life was in danger,” one pal told the Daily Mail.
Her nearest neighbour heard nothing, only realising something was wrong when emergency vehicles lit up the quiet lane.
Secret affair
Investigators say she was quietly involved in a discreet relationship with 75-year-old retired executive Jean-François Guerrier, who lived nearby.
Her husband Allan, living in South Africa, told reporters the discovery of the affair after her death left “a feeling of complete betrayal”, though he insists the marriage was “not a fait accompli”.
She had left a wine tasting at Guerrier’s hill-top farmhouse around 10pm.
Guerrier arrived at her home shortly afterwards, only to find her lying face down beside the open car door, bleeding heavily.
He told a friend the scene was “just gore”.
Widowed Guerrier was taken into custody that night, with his blood-stained clothing seized, but he was quickly ruled out.
Marie-Laure Autefort, 69, a close neighbour said to have been “madly in love” with Guerrier, was arrested for 48 hours.
She was subjected to searches of her home, car and even a cave on her property, but no physical evidence ties her to the killing.
Authorities cite her allegedly “frail psychological state” as reason she remains on their radar, though she denies any involvement.
Detectives have also taken forensic samples from hundreds of local men, including gardeners, a roofer, a pool maintenance worker and several British expats.
All, so far, reportedly failed to match evidence taken at the scene.
One investigation source told the Mail: “This appears to point to an outsider visiting the village and carrying out this brutal crime.”
Cops reportedly interrogated locals about whether they “found Karen attractive” and whether anything “sexual” had ever occurred, prompting speculation investigators still view the murder as deeply personal.
Police previously seized two knives from a raid on a man in a neighbouring district. The man, said to be psychologically disturbed, was cleared.
Builders renovating one of Karen’s properties were also checked, though none are treated as suspects.
The case, investigators admit, remains wide open.
Karen, a dual British–South African national, was upbeat about her future in France.
She was buying a one-bedroom cottage, caring for a new puppy, and telling friends she felt safer in Trémolat than at her gated South African home.
Her daughter Liz said earlier this year: “I keep thinking about what her last moments would have been like. The colour in my life has washed away.”
She described the killer as a “deeply disturbed individual who had nothing going for them”, adding: “They saw my mother’s beautiful life and, for whatever reason, chose to extinguish her light.”