Detectives have interviewed members of a women’s football team who toured South Africa with a British mother-of-four days before she was savagely stabbed to death in France.
Karen Carter, 65, was murdered in the Dordogne village of Trémolat, east of Bordeaux, in April last year.
She lived alone in a renovated farmhouse, while preparing to divorce her husband, Alan Carter, also 65, who was based 10,000 miles away, in South Africa.
Neighbours of Ms Carter in Trémolat have been arrested and then released without charge in the 10 months since the macabre crime, and the investigation is now increasingly focused on suspects Ms Carter may have met abroad.
She had joined a tour by her over-50s French football team, The Queens of Football (Les Reines du Foot) to South Africa, and may have met ‘people who wanted to harm her’ there, said an investigating source.
He added: ‘Women who were on the football tour have now been questioned by detectives.
‘The aim is to work out whom Karen Carter met in South Africa when she was not playing football, and if these people might be connected to her killing.’
Karen Carter, 65, was murdered in the Dordogne village of Trémolat, east of Bordeaux, in April last year. Detectives have interviewed members of a women’s football team who toured South Africa with Ms Carter before she was savagely stabbed to death
She had joined a tour by her over-50s French football team, the Queens of Football Les Reines du Foot) to South Africa, and may have met ‘people who wanted to harm her’ there, said an investigating source. Pictured: Ms Carter lived alone in a renovated farmhouse (pictured)
Ms Carter’s French lover, retired business executive Jean-François Guerrier, 75, was among supporters who joined the South Africa tour as a spectator.
He was originally arrested over the killing, after finding Ms Carter’s body, but has since been released without charge.
In a further twist, the source said French detectives have expressed ‘extreme frustration’ that they have not been able to access key financial documents in South Africa, including Ms Carter’s bank account records.
He added: ‘There is a lot of work to be done on the South Africa side of the investigation. It is of increasing interest, and the current focus of the enquiry.’
The football team began the tour on March 30th, and was eliminated from an international competition on April 4th.
Ms Carter then spent time with her family, including her husband, in East London, their home city on South Africa’s Indian Ocean coast.
Her corpse had eight major wounds, in the chest, groin, an arm and a leg, when it was found in France on April 29th.
Ms Carter’s French lover, retired business executive Jean-François Guerrier, 75, was among supporters who joined the South Africa tour as a spectator
A former friend of Ms Carter told the latest edition of France’s Sud Ouest(South West) newspaper: ‘For her [Ms Carter], it had been over with her husband for a long time.’ Pictured: Karen with her husband Alan
The sunlit village of Tremolat, a commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in south west France
DNA tests have found no link with any local suspects in France, leading to another senior investigator saying: ‘This appears to point to an outsider visiting the village and carrying out this brutal crime’.
The theory of a professional hit has been strengthened by the sighting of a ‘suspicious man’ close to Ms Carter’s Trémolat home, just three days before she was killed, and he has never been traced.
Mr Carter has expressed his surprise that his wife was seeing Mr Guerrier, and insisted the divorce was ‘not a fait accompli’.
This was despite Ms Carter, who had dual British and South African nationality, spending most of her time in France, in the lead up to her death.
At the time, the Carters were focused on dividing properties they owned, including a portfolio in south west France, where Ms Carter managed a rental business worth at least £1million.
A former friend of Ms Carter told the latest edition of France’s Sud Ouest (South West) newspaper: ‘For her [Ms Carter], it had been over with her husband for a long time.
‘But he didn’t want to hear it. Karen had sent the divorce papers just before her death. She told me on Monday. On Tuesday, she was killed.’
In an interview last month, Mr Carter expressed ‘frustration’ at the lack of progress in the investigation, saying: ‘It’s such a small village. Surely there must be prime suspects.’
He was aware of the ‘contract killer’ theory, and believed it was fuelled by gossip about his 30-year marriage.
The couple had four adult children together – two daughters and two sons – and they live in the UK, America, Australia and South Africa.
A source working with Périgueux prosecutors, who are leading the investigation into Karen Carter’s death, said: ‘The enquiry is ongoing, and all leads are being explored.’