In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, where dreams of Parisian life often clash with harsh realities, the 2022 murder of 12-year-old Lola Daviet remains a scar on France’s collective conscience. Raped, tortured, and partially decapitated by an Algerian migrant who had evaded deportation, Lola’s death ignited national fury over immigration policies and ignited protests across the country. But three years later, the tragedy’s echoes have claimed another victim: her father, Johan Daviet, who succumbed to alcoholism in what his widow describes as a death “of grief.” As the killer, Dahbia Benkired, faces life imprisonment without parole—the first such sentence for a woman in modern French history—Lola’s mother, Delphine Daviet, laid bare the family’s unimaginable pain in a Paris courtroom last week, turning a tale of brutality into one of profound, unrelenting loss.

The case, which unfolded in the gritty 19th arrondissement of Paris, exposed fractures in France’s social fabric. Lola, a bright and bubbly aerobics champion born on July 18, 2010, in Béthune, northern France, was the youngest of two children to Johan and Delphine Daviet. The family had relocated to the capital, where Johan worked as a caretaker for a modest apartment block on Rue Manin, maintaining the grounds and fostering a tight-knit community among residents. Delphine, his wife of many years, assisted in the role, creating a stable, if unassuming, home for their daughter and son, Thibault. Lola was described by her mother as a “mini-me”—sociable, kind-hearted, and naively trusting, always eager to lend a hand to neighbors or chat with passersby after school at Collège Georges Brassens.

On October 14, 2022—a crisp autumn Friday—Lola’s routine shattered. She left school around 3 p.m., her backpack slung over one shoulder, planning to walk the short distance home. CCTV footage captured her entering the apartment building at 3:20 p.m., trailing a woman later identified as Benkired. What followed was a descent into horror. Benkired, 27 at the time, had been living irregularly in France since arriving on a student visa in 2016. By 2022, she was jobless, homeless, and working sporadically as a sex worker, crashing at her sister’s unit in the same complex. Just two months earlier, in August, French authorities had detained her at Orly Airport for lacking valid papers and issued an expulsion order (OQTF), giving her 30 days to leave for Algeria. With no criminal record, she was released without detention—a decision that would later fuel outrage.

Prosecutors allege Benkired targeted Lola out of petty resentment. As building caretakers, the Daviets controlled access keys, and Benkired had repeatedly badgered Delphine for her own set to come and go freely—a request firmly denied to prevent unauthorized entries. In a chilling sequence pieced together from Benkired’s confessions and forensic evidence, she lured the girl into the sister’s empty apartment under false pretenses. There, she forced Lola to shower, raped her, compelled her to perform a sexual act, then escalated to torture: stabbing her repeatedly with scissors, slashing her throat, and sealing her mouth with duct tape until she suffocated. The autopsy revealed 39 wounds, including genital injuries and a deep gash across her face, with the girl’s head nearly severed in a partial decapitation. Eerily, Benkired scrawled the numbers “1” and “0” on Lola’s feet—possibly a twisted reference to a video game or personal delusion, though she offered no clear explanation.

By 4:30 p.m., Johan, waiting anxiously at home, reported Lola missing to police. Delphine took to Facebook at 6:45 p.m., pleading for help in a post that would garner thousands of shares. Hours later, at 11:30 p.m., a homeless man scavenging in the building’s lobby stumbled upon a black travel suitcase leaking fluid. Inside lay Lola’s mutilated body, bound and discarded like refuse. Benkired had been caught on camera wheeling the heavy luggage out earlier, feigning nonchalance. Police swarmed the scene, finding bloodied duct tape and a box cutter in the basement. Benkired was arrested the next day, October 15, after neighbors tipped off authorities about her erratic behavior—she had been spotted wandering, muttering incoherently, and even bragging about the crime to acquaintances.

The investigation unfolded with grim efficiency. Benkired was indicted on October 17 for “murder of a minor under 15” and “rape with torture and acts of barbarism.” Her interrogations were a labyrinth of contradictions: She alternated between full confessions—detailing the rape and suffocation—and wild denials, claiming it was a “dream,” the work of a ghost, or coercion by a phantom ex-boyfriend who drugged her. No evidence supported her hallucinations; psychiatric evaluations deemed her mentally fit, with normal intelligence and no diagnosed pathology. She expressed fleeting remorse but also indifference when shown autopsy photos, citing her own history of rape and family trauma in Algeria. Her lawyer insisted the motive was personal grudge, not racial or ideological, though right-wing critics seized on her migrant status.

France reeled. Vigils sprang up nationwide, with thousands marching in Paris’s 19th district on November 16, 2022, carrying photos of Lola and chanting for justice. President Emmanuel Macron met the Daviets, condemning the act as “extreme evil,” while Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin attended her funeral. Politicians from Marine Le Pen to Éric Zemmour lambasted the Macron government, dubbing the killing a “francocide” and decrying lax deportation enforcement. “Lola lost her life because you didn’t expel this national,” Republican MP Éric Pauget thundered at Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti in parliament. Protests swelled, blending grief with demands for immigration reform, as data showed over 120,000 pending expulsion orders in France at the time.

For the Daviets, survival became the real battle. Johan, once a sober family anchor, relapsed the day Lola’s body was found. “He drank from morning to night,” Delphine recounted tearfully in court last week, her voice breaking as she faced Benkired across the Paris Assizes. The couple separated amid the strain; Johan lost his job and spiraled into isolation, haunted by unanswered questions. In a poignant letter pinned to the killer’s apartment door before his death, he wrote: “My darling, I still don’t understand why there was so much cruelty and barbarity towards you, you who were so kind. I can’t wait to see you again. Your dad, who loves you for life.” On February 23, 2024, at age 49, Johan died in Fouquereuil from alcohol-related complications—his widow’s verdict: “He died of grief,” destroyed by “his demons.”

Delphine, now 50, stood as the family’s lone sentinel at the trial, which opened October 17, 2025. Flanked by son Thibault, 16, she addressed Benkired directly: “This thing, this monster… Why did Lola follow her?” She begged a forensic pathologist if her daughter suffered—receiving the gut-wrenching reply: “She undoubtedly suffered.” Viewing crime scene photos in court, Delphine confronted 39 stab wounds and the partial decapitation, her composure cracking as she demanded: “I remind you that I lost my Lola, my husband, my job, my home. My whole life has collapsed.” What sustains her? “My son,” she whispered. Thibault, who has shouldered survivor’s guilt, attended every session, his presence a quiet testament to resilience.

The weeklong proceedings culminated on October 24 in a landmark verdict. Benkired, shackled and isolated since her 2022 arrest at Fresnes Prison, confessed anew but clung to excuses—blaming a hallucinogenic drink from an ex. “I know I killed a baby, an angel… What I did was horrible and I regret it,” she told the court, her apology met with stony silence from the Daviets’ lawyer, Félicien Baniflat. The chief judge, weighing the “extreme cruelty” and “indescribable psychological harm,” imposed réclusion criminelle à perpétuité incompressible—life without parole. It marked the first such penalty for a woman since 1994, joining just four men in France’s legal annals. Benkired showed no reaction; Delphine and Thibault, through their attorney, expressed quiet satisfaction, though no sentence erases the void.

As 2025 wanes, Lola’s story lingers as a cautionary emblem. France’s immigration debates rage on, with expulsion backlogs persisting and right-wing voices amplifying calls for reform. Yet amid the politics, the human cost endures: A mother’s unyielding fight for her lost “angel,” a brother’s shadowed youth, and a father’s grief that proved fatal. Delphine’s courtroom plea—”How am I still standing?”—echoes the fragility of healing. In a nation of monuments to resilience, the Daviets’ quiet endurance stands as its own memorial, a reminder that some wounds never fully close.