The sleepy French village of Trémolat – a postcard haven for British expats dubbed “Dordogneshire” – has been gripped by fresh paranoia over the unsolved stabbing death of Karen Carter, with locals and investigators now probing a sinister theory: Was the 65-year-old mother-of-four assassinated by a hired killer? Three months after the former teacher’s brutal slaying outside her holiday guesthouse, friends whisper of a “meurtre commandité” – a cold-blooded professional hit – while gendarmes dissect tyre tracks, eyewitness sightings, and a village-wide DNA sweep to unmask the blade-wielding phantom who struck in the shadows.

Karen, a vivacious South African-born Brit who co-owned the 250-year-old La Perle de Trémolat with her estranged husband Alan, was found in a crimson pool on her driveway on April 29 – just minutes after pulling up in her Dacia Duster from a wine-tasting at the hilltop farmhouse of her recent flame, 74-year-old Jean-Francois Guerrier. The attack was savage: Eight deep gashes to her chest, groin, arm, and leg, severing her aorta in a frenzy that left paramedics powerless amid the spring dusk. Her handbag and beloved puppy Haku remained untouched in the car, suggesting a targeted takedown rather than random robbery. “It was gore,” Guerrier later shuddered to investigators, after discovering her body and attempting CPR in vain.

What began as a probe into possible lovers’ quarrels has pivoted to assassination suspicions, fueled by an eerie pre-murder sighting. On April 26 – three days before the killing – a French neighbor spotted a “suspicious” Black man, tall and muscled with “sculpted arms,” prowling the road fronting Karen’s home. No bag, no hiking gear, and a shifty glance that dodged the obligatory “Bonjour” – hallmarks of an outsider in Trémolat’s tight-knit lanes. “We made eye contact and he looked away very quickly,” the eyewitness recounted, adding he’s briefed police four times to no avail. “That’s very unusual around here.”

An investigating source echoed the hitman hunch: “The circumstances of the murder certainly point to a targeted assassination. He lay in wait, carried out the attack out of sight of anyone else and then made sure the victim was dead before escaping.” No CCTV blankets the crime-free hamlet, but early leads – tyre marks from a vehicle parked six minutes’ walk away through walnut groves and barley fields – have stalled, leaving forensics grasping at straws. Senior judge Clara Verger, wielding powers to chase leads abroad, has ordered mouth swabs from 15 locals who crossed Karen’s path that day, including wine-tasting guests and Trémolat’s 61-year-old mayor, Eric Chassagne. The goal? Cross-check against unidentified male DNA swabbed from her car’s steering wheel and gearshift – a potential breadcrumb from the killer’s touch. “It’s a process of elimination to close certain lines of inquiry,” Chassagne explained, recalling Karen as “beaming” and “radiant” at the soirée. One swabbed villager shrugged: “Police wanted to eliminate anyone who might have contacted her car.”

Guerrier, the silver-fox widower whose budding romance with Karen had tongues wagging at the community-run Café Village, rocketed to the top of early suspect lists. He hosted the fateful tasting – where a guest later claimed they felt “being watched” – and was first on scene, his hands bloodied from futile revival efforts. Detained 48 hours in May, he was cleared by dashcam and neighbor cams confirming his straight drive home. Now, he’s Trémolat’s reluctant puppy-dad to Haku, dodging murder talk at the café with a clipped: “Karen was a lovely lady.”

Neighbor Marie-Laure Autefort, 69, a divorcee with eyes for Guerrier, drew heat over a rumored “falling out” with Karen – but her bingo-night alibi and cinema CCTV axed her from contention after a 48-hour hold. Other red herrings, like a May 26 dog-walker assault on a 28-year-old local and a 31-year-old’s body found five miles away, were ruled unrelated – the former a botched mugging, the latter suicide.

For Alan Carter, 65, the revelations cut deeper than any blade. Holed up in Johannesburg – where he’d jetted three weeks pre-murder for Karen’s over-50s women’s football trip – he learned of her death via a cousin’s frantic Facebook ping from Café Village’s page, a full day after the fact. Their last chat? A mundane morning check-in on village scuttlebutt. Now, police-confirmed whispers of her Guerrier fling have shattered him: “The police investigation had confirmed ‘a relationship I did not want to believe, and that had been denied to me repeatedly by my wife’… It was so obvious that Jean-François had an affection for Karen, and I felt he took advantage of the time we were spending apart.” The divorce, filed in January with Karen offering their South African pad for the Dordogne gem she eyed renting out from a new village cottage, “wasn’t definite,” he insisted – a Hail Mary for reconciliation. “I felt the Café Village attracted a lonely bunch of people who had nothing else to throw their lives into… I felt they were having a strong influence on Karen.” Her four adult children – scattered across Australia, Britain, and the US – buried her in Bergerac in May; Alan visited Trémolat a week post-slaying, only to flee the “betrayal.” Karen’s mum, felled by grief three weeks ago, adds another layer of loss. “It’s such a small village, you think someone would know something,” Alan fumed, as French cops vow they’re “vigorously pursuing” the phantom.

Trémolat’s idyll – unlocked doors, no security cams – has curdled into suspicion. The Café Village, Karen’s volunteer haunt for quizzes and tunes, shuttered indefinitely post-murder before reopening May 28; a memorial there a week prior overflowed with photos, blooms, and the haunting “We’ll remember you well.” Her April 27 65th bash – last snaps with Haku – feels a lifetime away. Weeds choke La Perle now, abandoned blooms a stark reminder as gendarmes revisited the cordoned site this week, scouring exteriors anew. “We all miss Karen terribly but life has to go on,” a friend sighed, as summer’s British influx swells the lanes oblivious to the lurking dread.

The hitman specter fits a grim Dordogne pattern: Expat perils from 2023’s Lot-et-Garonne axe slaying to Aquitaine’s 2024 poison puzzle. Mayor Chassagne, himself swabbed, decries the “process” but prays for closure. With no blade recovered and the mystery man’s trail cold, Verger’s overseas remit hints at an imported assassin. As Alan mourns continents away, one friend’s plea echoes: “Whoever did this is a monster hiding among us.” In Trémolat’s whispers, the river runs red with questions – will the Dordogne yield its secrets before another expat falls?