SEVERAL suspects who may have “had feelings” for Brit mum Karen Carter before she was stabbed to death are being investigated by police.
French cops have probed builders working on a property she was renovating and even seized knives after raiding a home in a neighbouring district.
It comes as police continue to try to piece together the “frenzied attack” on Karen in the Dordogne earlier this year.
Authorities carried out background checks on several construction workers who were renovating one of the Brit’s homes at the time of her death.
But they are not currently being treated as suspects.
Cops also managed to seize two knives from a home raid on a man living in a neighbouring district as part of the investigation.
The suspect, in his 30s, was described as psychologically disturbed, but authorities found no evidence to prove he was linked to the murder.
A source told Le Parisien that female suspect Marie-Laure Autefort, 69, was still linked to the knife attack due to her alleged “frail psychological state”.
She was also allegedly involved in a grisly love triangle with Jean-François Guerrier, 75, and Karen, who was 65 years old when she was stabbed to death in the Dordogne.
Autefort was close neighbours with Karen, with the pair living just 10 minutes apart in the village of Tremlolat.
The suspect was said to be madly in love with retired business executive Guerrier, while he on the other hand was more interested in a pursuing a relationship with Karen.
Autefort now remains under the suspicion of authorities, the French newspaper reported on Wednesday.
She denies involvement in the murder – and no physical evidence seems to incriminate her.
Her property and car were searched, tracking dogs were deployed, and her associates were questioned.
A cave on her large property was even probed by cave experts who also came back empty handed
She was initially released from police custody after 40 hours of questioning.
Despite this, investigators in charge of the case remain aware of her particularly unstable psychological state.
Guerrier was the first person to find Karen’s body shortly after her murder.
He alerted emergency services, before he too was taken into custody, questioned, and then released.
He is currently not being treated as a suspect.
He has since told police that he “had come to spend the night at Karen’s,” Le Parisien reports.
Guerrier also told police to investigate Autefort, according to local media.
Karen’s husband, Alan Carter, remained at their home in East London, South Africa, at the time of her death.
Some media outlets speculated that her husband could have orchestrated the attack – but this baseless theory is not supported by any evidence.
Karen, a British-South African national, died on April 29 after having spent a night out with friends.
She was murdered next to her car and suffered eight stab wounds in what has been described a “frenzied attack”.
The beloved local was found a few steps from the entrance to a house she was renovating.
It comes after Karen’s children broke their silence for the first time in June.
Karen’s daughter Liz, an engineering student in the US, said: “I keep thinking about what her last moments would have been like.
“The colour in my life has washed away.”
She added that her mum’s killer was clearly a “deeply disturbed individual who had nothing going for them”.
“They saw my mother’s beautiful life and, for whatever reason, chose to extinguish her light,” she said.
