10-year-old girl comes home from family walk to find nurse mother stabbed to death

A shocking murder has rocked the quiet suburb of Maurepas, west of Paris, where a 10-year-old girl returned home from a family walk on March 13, 2025, to find her mother stabbed to death.

It seems like every other week, there’s another headline about a household incident turned deadly or a senseless act of violence. The victim, a 42-year-old nurse who worked night shifts, had stayed home to rest while her husband and their three children went out. Preliminary reports suggest that the father initially theorized it might have been a burglary gone wrong. Neighbors reportedly saw the door to the apartment open earlier in the afternoon.

« J’ai entendu un grand cri » : dans les Yvelines, une infirmière poignardée à mort chez elle.

Cette femme de 42 ans a été retrouvée morte par son mari et sa fille dans son appartement de Maurepas (Yvelines), jeudi en fin de journée. Le mystère plane encore sur les circonstances… pic.twitter.com/3QNOeA00UN

— Collectif Némésis (@Coll_Nemesis) March 14, 2025

But police have cast doubt on this angle. There were no signs of forced entry, and the home wasn’t ransacked. It wasn’t the chaotic mess you’d expect from a bungled robbery. Instead, the scene suggests something more chilling — perhaps a targeted attack by someone who knew the victim. The vast majority of homicides are committed by someone known to the victim, and in cases without obvious signs of break-in, close relationships inevitably come under scrutiny.

The investigation is now in the hands of the Versailles Criminal Investigation Department. Detectives are piecing together the questioning witnesses and waiting on the results of an autopsy. But the lack of obvious leads makes this case particularly challenging. 

France has its own approach to criminal investigations that differs in significant ways from American procedures. The French operate under an inquisitorial justice system, rather than the adversarial system found in the U.S. In practical terms, this means French investigations are led by investigating magistrates — juges d’instruction — who function as neutral fact-finders rather than prosecutors building cases. These magistrates have extraordinary powers to direct police investigations, question witnesses, and gather evidence independently.

Just recently, France has seen several other disturbing domestic violence incidents —a 22-year-old woman and her baby murdered in northeastern France, and a teenage girl shot dead near Marseille in what appears to be a family tragedy. As this investigation unfolds in the coming days and weeks, we should remember that three children have lost their mother. A community has lost its sense of safety. And a 10-year-old girl has experienced something that will require years of support to process — if such a thing can ever truly be processed at all.