An Algerian woman stands accused of committing a heinous crime that has sent shockwaves across France. The court heard today that 27-year-old Dahbia Benkired allegedly raped, tortured, and murdered a 12-year-old girl named Lola Daviet, stemming from a personal conflict with the girl’s mother.

The grisly incident reportedly began when Benkired sought access to an apartment block via a pass key, which Lola’s mother refused to provide. According to investigators, this denial led to Benkired luring the young schoolgirl to her tragic fate. She is accused of partially severing Lola’s head before suffocating her, using scissors and a box cutter in the brutal attack.

Prosecutors revealed that Benkired bound Lola with duct tape, including around her face, resulting in the child’s death by asphyxiation. In a chilling admission in court, Benkired confessed to forcing the girl to undress, bathe, and perform a sexual act, saying it was “for my pleasure.”

The presiding judge at the Assize Court informed jurors of the horrific nature of the crime, emphasizing that Lola’s head was partially severed at the neck. This shocking detail underscored the brutality of the attack.

Lola’s lifeless body was discovered in October 2022, found stuffed into a trunk in the lobby of the building where her parents worked as caretakers. The discovery and the details of the crime have left the community—and the nation—reeling from the horror of such an unimaginable tragedy.

In October 2022, Lola’s body was found in a trunk in the lobby of the building where her father and mother worked as caretakers. 

Building residents saw Benkired in the lobby of the apartment block in the 19th district, carrying suitcases and a heavy trunk covered in a blanket, the investigation showed.

An hour and a half earlier, security footage showed Benkired approaching the girl as she returned from school, then leading her into the flat her sister occupied in the building.

Dahbia Benkired (pictured) is accused of raping, torturing and murdering the 12-year-old girl in 2022

Lola Daviet (pictured) went missing in Paris in 2022, and her body was then found in a trunk in the lobby of the building where her father and mother worked as caretakers 

CCTV footage showed the Algerian woman luring Lola to her tragic death 

She placed the body in a trunk and exited the building, pausing outside a cafe, where she told a client who suspected something strange in her luggage that she was ‘selling a kidney’, investigators said.

She then convinced a friend to drive her and the bags to his home, before taking a taxi with the trunk back to the building where her sister lived. 

She fled when she saw police deployed in the area, but was arrested the next day.

A police investigation revealed that a pair of scissors, an oyster knife and an IKEA knife were found in Benkired’s flat with traces of blood. 

The Algerian woman had a tough upbringing with aunts before she settled in France in 2013, the investigation showed.

She told the court that she had been abused by family and neighbours as she grew up, claiming her aunts ‘forced her to watch pornographic films… and groped her in the forest.’ 

It was reported at the time of the killing that she was was the subject of an expulsion order, prompting stinging criticism from the right and one of the most bitter political debates in recent memory. 

Lola is pictured in this CCTV footage still wearing a white coat and carrying what appears to be her schoolbag

Delphine Daviet, mother of Lola, accompagnied by relatives, arrives at the Paris Assize Court for the trial of Dahbia Benkired, accused of raping, torturing, and killing Lola Daviet, a 12-year-old girl, in 2022, on October 17, 2025

She claimed to have suffered something of a mental breakdown following her parents’ deaths in 2019 and 2020. She said she would smoke up to ’20 [cannabis] joints a day’ to deal with this ‘tipping point’.  

She had overstayed a student visa and had failed to comply with a notice issued in August to leave France within 30 days.

She told investigators she had been angry with the girl’s mother, who had refused to give her a badge to get through the apartment block’s front door, after her sister had given her a key to her flat.

The probe showed she had conducted searches online into witchcraft days before the murder.

Benkired, whose trial is to last until next Friday, faces a maximum sentence of life in jail.

The girl’s family sat in court on Friday, wearing T-shirts with the words: ‘You were the sun of our life, you will be the star of our nights.’ One woman in her fifties broke down in tears when the defendant entered the dock. 

When asked by the judge what they expected from the trial, Lola’s family said they wanted just and for the truth to be revealed. 

Lola’s brother Thibault Daviet said, referencing his late father: ‘I would like to speak on behalf of the whole family… and of course my father, who is unfortunately no longer here because of the same person. 

Lola’s parents Delphine and Johan (pictured) are professional caretakers of a number of buildings in northern Paris, including the one where they live

‘We would like you to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, to all of France and to us’.

Benkired, speaking to the girl’s mourning family, today said in court: ‘I would like to ask the whole family for forgiveness. What I did was horrible and I regret it’. 

Conservative and far-right politicians seized on the case to call for better immigration law enforcement, after Benkired was found to have overstayed a student visa and failed to comply with a notice to leave France.

But the victim’s mother urged politicians to stop exploiting her daughter’s death.