“We're on the verge of beheading”: Radicalized woman suspected of violently killing her daughter

A mother is suspected of having égorgedé her daughter. She is known to the police for acts of Islamic radicalization.

On October 11, the police were contacted by Muslim funeral directors in Mulhouse, who had just been approached by a 44-year-old woman to bury her 19-year-old daughter. However, the mother was reportedly unable to provide a death certificate, prompting the funeral directors to alert the authorities, according to France Bleu Alsace.

The police then discovered the "victim lying on the floor in her room wrapped in a sheet", according to Jean-François Assal, deputy public prosecutor of Mulhouse, reports Le Parisien. The victim had 16 wounds, including a deep one on the neck. These wounds were probably “caused by a bladed weapon”, a ceramic knife was found at the scene. According to the autopsy, the victim had her throat cut and tried to protect herself, given the defense marks. “We are at “the limit of a decapitation”, indicated the Mulhouse prosecutor's office facing the violence of the scene.

Her mother was then the main suspect. She was placed in police custody, but following a psychiatric opinion, she was deemed unfit to remain there. The accused was then hospitalized under duress. An investigation for “murder by ascendant” was opened. The suspect will only be able to be questioned once the hospitalization has been automatically lifted.

A mother known for acts of Islamic radicalization

The motive for the alleged murder remains unknown, but the mother's profile has caught the attention of the police. The latter is “strongly Islamized”, according to the prosecutor. In police custody, she refused to communicate in any language other than Arabic, even though she was born and educated in France. She also reportedly devoted her life to religion, even mumbling prayers when the police arrived at her home. Furthermore, the forty-year-old is not unknown to the police, having appeared in intelligence files for acts of Islamic radicalization since 2019.

The victim, for her part, was out of school. The young woman was being monitored by a juvenile judge in order to get her out of her “very strict vision of Islam”, according to France Bleu Alsace. It is currently impossible to know whether this family context played a role in the tragedy that occurred in Mulhouse.