WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: Dahbia Benkired has been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for the murder, rape and torture of Lola Daviet.
The world was left in shock by CCTV footage of a 12 year old girl returning from school, only to disappear and later be discovered dead in a trunk near her parents’ place of work.
It has since been revealed that she suffered an unimaginably horrific ordeal, being raped, tortured and ultimately murdered by Dahbia Benkired, an Algerian woman living in the same apartment block with her sister, who had been ordered to leave France.
A disturbing video of the alleged murderer dragging a trunk, believed to contain the young girl’s body, into a bar – along with details of the gruesome torture she endured in the hours leading up to her death – were presented in court in October.
Lola Daviet was sexually assaulted, attacked with scissors and a box cutter, and had her head partially severed by Benkired, then aged 24. The young girl also had her head, nose and mouth bound with tape and died from suffocation.
It is claimed that Benkired carried out the attack as revenge for the girl’s caretaker mother refusing to give Benkired a key to the apartment block, reports the Mirror.
The court was shown CCTV footage of the migrant unzipping a suitcase containing the girl’s body while seated at a busy Paris bar hours after the murder. Interestingly, authorities noted that the numbers ‘1’ and ‘0’ were mysteriously written on the victim’s feet.
The schoolgirl sustained 38 wounds on her back and neck before dying from asphyxiation, a doctor told the court.
“There is physical, psychological and moral suffering”, the doctor testified, as images of her injuries were presented to the court. “Asphyxia is very anxiety-provoking, it goes beyond physical pain. There were probably one or more impacts to the head, which creates physical pain.”
Several family members left the courtroom as photographs of Lola’s injuries were shown, revealing other horrific details, including that the 12 year old had sustained “visible traumatic injuries” to her genitals. “There was haemorrhagic trauma to various parts of the body, particularly to the child’s private parts”, the doctor further explained.
The child was also forced into performing a sexual act on Benkired and had a ‘large wound’ on her face, a lacerated back and her ‘head was partially severed’. After allegedly killing her, Benkired dragged her body around Paris in a plastic trunk, before abandoning it on the street where it was discovered by a homeless man.
Lola was seen entering the apartment building and speaking with Benkired at around 3pm before being taken into an apartment. Disturbing images of Lola’s naked body stuffed into the suitcase with her arms tied together and face completely covered in tape were shown to the court, causing her family to leave.
Moreover, CCTV footage viewed by the court captured the moment Benkired appeared to open the suitcase containing the girl’s body whilst at a bar on Rue Manin just hours after the murder on October 14, 2022. Benkired allegedly admitted her guilt straight away during police interviews and showed remorse towards her family during the October trial.
“What I did was horrible,” Benkired, now 27 years old, confessed in her opening statement to the Paris Assize Court on Friday, according to Le Parisien, The Huffington Post and NDTV. “I would like to ask the whole family for forgiveness. What I did was horrible and I regret it.”
After arriving in France in 2013 aged 14, Benkired was threatened with deportation following her student visa expiring in August 2022, merely two months before Lola’s devastating murder. Officers found a pair of scissors, an oyster knife and an IKEA knife covered in blood at Benkired’s residence.
Lola’s mother, Delphine Daviet, who donned a white T-shirt featuring her daughter’s photograph, called for “justice” whilst appearing in court. Lola’s relatives attended the hearing sporting identical t-shirts bearing the message: ‘You were the sun of our life, you will be the star of our nights.’
The probe uncovered that the suspected killer endured a troubled childhood with her aunts before relocating to France in 2013. She told the court she had suffered mistreatment from family members and neighbours during her youth, claiming her aunts ‘made her view pornographic material… and touched her inappropriately in woodland areas.
‘ She also revealed she suffered a mental breakdown after losing her parents in 2019 and 2020, confessing to smoking up to “20 [cannabis] joints a day” to manage this “tipping point”. The accused admitted to investigators that she held grudges against the girl’s mother, who had refused her a badge for entry through the apartment block’s main entrance, despite her sister giving her a key to her flat.
Speaking for his entire family, including his late father, Lola’s brother Thibault Daviet declared: “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. We would like you to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, to all of France and to us”.
In court, Benkired said: “I would like to ask the whole family for forgiveness. What I did was horrible and I regret it.”
Benkired was convicted of the murder, rape, and acts of torture or barbarity against 12 year old Lola Daviet. On October 24, 2025, she was handed a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
