Girl, 10, comes home from walk to find her nurse mother stabbed to death

The woman’s husband and children had gone out for the afternoon and discovered her body when they returned

A 10 year-old girl came home from a family walk to find her mother stabbed to death, French media reports.

The slain nurse’s daughter made the discovery on Thursday, after she, her father and two other siblings returned to their home in the Paris suburbs. The 42 year-old victim works night shifts and had stayed home to rest, Le Parisien said.

A police source told the French newspaper she appeared to have been stabbed in the neck multiple times.

The father had suggested it could have been a burglary gone wrong, and claimed neighbours saw the door to the apartment open at 3.45pm. But the police source said the home was not particularly messy and there were no signs of a break-in, Le Parisien added.

The family live in Maurepas, in the Yvelines department west of Paris.

Police from the Versailles Criminal Investigation Department were working to establish how anyone might have entered the home, and were questioning witnesses.

The woman’s body has also been taken for an autopsy.

The incident comes about a week after a man was arrested over the alleged murder of a 22-year-old woman and her baby at Charleville-Mézières, in north-east France.

The man, who was arrested on March 6, denied killing the baby but admitted to murdering his partner, according to the prosecutor in local media reports.

The 20-year-old man was arrested a week after the bodies of the woman and her child were found in a container on unused land.

In La Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille, a 16-year-old girl was found shot dead on March 8, and her father was taken to hospital with self-inflicted gunshot injuries.