Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Stranger Lured 12-Year-Old Girl to Her Gruesome Death

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

Lola Daviet was an adorable 12-year-old girl who was lured to her death by a woman who shouldn't have been France. Dahbia Benkired was an Algerian migrant who overstayed her visa and ignored an order to leave the country. Benkired was captured by surveillance video with Lola in October 2022 at the apartment building where Lola lived with her parents. Benkired confessed to raping, torturing and murdering Lola and stuffing her body in a suitcase. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through the horrific case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Dr. Daniel Bober  https://www.instagram.com/drdanielbober/Producer:Jordan ChaconCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. I know I killed a baby, an angel. She must be in heaven by now. A woman in France admits to torturing and murdering, a beautiful 12-year-old girl. And now she is the first woman in the country to go to prison for life ever. I ask for forgiveness. What I did.

is horrible. I go through the case of Lola Daviet and why her murder was so incredibly horrific. I'm Ann Janette Levy and this is crime fix. If you ever get hurt, you might need someone in your corner to fight for you and Morgan and Morgan can do that. The firm has more than a thousand lawyers on its team because they are big winners. They've recovered more than $25 billion for half a million clients. In the last few months, a client in Florida got $12 million after the insurance company offered just $350,000. In Pennsylvania, a client was awarded $26 million. That was 40 times the insurance company's $650,000 offer.

Another client in PA got $29 million after being offered $500K. So even if you think your case is not worth millions and millions of dollars, why not start a claim and fight for what you deserve? Morgan and Morgan makes it really easy. You can start a claim and just eight clicks on your cell phone. So if you're ever hurt, start a claim at for the people.com slash crime fix or scan that QR code that you see right there on your screen. I have to tell you, this case is absolutely terrible. I want to warn you, what happened to Lola Daviat was so disgusting and beyond the pale.

Lola was an absolutely adorable 12-year-old girl. She was the center of her parents' world. But her life, it ended so brutally that it sent an entire nation reeling and sparked outrage. Lola's case takes us to Paris, France, the city of lights, a city known for its beauty. But what happened to Lola there shows us all that can be wrong and dark when it comes to other human beings in this world. Just steps from the front door of Lola's home, there was a gruesome discovery. Her lifeless body was discovered. left inside a suitcase. The crime was so horrific and so unimaginable that it shattered France

and rewrote its legal history. 27-year-old Davia Benkerud was convicted of the brutal rape and murder of little Lola. Another woman accused of doing this to a little girl. It was an attack carried out in the very place that she should have felt and been the safest, her own home. The story garnered national attention as details emerged with every revelation becoming more disturbing than the last. Politicians seized every opportunity to twist the tragedy to fit their own agendas, all because Bankerad, a migrant from Algeria, shouldn't have been in France in the first place. Two months before the murder, she'd been ordered to leave the country, but she overstayed her visa. Lola was known for her big heart and bright sunny spirit, a loving, happy,

go lucky girl who saw the good in everyone and never hesitated to lend a hand. But tragically, those very qualities, her trusting good nature would allow a monster to take advantage of her. On October 14th, 2022, Lola had just finished up school for the week and was on her way home. The walk normally takes just two minutes. So when an hour past, her parents grew very concerned when she still wasn't home from school yet, the Daviats managed the apartment building operations in exchange for a break on the rent, so the couple had access to security cameras. The young girl's father, Johan heads to the office to watch surveillance footage and to his surprise, 45 minutes earlier, Lola enters the apartment building except she is with someone that doesn't look familiar.

He doesn't recognize this woman at all. Lola's parents take screenshots of the surveillance video and contact police. At this point, investigators know Lola successfully made it to the apartment complex at 3.20 p.m. And they have a potential suspect. There is no movement until 11 p.m. when a homeless man comes across a suitcase in the courtyard of the complex. Curious what's inside, he opens it to find a corpse with legs, feet, wrists, and face bound with tape. Lola's family would never, ever be the same.

Her mother's final words still echo in her mind. See you later as she kissed her daughter goodbye forever. The discovery of her body shifted the investigation from a missing person's case to a murder. Now investigators had a lead from the apartment surveillance cameras. Authorities tracked down other cameras in the surrounding area to establish her path of travel. They discovered that around 4.40 p.m., the suspect placed Lola's body in a trunk and exited the building carrying suitcases. The woman stops at a cafe where cameras capture her sitting calmly at a table with the body inside the suitcase. A patron notices blood coming through her luggage.

And when he asks her what it could be, the woman responds by saying she was selling a kidney. Police say an acquaintance picks her up after that with all of her luggage to go to another town. The concerned cafe patron snaps a photo of the license plate. A few hours later, she arrives back at the building in a taxi, but after noticing police in the area, she ditches the suitcases and flees. The next day, 27-year-old Dabia Bankerad was arrested. Police found a pair of scissors, an oyster knife, and an IKEA knife in her flat with traces of blood. Now remember that friend who gave her a ride from the cafe? Well, police used that license plate photo to track down the getaway driver.

A 43-year-old was detained so investigators could find out if he was involved in the crime. He cooperated with authorities and was later released. The investigation uncovered that Banker Ed was actually in hiding. In August 2022, two months before the murder, she was stopped without a resident. permit at a French airport, which resulted in the issuance of an OQFT. A QTF transcribed in English as obligation to leave French territory is an administrative order issued by French immigration authorities. Authorities gave her 30 days to leave the country, but instead Bankeret crashed at her sisters, which happened to be the very apartment building, Lola, resided with her family in. During

an interrogation, Bankerad confessed to luring Lola at the entrance gate of the complex by asking her for help with her suitcases. Lola was hesitant at first, but proceeded to assist her to the sixth floor. In that moment, Bankerad decided she was going to harm the little girl that so kindly helped her. Once Lola was in the apartment, Bankerad asked her to undress and take a shower. I'm not going to get into more details about how graphic the sexual assault was, but after Lola performed the sex act, Bankerad slammed the girl's head into the shower wall. Lola died from suffocation, but her body showed signs of mutilation by a knife, at least 38 wounds with at least two blows with scissors perforating her rib cage. The injuries suggested this 12-year-old suffered unimaginably.

She was tortured. The medical examiner's report stated that she was raped, both anally and vaginally, while she was still alive. When investigators reminded Bancred what she did to Lola with autopsy photos, she remained stoic and una. So investigators found it strange when she provided various motives for the attack. At first, she described she acted out of anger that the victim's mother had refused to give her an entry pass for the building, which now in retrospect is astonishing given that she had multiple reasons why she shouldn't have been at the apartment complex that day at all. Text messages recovered from Banker Ed's phone revealed she was exchanging explicit messages with her ex-partner the day of the attack. Banker Ed revealed and angered her so much that she wanted to hurt someone. Fifteen minutes after that argument, Bankerad crossed paths with Lola as she was coming home from school.

Bankerad claims that she saw a ghost in Lola, and investigators found she conducted searches online into witchcraft days before the murder, too. The number zero and one were written on Lola's feet, written in Red Inc, according to the Washington Post, which obtained the autopsy report. She gave specific facts and investigators were able to use that to rule out premeditation. Officials charged Bankerad with murder and rape of a minor under the age of 15 involving acts of torture and extreme violence. While in custody, she banged her head against the wall and shaved her head. She transferred to a psychiatric unit for difficult patients. Banker Ed was ordered to undergo mental health evaluations and experts who evaluated her mental health, noted her manipulative behavior but concluded she does not suffer from any major psychotic illness, so she must be held criminally responsible for her crimes.

A judge ruled her fit to stand trial, and for three years, she was held in a prison just south of Paris. Despite Banker Ed's confession to these crimes, the trial began on October 17th of this year to determine motive intent and the circumstances. French law requires a full trial before the courts, the chamber that hears the most serious cases, before a sentencing ruling is made. Prosecutors claimed that Banker Ed slashed Lola's throat with scissors in a box cutter before taping her face with duct tape, which ultimately led to her death by asphyxiation. Experts testified that little Lola undoubtedly suffered given its anxiety-inducing aspects, physical, psychological, and emotional suffering. On the second day of the trial, Bankerad took the stand in her own defense and spoke

for the first time about the murder. On the stand, she described growing up in a dysfunctional family spending time between Algeria and France with unloving aunts and an abusive father. At the age of 14, she said she was sexually abused regularly. Bankrupted also told the jury that she felt good smoking 20 joints a day. The day of the murder, she took Lyrica, medication used for the treatment of neuropathic pain, epilepsy and anxiety disorder, something she openly admit she was taking to try and cope with trauma caused from being a prostitute. Now we're using our law and crime, AI technology, to recreate part of the court proceedings. Here is Banker Red.

I took revenge on the little girl. She was a weaker person than me. I didn't choose her. It came suddenly. Since I had raped her, I might as well kill her. To tell you the truth, the day before, I had taken three Lyrica tablets. And that's what put me in this. state. The next day, I lost it. Before the guilty verdict, Bankerad asked for forgiveness.

I ask for forgiveness. What I did is horrible. That's all I have to say. The prosecutor poured cold water on Bankerad's explanation. Make no mistake, no drug treatment can fundamentally transform as Ben-Kirid's personality. When there is no illness, there is no treatment. The crowds outside the trial were incredibly unforgiving, upset that this child killer did not get the death penalty. The judge sentenced Bankerad to life in prison. She will not be able to apply for parole until the year 2052. Lola's mother and brother sobbed in an embrace in the courthouse, but the family's tragedy, it didn't end with Lola.

Her father drank himself to death in February of 2024. Before his death, it was reported that Lola's father left a note on the door of the apartment where Bankerad's sister lived. It read, my darling, I still don't understand why there was so much cruelty and barbarity towards you. You were so kind. I can't wait to see you again. Signed, your dad who loves you for life. So to discuss this case, I want to bring in Dr. Daniel Bober. He's a forensic psychiatrist. And, you know, Dr. Bober, I always bring you on to talk about these horrific cases. I can never get my head around these cases. I don't understand. I don't understand. what drives somebody, specifically a woman, to torture and sexually assault a 12-year-old girl, this beautiful little girl named Lola.

So what do you see, as far as you can tell, what on earth was going on with this woman who's now been sentenced to a rare, rare, rare life term in France? Well, Ann Jeanette, you know, it's an unusual case for many reasons. One, you don't usually see these offenders as women, so that's a statistical rarity. As you said, she did receive a whole life sentence in France, which is also very rare. And three psychiatric experts examined her and did not really find any clear motive. They basically opined that she was narcissistic, that she suffered from psychopathic traits, was manipulative, was manipulative, cold, callous, and basically had a need for domination. And if you look at the nature of the crime, which is sexual violence, that's very often associated with power and control. So there are a lot of things that are really odd about this case that don't fit the typical picture. Very much, though.

And that's what I don't get. I don't get how somebody goes from zero to this. And that's why I kind of wonder, is this? this is the first time this woman has done something like this. She, she was from Algeria. She was in France. She wasn't supposed to be in France. You know, she was supposed to be out of the country, but she wasn't. So that sparked this whole immigration debate and really fired up the people on the right there in France who have said, you know, we need to tighten immigration laws and things like that. But you're telling me that this. This Dabia banker ed, this is, she's 24 years old, and this is the first time she does something like this. She takes this adorable little 12-year-old girl and lures her into an apartment and commits this heinous act against her or acts against her at 24 years old. It's very strange, and there doesn't seem to be any obvious trigger. I had read something about the fact that her mother denied her a building pass.

And that was this some sort of narcissistic injury that was projected onto the daughter where the daughter was murdered as revenge against the mother for denying her a building pass, which obviously would seem like an extremely disproportionate response to the situation. And maybe this woman had some prior history of violence or prior history of trauma that caused her to react in this way. We just don't know a lot about her background. But these types of things don't often occur in isolation. There are very often genetic factors, experiences that people have, whether it be trauma or something else, that lays the groundwork for those to occur. Let's unpack the psychiatric part about this whole case a little bit. She was deemed to have psychopathic traits. We kind of know a little bit about that, but for viewers who may not.

know exactly what that means. Explain to me what psychopathic traits could mean. So psychopathic traits can mean people who lack empathy. They lack remorse. They're cold. They don't feel any connection to other human beings. They see them as objects that are essentially there for their manipulation. They're basically the worst of the worst. You know, there's overlap between people who are so-called antisocial and people who are psychopathic. But psychopaths are the people, you know, that we read about, you know, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy. I mean, these are really the people that are the sickest that prey upon society and do it without remorse, without empathy, without guilt.

And let's talk about the narcissistic traits. I mean, the narcissistic traits, you know, I think about that as somebody who's very self-centered, where everything's basically all about them but is there more to that yes so narcissistic people are as everything you just said they're very often people who have an inflated sense of self-worth they're always first they're very often thin-skinned they will react very harshly to criticism and they are essentially you know very empty people right they have a very fragile sense of self and anything can set them off and so very often they will compensate by seeming you know having this inflated sense of self in public and will make huge displays and they do this because deep down they're actually very insecure feel

very inadequate about themselves and compensate for that they'll very often compensate for that by outrely seeming like they are the most important thing and they will often sweep aside other people's feelings It's just, but the cruelness that she, you know, the cruelty that she inflicted upon Lola, you know, all of that coupled together. I just don't, none of what we are going to be able to talk about is going to explain any of it, but this, this was a little girl. And this is a little girl who suffered greatly. She was duct taped. She was sexually assaulted.

She was tortured. She was tortured. She was tortured. And so are we to possibly think that maybe this woman got some kind of pleasure out of harming a beautiful little girl? It would seem, it would seem now whether it was for its own, whether the act itself was the pleasure or whether she was taking pleasure out of some sort of sense of revenge towards mom, you know, she prayed upon the most innocent creature in the world, right? a small child who could not defend herself, who was completely defenseless. And so that's really the part that is the most disturbing, that as an adult, as a woman, you would think that there would be some connection for this child, some sense of caring,

of protection, but she did the very opposite. Yeah, it's just horrific. And then, you know, Lola, her father is just so devastated by this. he starts drinking again, he passes away. I mean, it's just, this is a tragedy on so many different levels. You know, this woman, I hate to even use her name. She's just, she's a monster. She was quoted as telling the court, you know, I ask for forgiveness and what I did was

horrible or what I did is horrible. That's all I have to say. Yeah, I mean, I think she's just shows like a lack of connection, like a lack of It's robotic, right? It's robotic. She knows that's what she's supposed to say. But there's no feeling. There's no connection in those words.

It doesn't really mean anything. She's saying what she's told by her lawyers that she needs to say. But she clearly doesn't feel it. And the worst part about it is she doesn't have really any feelings towards the little girl. It's really complete indifference. And that just shows the coldness, the callousness of the crime. And it's very disturbing. this says to me that this woman really isn't sorry she's not sorry um she she doesn't care and i'm

trying to think of like how somebody gets to this point would you say she probably isn't sorry and it's just for you to even be able to do something like this to a little girl to any other human being it's just like there's another there's just some kind of level of like coldness I see this. Dissociation. I don't know what you would call it. It really makes me want to know more about her history and what got her to this point of just complete indifference to the feelings of other people, right? It just seems hard for me to believe that one day she woke up and she was like this and this was her first act of cruelty. There had to be some events that led up to this.

Remember the sentence that she got in France is basically reserved for the worst of the worst you know terrorism suspects and so that really just gives you an idea of the seriousness and the cruelty and just the absolute brutality of this crime so i have to wonder you know looking more into her background even just for purposes of research to try to understand what led her to become this person and act this way you know genetics environment history of trauma substance use but you know these three psychiatric experts who examine Haven't heard did not find any evidence of mental illness outside these malignant personality traits and this character pathology.

And that's what's so disturbing here is that there could be people like this. And we know there are just walking among us. And, you know, there are people who will commit crimes who are like this. And they're just out there among the public. And what's so sad about it is that you may not be able to spot them because they have a mask. They, you know, they're just out there. It's like evil walking among us, Dr. Bober. Completely.

You know, these are people that you pass that are walking through the mall. They're walking down the street next to you and you don't even know it. And, you know, unusually, in this case, this was a woman. Most of the time, they're men. So it really makes you feel very uneasy and on edge, you know, living in a world where there are people like this walking around. who are experts at blending in, who know the things that they're supposed to say to appear, quote unquote, normal and civilized, and that this is what is lurking below the surface. Well, it is absolutely heinous.

And that beautiful little girl, Lola, I mean, just I hope she rests in peace. What was done to her is so beyond horrific. And I don't know how her family gets through this, just a beautiful, beautiful girl. and that woman is exactly where she belongs in prison, and hopefully she never gets out. I know it's a 30-year sentence in France, but she's where she belongs because I don't think she can be trusted to never do this again, to not harm somebody else. I agree. Dr. Daniel Bober, thank you for your time, as always. Thank you, In an interview with the media, Lola's mother shares that she always knew how to make friends.

She was very sociable and very attentive, and her brother created a slideshow in tribute to his sister. He said she was the smallest in the family. There she was, very small, and I was already taking care of her. We shared everything together as children, even our own bedroom. We often argued even every day, like brothers and sister. She was very shy with people. She didn't know, but also very kind, sometimes too much so. With our six-year age gap, we didn't have the same interests, but we both loved being

together at home with our parents. She was passionate about gymnastics. I found her very strong. She was a true champion. What I liked most was when she came to watch me play soccer. I missed those times. My little sister will always be alive in my heart. Well, in our hearts. Lola was a beautiful, beautiful young child and her parents have made it clear that they did not at all want her death used for any type of political gain. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Janette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.