A French woman who lived in south Dublin has been charged with the murder of her 29-year-old daughter in a suspected botched murder-suicide in Iceland last year that also claimed the life of her husband.
Ming Ting Mancel, who lived in Leopardstown, south Dublin, is facing the murder charge over the killing of Catherine Mancel in the June 2025 incident in which her husband Emeric Mancel (57) also died.
Her husband is suspected of assisting in their daughter’s murder in the luxury Reykjavik Edition hotel on June 14th, 2025. Karl Ingi Vilbergsson, a deputy district prosecutor in Iceland, confirmed the charge against her.
The family, who are originally from New Caledonia – a French island territory in the southwest Pacific Ocean – had travelled to the Icelandic capital from Dublin where they had lived for several years.
The family, who are believed to have agreed a murder-suicide pact that went wrong, have been named for the first time in media in Iceland and New Caledonia.
The family lived in the Central Park apartment complex in Leopardstown, according to a radio documentary broadcast by Iceland’s national broadcaster RUV.
The family are believed to have led a reclusive life in Ireland and were not widely known in the community. They had no online presence and their phones had been wiped clean, according to the Reykjavik Grapevine, an English-language news outlet based in the Icelandic capital.
A single photograph of the father and daughter exists online from a Kendo martial arts competition in 2014.
Catherine Mancel worked for a number of businesses in Dublin from 2017 and was listed as an employee of property rental website Airbnb at the time of her death, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Ming Ting Mancel was arrested at the Reykjavik Edition Hotel, where her husband and daughter were found dead after hotel staff alerted police to two bodies in a room with stab wounds.
Mancel was also injured in the incident. The French woman admitted to killing both her husband and daughter at the scene but later changed her statement, saying she had been upset when she made the confession and that it was her husband who had killed their daughter.
Mancel said her husband had kidney problems and was dying, and that the family were dealing with difficult inheritance issues and had decided to end their lives.
She claimed she did not want their daughter to be left alone.
Mancel said they gave their daughter the freedom to make her own decision and she had decided to die with her parents.
The Reykjavik Edition hotel where Dublin-based French father Emeric Mancel and his daughter Catherine Mancel died in June 2025. Photo: Karen McHugh
The family travelled to Iceland a week before their deaths, with the intention of the trip being their last family holiday before taking their own lives.
According to a recent report in the Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes online newspaper, Emeric Mancel had moved to New Caledonia in the 1970s as a child with his French parents. They had set up a jewellery business and amassed considerable wealth. His father died about 15 years ago.
Emeric married Ming Ting and had a daughter, and all three left New Caledonia around 2017 to live in New Zealand. Soon after that, the family moved to Dublin.
Some years later, Emeric Mancel’s sister Françoise Dhieux, who was caring for their elderly mother, noticed that her brother had transferred the entire family fortune, totalling more than €8 million, to bank accounts and property in his name.
In recent years, two court cases were taken over the allegedly stolen family inheritance, which, according to reports, ended up in New Zealand.
According to the report, a civil lawsuit was taken by Dhieux weeks before the family flew to Iceland. Four days after his death, a New Zealand court froze Emeric Mancel’s assets and funds.
Dhieux’s lawyer, Philippe Olivier, spoke on her behalf, saying Emeric Mancel “was of questionable character”. Dhieux herself had contacted Icelandic police after the family’s deaths, saying her brother exercised control and dominance within the marriage.
Ming Ting Mancel has served 12 weeks in custody. She is the subject of a travel ban and her passport has been seized by police.
She is free to move about Reykjavik. Her family are interred in a cemetery in the city and it is believed she visits their grave regularly.