Here the BBC News website pieces together what we know of the crime that left four adults dead, a child badly injured and a little girl traumatised.
In an isolated forest car park, 4km (2.5 miles) from the nearest habitation. The nearest village is the hamlet of Chevaline, located in countryside popular with walkers and campers near the lake in France's Alpine region of Haute Savoie.
Saad al-Hilli, an Iraqi-born British citizen from the English county of Surrey, was found dead in his BMW car along with the bodies of his wife Iqbal and a second woman, described by French police as elderly. The elderly woman had a Swedish passport, French prosecutor Eric Maillaud said, while Mr Hilli's wife held an Iraqi passport. Their daughter Zainab, seven, was found shot and beaten. Another daughter Zeena, four, was found hiding under bodies in the car. While physically unscathed, she was "completely in shock and completely frozen", Mr Maillaud said.
Close to the car, the body of a cyclist was found. He has been named by French newspapers as Sylvain Mollier, a 40-year-old father of three who worked at a firm in the area. A second cyclist, a British ex-RAF officer, discovered Mr Mollier's body after coming across the BMW.
The British cyclist arrived at the scene at 15:50 (13:50 GMT) on Wednesday 5 September. The car's engine was still running and he recognised Mr Mollier as a cyclist who had overtaken him on the road. After tending to Zainab, who was outside the car with horrific head injuries, the British man phoned emergency services at 16:00. When police arrived they did not see Zeena. She was only found at midnight when forensics officers opened the car.
Several witnesses reported seeing a car speeding away from the scene around the time the attack took place. No arrests were made in the immediate aftermath of the attack nor did police report the discovery of any weapon at the scene. However, 15 spent, automatic pistol cartridges were found at the scene. "It was clearly an act of extreme savagery and it was obvious that whoever did this wanted to kill," said Mr Maillaud. He would not say if the nature of the attack suggested the work of a professional killer but said the victims had been "targeted" rather than shot in a hail of indiscriminate fire.
At a news conference on the day after the killings, the French prosecutor said investigators had hypotheses but these were "just conjecture at the moment". Newspapers suggest that the cyclist may have arrived while the attacker or attackers were still at the scene and was killed as a witness to the crime. Amid press speculation that the attack may have been a case of mistaken identity linked to drugs, police said the car park was not known as a haunt of dealers, regional newspaper Le Dauphine Libere reports.
They arrived on Monday and had been due to leave by the end of the week, Le Dauphine Libere reports. Other reports say they arrived at the end of August. They were staying in a caravan at a campsite, Le Solitaire du Lac, in St Jorioz, 8km from Chevaline. A woman at the campsite, whose name was not given, said she had seen the two women out picking apples with the two little girls earlier on Wednesday. "It was the first year that they had been seen here," she added.
The police who sealed off the crime scene were under orders not to disturb the bodies in the car before a forensics team arrived, Mr Maillaud said. Given the gravity of the crime, officers were dispatched from Paris, he said. Furthermore, the first police at the scene did not know there were two children in the family group until a link was established with the campsite. "Firemen, technicians and doctors all looked into the car through the holes in the windows but none of them saw the girl," said Lt-Col Benoit Vinnemann of the local gendarmerie. A helicopter with thermal imaging was also used to inspect the scene but it did not detect Zeena either.
Zainab was shot in the shoulder and beaten around the head, the French prosecutor said. "She was struck very violently and apparently has skull fractures," he added. She has been placed in an induced coma in a hospital in the city of Grenoble ahead of surgery. "Her life is not in danger but obviously she is no state to be interviewed," said Mr Maillaud. Zeena is "doing okay", he told reporters. As soon as investigators had opened the car door, she emerged, smiled and stretched out her arms. She spoke English but could not describe what had happened and was taken into police care.
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