POLICE investigating the homicide of Lizzie Roussel are expected to follow up her claims that she was living in fear. The 41-year-old mother and grandmother, who died in intensive care on Monday morning, had said that she and her family were victims of vandalism and intimidation at their home at Saumarez Mill Estate, St Martin’s.

Her son’s car tyres had been slashed, the family received telephone threats and a lump of granite thrown through a living-room window narrowly missed her 22-year-old son, Luke.

The string of alleged incidents goes back more than five years.

Mrs Roussel previously told the Guernsey Press that she would feel more protected in prison than in her own home.

‘I fear for my safety,’ she said in April this year. ‘I don’t want to live here any more – I’m scared to go to sleep.’

Police are still holding two female suspects. Officers were granted an application at 4.50pm on Tuesday to detain the two arrested women – one a juvenile aged 16 and the other aged 19 – for a further 36 hours.

No charges have been made but a police spokesman said that they would remain in custody until 11am today.

After that, there would be four possible outcomes. The women could be released without charge, released on bail, charged and detained or an application could be sought for a further extension to their detention.

They were arrested following an alleged incident in Town in the early hours of Friday.

Mrs Roussel was subsequently admitted to hospital and died there at about 7.30am on Monday.

The incident occurred at about 12.30am on the Friday and police are still urgently appealing for witnesses.

Inspector Trevor Coleman said that a Home Office pathologist who was flown to the island late on Tuesday afternoon has carried out an autopsy but the results have not been disclosed.

Neighbours on the estate, while shocked to hear of the death, also blamed Mrs Roussel for some of the difficulties there.

‘We had to put up with rowdy behaviour, loud music and foul language,’ said one.

‘We had one confrontation; it was all to do with the bad language. When the family moved here four or five years ago, we had problems from the word go.’

Another neighbour said that trouble surrounded the Roussel family.

‘They didn’t get on with one other person on the estate; it went back a long time. It never went on on the estate, but they were always raring up behind closed doors.

‘There were always bricks being thrown through their windows. I thought they brought it upon themselves.

‘The police have been up here many times, but it’s because of them fighting among themselves.’

However, the family doctor earlier likened Mrs Roussel’s experiences to those of people in Kosovo and East Timor.

She said that it was contributing to her patient’s deteriorating health and Mrs Roussel claimed to have taken an overdose of antidepressants.

Her son had been assaulted and her daughter, Emma, had moved away from their home.

Other residents of the estate also claimed to have been terrorised, with damage to properties and cars running into thousands of pounds.

Mrs Roussel, her son and son-in-law were branded bullies by the Magistrate’s Court in July 2002 after an unprovoked racist attack in Grande Rue, St Martin’s.

The court heard that Mrs Roussel had a grudge against foreigners because a Portuguese man had made her daughter pregnant.