The English-speaking girl was discovered around midnight on Wednesday, huddled between the front and back seats of the British-registered BMW, under the legs of two dead women thought to be her mother and grandmother, a public prosecutor said.

Apparently too scared to move, she went unnoticed by police for some eight hours until investigators finally opened the doors of the car, standing on a forest road near Lake Annecy, to begin a close forensic inspection.

“She’s clearly shocked but she’s doing okay. She’s not injured,” Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud told reporters in a late-night briefing.

Four people were found killed in the attack in the French Alps — the young girl’s presumed parents and grandmother, and a local cyclist who had been reported missing.