Knutby murder

Last updated

The Knutby murder (Swedish : Knutbydramat) refers to a murder in the village of Knutby, east of Uppsala, in Sweden on 10 January 2004. [1] [2]

Contents

Murder and arrests

At around 04:40, 30-year-old IT entrepreneur Daniel Linde was shot in the head and chest and seriously wounded. Two hours later, it was discovered that his employee and neighbor Alexandra Fossmo had also been shot [1] and was found dead in her bed. [3] The murdered woman was married to Helge Fossmo, a pastor in a local Pentecostal church, [4] who had gone with Daniel Linde in the ambulance to the hospital. [1]

The following day, 26-year-old Sara Svensson confessed to both shootings. She had worked as a nanny for the Fossmo family. Two weeks later, Helge Fossmo and Daniel Linde's wife, Anette, were also arrested. [3] Wiretapping had revealed to the police that Svensson and Helge Fossmo were lovers, and Helge Fossmo and Anette Linde were suspected of instigating both Alexandra Fossmo's murder and the attempted murder of Daniel Linde.[ citation needed ]

Anette Linde was released after two weeks and never charged. [4]

Death of Helge Fossmo's first wife

Helge Fossmo's first wife, Heléne Fossmo, had been found dead in her bath tub in 1999. Although she had a hole in her skull [5] and toxicology reports indicated a toxic concentration of dextropropoxyphene in her blood, her death had been ruled an accident. After the death of Alexandra Fossmo, the Heléne Fossmo case was reopened and reinvestigated. Helge Fossmo was charged with her murder but was ultimately acquitted. [6]

Trial

At the trial, Sara Svensson gave a detailed confession. She told the court that she had been influenced by anonymous text messages that were forwarded to her by Helge Fossmo. Her credibility was strengthened by the text of erased messages that could be recovered from her mobile phone. On 30 July 2004, Fossmo was sentenced to life in prison for instigated murder and instigated murder attempt. [7] Svensson was sentenced to institutional psychiatric care. In 2006, Fossmo confessed in an interview that he had in fact been involved; until then he had denied all charges laid against him. [8]

Media coverage

The murders and the following police investigation caused a lot of media attention both in Sweden and abroad. Details such as the victims' and perpetrators' involvement in the same cult-like Christian congregation (led by Åsa Waldau, sister of the murdered woman), as well as the pastor's sexual relationships with both the nanny and the wounded man's wife, were extensively covered in the tabloid newspapers. Waldau was frequently called "Kristi brud" (The Bride of Christ) in the media, following news that she had performed an engagement ritual with Jesus. She was also called "Queen Tirsa" by some members of the church and signed her SMS messages "T". [9]

An aspect of the case which aroused widespread media interest was the punishment of the persons involved in the crimes. Helge Fossmo was sentenced to life imprisonment while the person who actually murdered Alexandra Fossmo, Sara Svensson, was released into the custody of the psychiatric ward of Linköping court system (Förvaltningsrätten). In August 2006, she was allowed to walk around the grounds of the psychiatric hospital unsupervised. Twice per month, she was given unsupervised leaves provided she went with a relative to the town of Vadstena or nearby Motala. Starting in March 2007, Svensson was allowed to stay overnight at her father's house. In June 2007, the places she was allowed to visit were expanded to include the city of Linköping. [10]

Aftermath

In 2007, Fossmo married inside the Kumla Prison. [11] In 2008, Fossmo was relocated from Kumla Prison to Tidaholm after receiving death threats from other prisoners. [12] In early 2013, Fossmo had his first day out on parole from the Tidaholm prison. [13] In October 2014, after serving 10 years of his life sentence, Fossmo applied to the court and had his sentenced time determined, which meant that he would be released on parole in 2020. [14] In January 2015, the Göta Court of Appeal repealed the decision, on the penalty requirement of at least 24 years of imprisonment for the severity of the crime, so that the application for parole was premature. [15]

In January 2010, Aftonbladet reported that Sara Svensson began college at the folkhögskola , or folk high school, in Vadstena. [1] In early 2010, she received permission to live on her own during a six-month transition period. She presumably returned to society in late 2010, but Swedish law prevents the disclosure of any details pertaining to her release.[ citation needed ]

Cultural influence

The Knutby case became so notorious in Sweden that it has been used in fiction as an example of a sensational crime with no need for explanation. [16] [17] The name Knutby has also entered the Swedish language as a metaphor, even in contexts that had nothing to do with crime. For instance, a sports journalist who was dismayed that the players on the national football team were putting up a united front against the media and refusing to discuss possible personal conflicts wrote a piece headlined "The National Team Is like Knutby".[ citation needed ]

The crimes inspired a six-hour fictionalized Swedish miniseries, Knutby, first shown in 2021.[ citation needed ]

In 2021, HBO released a documentary about the crime called Pray, Obey, Kill . [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Serneholt</span> Swedish singer and model (born 1983)

Marie Eleonor Serneholt is a Swedish singer and model. She was a member of the Swedish pop band A*Teens from 1998 to 2004, and briefly pursued a solo recording career after the band dissolved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anette Norberg</span> Swedish curler and Olympic gold medalist

Anette Norberg is a Swedish curler from Härnösand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feminist Initiative (Sweden)</span> Political party in Sweden

Feminist Initiative is a radical feminist political party in Sweden. The party was formed in 2005 from a pressure group of the same name, and has since taken part in every election to the Riksdag and the European Parliament. The party won its first elected representative in 2014, with Soraya Post taking one seat in the European Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clark Olofsson</span> Swedish criminal (born 1947)

Clark Oderth Olofsson is a Swedish criminal. He has received sentences for attempted murder, assault, robbery, and dealing narcotics, and has spent more than half of his life in prison in Sweden. Olofsson has been called Sweden's first "celebrity gangster".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lill-Babs</span> Swedish schlager singer (1938–2018)

Barbro Margareta Svensson, known by her stage name Lill-Babs, was a Swedish singer, actress and television host. From the early 1950s until her death in 2018, she was one of Sweden's best-known and popular singers. She represented Sweden in the 1961 Eurovision Song Contest in Cannes with the song "April, april". She was also well known for the song "Är du kär i mej ännu Klas-Göran?".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlotte Perrelli</span> Musical artist

Anna Jenny Charlotte Perrelli, known until 2003 by her maiden name, is a Swedish singer and television host. Under her maiden name, she won the 1999 Melodifestivalen and subsequently that year's Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Take Me to Your Heaven".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Åsa Waldau</span> Former religious sect leader

Åsa M. Waldau is the former leader of a Christian sect in Knutby, Sweden, that disbanded in 2016. She is one of four sisters, the youngest of whom was the victim of the Knutby murder on January 10, 2004.

Helge Arnold Fossmo is a Swedish Pentecostal pastor sentenced to life imprisonment for solicitation of the Knutby murder in Sweden in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Molly Sandén</span> Swedish singer and actress (born 1992)

Molly My Marianne Sandén, also known by her middle name My Marianne, is a Swedish pop singer and voice actress. As a teenager, she represented Sweden in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2006 and participated in Melodifestivalen in 2009, 2012, and 2016. Her sisters Frida and Mimmi are also singers. In 2018, Sandén released her third studio album, Större. Her fourth studio album was released in early 2019, called Det bästa kanske inte hänt än.

Karl Helge Hampus Hellekant, later Karl Svensson, is a Swedish neo-Nazi who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for the murder of syndicalist union member Björn Söderberg on 12 October 1999. Shortly before the murder, Hellekant and some of his friends created "death lists" of more than 1200 Swedish individuals they wanted dead. Because of the content of the lists, his friends were also sentenced and the murder was declared a hate crime. Hellekant's efforts to become a physician, and his eventual dismissal from medical school at Karolinska Institute, became a controversial case in medical ethics.

Christine Schürrer is a German criminal, convicted of murdering two Swedish children, and seriously injuring their mother with 15 blows to the head with a hammer, after attacking them in their home in Arboga, Sweden, on 17 March 2008. The motive for the murders has been identified as jealousy, since Schürrer had dated the children's stepfather in 2006 while he was on holiday on the Greek island of Crète where she was working at a local hostel.

Per Anders Eklund is a Swedish murderer and rapist convicted of killing a 31-year-old woman in 2000 and a 10-year-old girl in 2008. Eklund is also a suspect in other murder cases currently under investigation, including the unsolved 1994 murder of Malin Olsson in Gothenburg. On 6 October 2008, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the two murders, one rape in Sandviken 2006 and on child pornography charges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nour El-Refai</span> Swedish actress and comedian (born 1987)

Nour El Refai is a Swedish actress and comedian. She became known for her participation in the candid-camera show Raj Raj in 2007 and hosted Melodifestivalen 2014. El Refai has also appeared in several movies such as Kronjuvelerna and Johan Falk: Spelets regler.

Lars-Inge Andersson best known as Lars-Inge Svartenbrandt, later Lars Ferm and even later known as Lars Patrick Carlander, was a Swedish criminal. Svartenbrandt spent almost 40 years combined in prison for several robberies, violent crimes, and prison escapes. He was described as the "most dangerous man in Sweden". Svartenbrandt described himself as an "uncurable psychopath".

Tommy Zethraeus is a Swedish mass murderer responsible for the murder of four people outside the restaurant Sturecompagniet at Stureplan, Stockholm on 4 December 1994. After Zethraeus and two of his friends were denied entry at the door to the restaurant, they went home by taxi and returned at about five in the morning. Zethraeus had brought with him a fully automatic Norwegian AG-3 battle rifle and gunned down three women, Katinka Genberg (21), Daniella Josberg (22) and Kristina Oséen (21), and doorman Joakim Jonsson (22). Over twenty other people were injured.

The shootings at the pub Vår Krog & Bar in Gothenburg happened on 18 March 2015. Two unidentified gunmen entered a pub in Gothenburg, Sweden and began firing indiscriminately at people inside the restaurant. The pub, Vår Krog & Bar, is located in the Biskopsgården neighbourhood of Gothenburg on Hisingen, an area that has witnessed gang violence. The shootings are one of the rare times in which an innocent bystander has been killed in criminal rival gang violence in Sweden. The shooters were part of a gang from North Biskopsgården out for revenge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sara Skyttedal</span> Swedish politician

Sara Magdalena Skyttedal is a Swedish politician previously of the Christian Democrats party. She was Member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2017 Stockholm truck attack</span> Islamist terrorist attack in Sweden

On 7 April 2017, a vehicle-ramming Islamist terrorist attack took place in central Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. A hijacked truck was deliberately driven into crowds along Drottninggatan before being crashed into an Åhléns department store. Five people, the youngest an 11-year-old girl, were killed. 14 others were seriously injured.

Emma Maria Wallrup is a Swedish politician and former member of the Riksdag, the national legislature. A former member of the Left Party, she represented Uppsala County between July 2014 and June 2018. She had previously been a substitute member of the Riksdag for Jacob Johnson between January 2012 and April 2012.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Sundell, Camilla (30 March 2010). "Snart släpps hon fri" [Soon she will be released]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 19 October 2012. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  2. ↑ "Sommarläsning: Helge Fossmo". Café Magazine (in Swedish). 13 July 2011. Archived from the original on 21 December 2011. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  3. 1 2 "Friheten ökar för Sara Svensson" [The freedom increases for Sara Svensson]. Östgöta Correspondenten (in Swedish). 3 July 2007. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  4. 1 2 "The definitive guide to – The Local". Thelocal.se. 10 January 2004. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  5. ↑ Borgos Hjelle, Thomas (22 November 2011). "Forsker: Knutby-saken bør tas opp på nytt". Verdens Gang (in Norwegian). Archived from the original on 29 December 2012. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  6. ↑ Kranc Hjelle, Lauren (3 May 2021). "Pray, Obey, Kill Finds Chilling Questions About the Murder in a Small Swedish Religious Community". Esquire. Retrieved 1 May 2024.
  7. ↑ Hanson, Matilda (23 April 2005). "Helge Fossmo gav tårfyllt vittnesmål" [Helge Fossmo gave tearful testimony]. Sydsvenskan (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  8. ↑ "The SMS Murder Mystery: the dark side of technology" (PDF). Oii.ox.ac.uk. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  9. ↑ "Kristi bruds egna ord om sitt sex med Jesus". Expressen. 23 November 2005. Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  10. ↑ Lindman, Anna; Johanson, Frida; Westman, Marianne; Wiberg, Susanna; Lindahl, David (9 June 2020). "Läs "barnflickans" egna ord om mordet och manipulationen i Knutby". SVT Nyheter. svt.se. Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  11. ↑ Tagesson, Pelle (21 July 2007). "Knutbypastorn gift – bakom Kumlas galler" [Knutby pastor married – behind the bars of Kumla]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  12. ↑ Hellberg, Magnus; Johansson, Andreas; Salihu, Diamant (5 April 2008). "Helge Fossmo tvingas flytta efter hot" [Helge Fossmo forced to move following threats]. Expressen (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  13. ↑ "Här firar Helge Fossmo i frihet" (in Swedish). Expressen.se. Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  14. ↑ "Fossmo får straffet tidsbestämt". svt.se (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
  15. ↑ Nilsson, Mårten (23 January 2015). "Inget tidsbestämt straff för Fossmo" [No fixed term sentence for Fossmo]. Sveriges Radio (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  16. ↑ Stieg Larsson (2006). "Chapter 21". Flickan som lekte med elden . Månpocket. ISBN   978-91-7001-483-3.
  17. ↑ TV show: Annika Bengtzon: Crime Reporter - Season 1, Episode 4 "The Red Wolf" @ 35:30
  18. ↑ Kranc Hjelle, Lauren (3 May 2021). "Pray, Obey, Kill Finds Chilling Questions About the Murder in a Small Swedish Religious Community". Esquire. Retrieved 1 May 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.