Swedish skeleton lover 'wants her bones back'

A Swedish woman facing criminal charges for using human bones as sex toys appeared in court on Tuesday, and is claiming her innocence amid speculation that she wanted to start a pornographic website for necrophiliacs.

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The 37-year-old woman was arrested in September when police arrived at her flat and found human skeletons and knives after responding to a call about gunfire coming from the apartment.

"You should have been here last week. Then I had 20 skulls," she told police when they arrived, according to the Aftonbladet newspaper.

The woman is believed to have used the human bones for sexual gratification and has been charged with violating the peace of the dead (brott mot griftesfriden).

However, she adamantly denies using the skeletal remains for sexual purposes and at the start of the trial on Tuesday demanded she be released and reunited with the bones confiscated by investigators.

"She had the impression that they were very old bones and she had them as historical objects," the 37-year-old's defence lawyer, Annika Stanislaus, told the court.

Among evidence collected by investigators are two CDs labelled “My necrophilia” and “My first experience” which contained a number of document files and pictures.


WARNING: RELATED GALLERY CONTAINS IMAGES THAT MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO VIEWERS

Investigators believe most of the human bones belonged to people who were born in the 1940s and 1950s.

Prosecutors have also included a posting on the controversial Swedish internet forum Flashback they believe was written by the 37-year-old in which she details her fascination with death and erotica.

"I have access to a large collection of pictures of dead people and am considering starting a pornographic website with sensual images of beautiful corpses (men and women) in sexual contexts," the posting from 2004 reads, according to the Expressen newspaper.

"The idea is that visitors would be able to contribute with their own pictures, etc. Today, there doesn't appear to be any similar site which features erotica with death and the beauty of corpses."

A preliminary psychiatric investigation showed the woman does not suffer from any mental illness.

The case has also sparked a great deal of interest abroad, with Australian media speculating that the woman managed a website which published images from a high-profile case stemming from Brisbane.

The images showed a half-naked, badly beaten body of a murdered 12-year-old girl from outside Brisbane.

Australian police launched an investigation into how the images ended up on a Swedish website, but were unable to get any further than the pseudonym which has now been connected to the 37-year-old woman on several internet chat forums.

On Monday, prosecutors suffered a setback when a female friend of the 37-year-old said she refused to testify against the woman.

The trial is expected to last three days, with the 37-year-old woman expected to testify on Tuesday.

If convicted, she faces up to two years in prison.

TT/The Local/dl
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