SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

84-year-old killed for ‘not lending grandson her car’

Murder charges have been filed against a 22-year-old Swede suspected of killing his 84-year-old grandmother after she refused to let him borrow her car.

The man, a resident of Borås in western Sweden, is suspected of having stabbed and beaten his grandmother in October of last year before suffocating her to death by rolling her head up in a rug, the local Borås Tidningen (BT) reported.

After allegedly killing his grandmother, the man then took her mobile phone and drove off in her car only to later run off the road.

He then called his mother, who came to pick him up.

The 22-year-old then explained that something terrible had happened to his grandmother.

The man’s mother called the police, who subsequently found the 84-year-old with stab wounds and head trauma. She also had her head tightly wrapped up inside a rug.

The 22-year-old was arrested later that evening and remanded in custody several days later.

Investigators found traces of the 22-year-old’s DNA on the shaft of a knife believed to be used in the deadly attack, as well as blood from the 84-year-old grandmother on the man’s clothes.

While the grandson has admitted he was present at his grandmother’s home, he has yet to provide a full account of what took place, despite several interrogations.

The man was said to have a good relationship with his grandmother, but prosecutors believe the 84-year-old’s refusal to lend her car to her grandson, who was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time, may have led the 22-year-old to kill her.

“One can only speculate as to why he was so determined to borrow the grandmother’s car. An educated guess could be that drugs may have had something to do with it,” prosecutor Daniel Edsbagge told BT.

In filing the murder charges on Monday, Edsbagge said he believed he had “solid evidence” implicating the 22-year-old in his grandmother’s death.

According to BT, the man had been charged with a number of other crimes earlier in the year, including attempted assault, petty theft, and a number of drug offences.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Sweden’s ‘snippa’ rape case to go to the High Court

When Sweden's appeals court threw out a guilty verdict in a child rape case over the meaning of 'snippa', a child's word for a vagina, it caused a scandal in Sweden. Now, the Swedish Supreme Court wants to hear from the Court of Appeals about its decision.  

Sweden's 'snippa' rape case to go to the High Court

Attorney General Petra Lundh criticised the appeals court for “a number of serious miscarriages of justice” in the way it dealt with the case. 

The man had been sentenced to three years imprisonment in 2021 after the district court heard how he, in the prosecutor’s words, had “by sticking his hand inside the plaintiff’s shorts and underwear, holding his hand on the the girl’s ‘snippa’ and having a finger inside her ‘snippa’, performed a sexual act” on her. 

The girl’s testimony was found to be credible, in part because she had told her mother about the incident on their way home.

But in February this year, the appeals court threw out the conviction, arguing that it was unclear what the girl means by the word snippa, a word taught to Swedish children to refer to female genitalia.

Despite agreeing with the district court that the man had touched the girl between her legs and inserted his finger into her snippa, the court found that it could not be determined whether the girl was referring to her vulva or to her vagina.

If the man had inserted his finger into her vagina, that would have met the standard to be classified as rape. Because the girl said that his finger was “far in”, but could not state exactly how far, the appeals court found that it could not establish beyond doubt that the man had inserted his finger in her vagina and not her the vulva.

Because no lower-grade charges, such as sexual abuse or molestation, had been filed against the man, the appeals court could not consider other offences.

This week, the Attorney General lodged a complaint with the Supreme Court against the appeal court’s decision. Now the Swedish Supreme Court has given the appeals court until April 12 to explain its decision-making in the case.

The Supreme Court has not decided whether it will hear an appeal against the decision to clear the man of rape charges.

SHOW COMMENTS