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At quarter to nine on a Saturday morning, a mother calls 112.
Her 10-year-old son lies lifeless on the floor and her then 15-year-old daughter says something happened.
– I don’t know what she has done. Help me, says the mother.
Today, the girl was sentenced to closed youth care for two years and eight months for the murder of her little brother.
For years, the girl had behaved aggressively and violently towards her family.
In the preliminary investigation, there are several other police reports against the girl after she smashed the interior of the home, kicked her mother and hit her 10-year-old little brother. On one occasion she also threatened the family with a knife.
Once the little brother called 112 himself to alert the sister. When the police arrived at the scene, he had marks and blood on his neck.
The police patrol later wrote in their report about the girl that she “expresses a strong hatred towards her little brother, that she wishes mother and little brother were not there.”
“Didn’t know it was so serious”
On July 16 last year, the police were once again called to the home in western Stockholm.
The mother said that she found the 10-year-old son lifeless in the apartment. He was taken by ambulance helicopter to hospital but his life could not be saved.
The forensic examination showed that he had been torn, bitten and then strangled to death.
The girl, who is now 16 years old, was arrested the same day.
She has admitted some of the circumstances.
She says in questioning that she and her brother were close, and used to draw together, but that sometimes they fought like dogs and cats. She also says that she was brought up to fight back if she is attacked.
She cannot explain that it went as far as it did this morning.
– So I just want to shut him up. So not that I kill him, absolutely not, she says in questioning.
Two years and eight months
Today, the girl was sentenced to closed youth care for two years and eight months. The penalty for an adult would have been 18 years in prison.
The district court has assessed that the girl acted with so-called indifference intent. This means that she understood that the boy could die from her actions, but that this did not stop her from doing what she did.
According to the forensic psychiatric examination that was carried out, the girl does not suffer from any serious mental disorder.
Three reasons when children kill
Children killing children is very rare. There are only a handful of noticed cases in Sweden in the last 20 years.
Margit Ekenbark, child psychologist with many years of experience, says that there are often three reasons why children kill.
It may partly be about a game that goes too far.
– It could also be about a child who has not learned to set boundaries and manage their aggressiveness due to a poor social environment or it is a child with a genetic inheritance that makes it difficult for them to manage impulses and aggressiveness, she says .
As for the now 16-year-old girl, she has been the subject of investigations by social services since she was 11 years old. They reveal how the girl has long been violent and aggressive at home.
“She has, among other things, physically injured family members, used threats to get her way and damaged the home and its belongings,” an investigation reads.
Judging from the police reports, it is often small things that make the girl furious. Like the mother wants her to go to school, or the internet isn’t working.
The girl has been placed outside the home several times during her life in an attempt to break her behavior. But every time she returned home, the offending behavior allegedly continued.
“Want to visit my little brother’s grave”
In an investigation, the little brother himself was asked how he experienced the home situation. He then said that it is calmer when his sister is gone but that he misses her and that he usually draws together with her.
“He is not worried or afraid that his sister will expose him to violence if she comes home,” the investigation states.
Margit Ekenbark says that no children are born evil, but children, like adults, can commit evil acts.
– Small children can be bitten and pinched as a bodily reflex. It has nothing to do with rudeness. Eventually they learn that biting hurts. Then children can fight and argue, but most know where the limit for how far one can go, the consequentialism, is there. Otherwise, it would be more common for children to kill children, says Margit Ekenbark.
– This is a terrible tragedy for the whole family, even for the girl herself. Probably did not understand earlier how wrong she acted when she went too far. And this time it went way too far.
The girl herself initially denied any wrongdoing. When she was taken into custody under the LVU, the law on the care of young people, after the death of her little brother, she said that she had not committed any crime and that she wants to be allowed to come home again.
She later admitted that she strangled the brother but that he was not meant to die.
– I wonder if I will be able to visit my grave and be with my little brother, she says in questioning.