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Just over 25 years ago, a 16-year-old girl disappeared without a trace in Husum, only to be found murdered six months later.
Now comes the verdict against a previously freed man, in a rising process that was initiated after new results from DNA traces on the girl.
On November 23, 1996, 16-year-old Malin Lindström disappeared in Husum in Örnsköldsvik municipality. The girl had taken a bus from Örnsköldsvik to meet a school friend in Husum but got off at the wrong stop.
On May 22, 1997, the girl’s body was found in a forest area just outside Husum, near the E4. She had been stabbed and subjected to sexual violence.
In the summer of 1998, a then 20-year-old man was prosecuted and convicted by Örnsköldsvik District Court for the murder of Malin Lindström. He lived near the stop where she is believed to have got off and he had been seen with a girl along the road towards the E4. At the man’s, the police had found drawings and other findings which they linked to the crime.
Did not get to try
In October 1998, the man was acquitted by the Court of Appeal, especially since there is no technical evidence that could link him to the crime. A sperm stain had been found on the girl’s trousers, but the analysis methods of the time were not enough to obtain a searchable DNA profile.
The case then remained with the police as a so-called cold case, pending a technological development that could make it possible to analyze sperm stain.
In July 2020, it became known that the National Forensic Center (NFC) at the police had succeeded in obtaining a searchable DNA profile from the spot. The preliminary investigation was resumed in November of the same year. The prosecutor requested that a saliva sample be taken from the previously suspected man.
In May 2021, the Supreme Court announced that no new sample could be taken. There is no legal support for the use of coercive measures in a reopened preliminary investigation in connection with erection, the court stated.
Hair had been saved
After this, the police made an in-depth follow-up of what happened to the tracks secured earlier in the investigation. It turned out that there were still hairs from the man, and that DNA that had been extracted from a previous blood sample had been sent to researchers at Uppsala University and remained there. NFC analyzed the samples and it turned out that both DNA from the blood and the hair matched with the sperm stain.
In July 2021, the prosecutor applied to the Supreme Court for redress in the case and at the end of May the following year, HD decided to grant this, to the detriment of the now 44-year-old man. In connection with the uprising, he was also arrested, on probable cause on suspicion of murder.
On June 30, a new main hearing was opened on the murder at the Court of Appeal for Lower Norrland. In connection with its termination, the court decided that the 44-year-old should continue to be detained pending sentencing.