A DNA hit from a sperm stain is one of the heaviest pieces of evidence in the 26-year-old Malin murder.
Today’s episode of the podcast Aftonbladet Daily reveals the suspect’s explanation for the find that was secured on Malin’s trousers.
– I have masturbated repeatedly in that forest, he claims in a conversation with a psychiatrist.
The trial against the 44-year-old man who was previously convicted and later acquitted of the murder of Malin Lindström in Husum in 1996 begins today.
The focus will then be on the DNA evidence that led the Supreme Court to grant relief in the case. Had that evidence been known at the trial in the 90s, he would probably have been convicted, HD assesses.
It is about a small, small sperm stain that could be secured on Malin’s trousers and which was assumed to come from the killer.
Then, when the case was fresh, it was not possible to obtain a DNA profile. But thanks to new technology, this has now succeeded more than 20 years after the act.
Decisive issue
The crucial question in the new trial in the Court of Appeal will be how this evidence should be evaluated.
When the man was questioned again last autumn, he gave no answers.
– He has no explanation for how his DNA could have been secured on the murder victim, stated Chief Prosecutor Mats Svensson to SVT.
But since then, the suspect seems to have come up with other ideas.
“Never had memory loss”
The man has previously left a number of different versions and also claimed memory loss for crucial moments.
But to the doctor who performed the small mental examination, he says that he never had any memory loss but has a clear picture of what he did that day.
He claims that he was out walking and was picked up by three friends he does not want to name because he is under threat from them.
The man claims that the three are selling both weapons and drugs and that they abused him after the first arrest hearing.
He firmly denies any involvement in the crime. And now leaves an explanation that his DNA is on Malin’s pants.
Excerpt from the little mental examination. “Used to masturbate in the woods”
“He understands that the new findings are compromising for him, but states that the sperm stain may stem from the fact that both he and his comrades repeatedly masturbated in that forest on Fårön.”
At the time of the act, the man was 18 years old and lived only 20 meters from the bus stop where Malin apparently got off, by mistake.
For more than ten years, he has lived in another county and works with customer support for a larger company. He states that he had some shorter relationships but lives alone.
There is no suspicion that he suffers from any serious mental disorder, either now or at the time of the act.
Rune Lindström, Malin’s father, describes the man’s earlier versions of what he did during the day when Malin disappeared as “fairy tales”.
He tells Aftonbladet:
– It would be a legal scandal if he was not convicted at the time.