Background: This has happened
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, her 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 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.
In October 1998, the man was acquitted by the Court of Appeal, especially when there was 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. The Supreme Court denied this.
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 a remnant of a blood sample had been sent to researchers at Uppsala University and remained there. NFC analyzed the samples and it turned out that both 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.
In October 2021, a new interrogation was held with the man, where he was informed about the matches. The interrogation is very short, but from what is said it can be concluded that the man denies the accusations.
On May 30, 2022, the Supreme Court decided to grant rescission. One month later, the new main hearing begins in the Court of Appeal for Lower Norrland.
The man suspected of the murder of Malin Lindström has previously given several different explanations for what he did on November 23, 1996 when the girl disappeared.
When the case is taken up again in the Court of Appeal for lower Norrland, he is questioned again and this time he tells things he has not said before. In the autumn of 1996, he hung out with three people about whom he does not want to name or give any further details. They used to buy knives and travel around the area by car. Sometimes they stopped and masturbated in the woods. According to the 44-year-old, it was on such an occasion that they found Malin Lindström’s body in a tarpaulin.
The 44-year-old tells calmly and objectively. He looks steadily at the prosecutor Stina Sjöqvist when he goes on to say that at first he did not understand that it was a body wrapped in the tarpaulin.
– Then he (the leader of the gang red note) wants us to take it and load it on the bed of the car.
At the hearing in the courtroom, it is the first time in 25 years that he admits that he has been in contact with Malin Lindström’s body. He goes on to tell how they stop at the place described as the site where the girl’s body was found. And how the leader urged all four to masturbate when they unloaded the body in the tarpaulin from the platform.
– And he is not someone you say no to, so we do it, says the 44-year-old.
The explanation for the DNA traces
Only afterwards does the suspect describe that he understood that there was a body in the tarpaulin.
– Then the leader lifts the tarpaulin and there lies a dead person. The presence of mind was not the best because it was so unreal.
Prosecutor: Did you understand that it was Malin Lindström?
– You can probably say yes. There are not that many dead people lying outside, he says and adds that he never saw the face.
Prosecutor: Is that how you explain your DNA on Malin Lindström’s trousers?
– There should be more, because there are three more people in the body, he says.
Pause in the proceedings in the Court of Appeal for Nedre Norrland begins where there is a main hearing on the murder of 16-year-old Malin Lindström in Husum in 1996. The trial is being held in the district court’s premises.
When asked why he did not go to the police and tell about the body, the suspect explains that he did not dare because the people he hung out with threatened him. This is also what his lawyer, Ulf Holst, presses is the explanation why his client has changed his story so many times.
– There is a threat picture that explains why he had difficulty leaving a sensible story in police interrogation and that the stories have shifted and swayed, but there is a logical explanation and it is connected with the threat picture, he says during the hearing.
Prosecutor: Does not agree Prosecutor Stina Sjöqvist believes in a conviction in the Court of Appeal.
After the trial, prosecutor Stina Sjöqvist is not surprised about the new information that emerged during the day.
– He still says that he handled Malin Lindström’s dead body. It is not an admission, but he admits that he has seen it.
TT: What do you say about the masturbation story with the men in the forest?
– He is looking for an explanation for how his DNA ended up on Malin Lindström’s body, but his explanation does not hold.