Everything was discovered after the apartment fire. The emergency services were alerted to black smoke billowing from an apartment building in the Pettersberg district on the evening of April 19 last year. When they entered the residence, a taped-up man was found dead. The police opened a homicide investigation and the investigations showed that the victim, who turned 51, had extensive injuries and had died before the full-blown fire broke out. Angle grinder, kitchen knife and scissors The suspicions were directed at two women, aged 28 and 32 respectively, and a 43-year-old man. Today, the trio were put on trial in Västmanland District Court on suspicion of murder. The man and the younger woman are also charged with aggravated arson and breach of the peace of mind. According to the prosecutor, they strangled the 51-year-old victim together and then cut with a kitchen knife and scissors “over large parts of his body”. In addition, they dealt blows to the man and held an angle grinder to his head and face. A man who will testify during the trial is a friend of the 28-year-old who was told the brutal sequence of events, including that they stabbed the victim 25 times. According to the witness, the woman said that after the murder they tried to clean the apartment without success. The woman and the 43-year-old are said to have returned three days later and started a fire in the home where the 51-year-old was murdered. Discovered blood before suspected revenge The night before the murder, which took place on April 16 and is described as torture-like, the police were alerted to a fight in the apartment in question. The 43-year-old, who is now accused of murder, then stated that he had been hit in the face and a report of assault or aggravated assault was drawn up. The 28-year-old accused of murder was also at the scene and one of the policemen heard her say “if this is him (the 51-year-old) he will die”. The following morning, hours before the murder, two investigators from Västerås police’s crime scene went out to the same apartment again to question the 43-year-old further. The 28-year-old then opened the door and stated that the man was not there, whereupon the patrol left the scene after noticing a small amount of blood outside the front door. Shortly after that, the 51-year-old is said to have been tortured to death inside the apartment. According to the investigation, the 28-year-old woman and the 51-year-old victim previously had a relationship. The woman later became together with the 43-year-old murder suspect. The 32-year-old is a relative of the man. The prosecutor states that a motive for the crime may be that the couple wanted revenge on the woman’s ex. The trial is expected to end on December 7.
t4-general