Roar Juel Johannessen promised his dead daughter to catch the killer. Now he hopes that the goal is reached.
The father has tirelessly worked to follow up his daughter’s murder case since he had all the documents transmitted.
– It was about 4,000 pages. We sat down and read like a mad. And then we read like a mad again and made remarks and notes. Then we started asking questions, following up everything we wondered, says Juel Johannessen.
There has been much uphill. He tells of local police commanders who rejected him by saying, “I have no time now,” and the police officers who look down on the ground when he meets them on the street.
– It had not happened if we had not kicked them behind.
He kicked them behind in nearly 16 years. Now murder mystery be solved, but how could it take so long?
The search for “Lågendalsmannen”
12 year old Kristin Juel Johannessen would just swim with a friend that day in August, 1999. But she never met up with the agreement. The same evening, an hour before midnight, she was found strangled and killed in the woods a few hundred meters from the road by Dark in Hedrum outside Larvik.
25 policemen from Larvik police and three people from the NCIS would solve child murder. But the investigation was lopsided. The police went out in the media and were confident that they had found the perpetrator as a 54 year old local man was arrested.
It turned out to be a false accusation. The man was innocent. Meanwhile pointed witness observations against other men. On 16 August 1999 published the police a drawing of a man who was nicknamed “Lågendalsmannen.”
Several witnesses had identified the man who should have driven a motorcycle moped in the area where the girl was found murdered. Police received a total of 798 tips. They conducted 1,000 witnesses and analyzed 71 blood and hair samples from the crime scene.
32 possible perpetrators. One by one they were checked out of the case. Finally stood only a 23 year old again.
He was interrogated first time on 25 August 1999, but were initially given status as indicted in May the following year. In April 2001, the indictment:
“Thursday 5th of August 1999 between the hours. 18.30 to 21.00 on Dark in Larvik, he strangled Kristin Juel Johannessen, born 5 April 1987. “
Therefore, he was sentenced
Kristin Juel Johannessen had no clothes under jeans when she was found dead in the woods. T-shirt was pulled up as part of the stomach was bar. The swimsuit was cut or clip the bottom. But the coroner found no evidence of fresh abdomen injuries, and the theory of sexual assault were laid off.
23-year-old was convicted in Larvik District Court and sentenced to 12 years in prison that same autumn. The court considered the killing was sexually motivated.
The key evidence was:
- Witness observations of the man near the scene
- The man’s body hair found at the scene
- Missing alibi and possible sexual motive
Frikjent because of hairs
The court saw it, there were no extenuating circumstances. “You are faced with one of the most reprehensible acts a man can do.”
The man, who has always maintained his innocence, appealed immediately.
But before the appeal came up in Appeal drew Attorney Petter Sødal case. New DNA analysis showed that the hair found on Kristin, do not come from man, but from an unknown woman. The acquittal was enforceable in 2003.
Psykologspesialist notified
The police had to start again, but stood at a standstill for many years. In 2005 recommended Prosecutions that the police had to go through all the evidence again. It was fruitless.
First, when psychologist Fredric Clas Andersen was appointed head of the State Children’s Houses in Sandefjord in 2013, something happened. He was curious about the murder mystery, and given the green light by Deputy Police Chief Kjell Johan Abrahamsen to look through the documents on time.
Earlier this spring, he was inside the police station in Larvik and discussed the matter with those who had led the investigation. He made suggestions that led to it was established a working group to go through all the tactical and technical evidence again.
The group made new analyzes of old evidence and found a complete DNA profile. When police got the results, they went to arrest the man who was acquitted in 2003. He is now 38 years old. A 16 year old murder mystery can be solved.
– Technically, the case has been dropped, but the police in Larvik has never laid off case. We could not reconcile ourselves to, said station commander Tor Eriksen at a press conference yesterday.
Do not accept criticism
Neither the police or Public Prosecution will accept the criticism that the case was released too easily . Police said that because of new and better analysis until now has been presented with a full DNA profile from old evidence. It was Attorney Petter Sødal which attracted the case, which police pointed out during the press conference.
– It was created doubt hårbeviset and one considered at the highest levels that the evidence fell succession. It goes with the story that there was a large number of indirect evidence that linked convicts to the case, said Deputy Chief of Police.
The prosecutor does not want to answer today, but Public Prosecutor defends decision.
– Based on the knowledge and information we had then, emerged the decision as the right thing. There was no justifiable alternative to Public Prosecutions saw it. It was a thorough and thoughtful decision, says Synnøve Ugelvik the Attorney General’s Office said.
Big development in DNA technology
Head of Department for biological traces at the NIPH, Bente Mevåg, says the technique to analyze DNA evidence has evolved so that you can get more information out of very small amounts of biological material.
– Previously material be the size of a coin. Now you can create full DNA profiles from a material that is so small that you can not see it with the naked eye, says Mevåg.
This means that you can extract more information than previously could also from old track tests.
– That is why one undergoes old criminal cases, to see if we successfully analyzes previously not got something out of, say Mevåg.
Today is prepared 38-year-old for remand in Tønsberg District Court.
Roar Juel Johannessen hope soon to be able to put the matter behind them. Here he is at home Hedrum, few kilometers from the place where Kristin was killed.
Published:
No comments:
Post a Comment