With 31 deaths in 28 cases, 2020 was the year with the highest number of murders in the last seven years. But the trend is declining, according to the National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos).
A total of 34 perpetrators were charged with murder last year – 30 men and four women. None of them have been convicted so far.
In half of the cases, a knife was used as a murder weapon, Kripos’ annual murder statistics show.
Out of the 31 victims, 16 were men and 15 women. Most murders in Norway took place in private homes, and in most cases, there was a relationship between the perpetrator and the victim.
No relationship had been found between the victim and the perpetrator in only one murder case last year.
Three of the murder cases investigated by the police were double murders, the overview shows.
Low death rate
“The death toll in Norway continues to remain low compared to our neighboring countries,” Vibeke Syversen at Kripos noted.
Kripos’ overview goes back 30 years and shows that even though 2020 was the worst murder year in seven years, there are generally fewer murder cases annually in Norway.
Syversen pointed out that in a ten-year perspective, 2020 is on average. She considers last year’s development as a natural variation.
“For Norway, we see a slightly declining trend for murder cases,” she said.
Murder in close relationships
In the last ten years, 29 parents have been killed by a son or daughter – nine of these murders occurred in 2019 and 2020. Nineteen of the victims were the perpetrators’ mothers, and ten were fathers.
Most often, sons killed their mothers. During the ten-year period, 23 perpetrators were sons, while four were daughters.
In twelve of the cases, the court has declared the perpetrators as not criminally sane.
When homicide researcher and criminologist Vibeke Ottesen at the University of Oslo commented on NTB’s homicide statistics this Christmas, she emphasized the need to look at the connection between mental illness and suicide and homicide in close relationships.
“What makes parents extra vulnerable when it comes to adult children with mental illness is that they often live with them, but that they are not involved in any treatment program,” she said.
Source: #Norway Today, #NorwayTodayNews
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How could you kill your own mother? For crying out loud! My heart aches reading this.Vikingene
slaktet ikke sine egne familiar for Guds skyld! God bless Norway!