Sweden - Catrine da Costa, 28, Solna, Stockholm, July 18 & 7 August 1984

[snarast]

This is one of the most infamous murder cases in Sweden.

A young lady murdered and dismembered with plastic bags containing her body parts surfacing in some very public places, such as parks etc in Stockholm.

There is some satanic panic style outrage, a toddler as an alleged witness, two unfortunate MDs who were likely falsely accused and had their lives destroyed…..and the murderer was never identified.

A case of alleged cutting-up murder in Sweden: legal consequences of public outrage - Mediemordet

Lennart Sjöberg (1) Stockholm School of Economics and Foundation for Forensic Psychology Danderyd, Sweden Abstract The paper reviews a case of probable murder of a prostitute in Stockholm in 1984. Two MD’s were tried in the case on the basis of several kinds of evidence. Most sensational, the...

mediemordet.com

 

[snarast]

Police picking up body parts.

 

[scandinavian girl]

I lived in Stockholm when this happened. I still react when I see trashbags lying on the side of the road. No justice but we have not forgotten you Catrine.

 

[vls12345]

Murder of Catrine da Costa - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Tricia]

Police picking up body parts.

Please source your screenshots or we will have to remove.
Thank you

 

[snarast]

Please source your screenshots or we will have to remove.
Thank you

Yes.

These images are from the swedish version of wikipedia.

da Costa-fallet – Wikipedia

sv.wikipedia.org

 

[Rikissa]

There is a Swedish tv documentary made in 2024 in 4 parts about the murder of Catrine da Costa on SVT Play, and it can be watched everywhere, but it's only in Swedish. I began watching it (half of the first part "Obducenten"), and there are interviews with the police involved in the case, friends of Catrine, and "the forensic pathologist", one of the two suspects, the first interview he's given in 40 years.
The Swedish dismemberment murder: Dokument inifrån: Det svenska styckmordet

I'll have to watch all four parts before reaching a final decision, but I've always had bad feeling about this case, if it was the right persons that were tried in this case or not. For example, how much does a one-year-old toddler remember of possible traumatic events a year later? Why break the clavicles when removing Catrine's arms, wouldn't it been easier to dissect and cut through where the bone articulate to the sternum?

 

[dotr]

Snippets from lengthy article. rbbm.
By Julie Bindel 30 November 2010

Access Restricted

Catrine da Costa, whose murder prompted outrage in Sweden and inspired the country's writers

''Malmskillnadsgatan, Stockholm, used to be where street prostitutes in the capital gathered. The 600m-long road in the city centre was always teeming with drug-addicted women at night, weaving in and out of the traffic, some barely able to stand.''

''Her mother, to whom she was close, raised the alarm after not hearing from her daughter for a few days.
Five weeks later some of her remains were discovered in a bin bag near Solna, north of Stockholm, and close to the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Karolinska Institute. Almost three weeks later, another bin bag full of da Costa’s body parts was discovered less than a mile away. The head and some internal organs were missing, and have never been found.

''It is not unusual for street prostitutes to be murdered, but the mutilation made this case different.''
Larsson, a life-long opponent of violence against women, witnessed a brutal rape when he was just 15; the Swedish title of his book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was Men Who Hate Women. And Mankell has often said that the underlying purpose of his Wallander books is to ask the question ‘what went wrong with Swedish society?’ For many, the answer is ‘Catrine da Costa’.''

‘There are a great number of people who will get their reputation destroyed when the truth is revealed,’ Angell told me the last time we spoke before he died. ‘These men have been branded as the most notorious killers of our time and yet they are totally innocent.’
But we will now never know for sure who killed Catrine da Costa.''
2010

Court Refuses Compensation in Da Costa Murder Case - Radio Sweden

The two doctors wrongly convicted for the brutal murder of Catrine da Costa in 1984 have failed in their bid for compensation from the state. The district ...

www.sverigesradio.se

''The doctors, a general practitioner and a pathologist, were convicted for the murder and dismembering of the woman in 1988 but were later cleared of the charges in a retrial which found that the evidence against them was circumstantial.
Nonetheless, the doctors were never permitted to practice medicine again and have long maintained that the court case and their subsequent treatment by Swedish authorities, destroyed their lives. ''