Norway’s Supreme Court has tossed out a final appeal from convicted murderer and rapist Jan Helge Andersen, ending a 26-year legal nightmare for the parents of his two young victims. They’d gone swimming in a lake at Baneheia in Kristiansand on May 19, 2000 and never returned.
The bodies of Lena Sløgedal Paulsen, age 10, and her friend Stine Sofie Sørstrønen, age 8, were later found, and Andersen was later arrested and charged, but only for the rape and murder of Paulsen. He maintained that his friend at the time, Viggo Kristiansen, was behind both attacks but Kristiansen was later cleared after spending nearly 21 years in jail.
Andersen was then retried and convicted of both murders, lost at all three court levels and now may be held in prison for life. He spent 19 years in jail for Paulsen’s rape and murder and had been released, but then he was sentenced to two more years (21 years was Norway’s harshest prison term at the time of the murders) with forvaring. That allows judges to determine whether it would be safe to release him or keep him confined when his new two-year sentence is up. That can keep him in prison indefinitely.
The attorney for the girls’ parents said they were relieved that the case is now finally over, since Andersen has no further appeals.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
