Woman found guilty of murdering toddlers in Sweden
By MALIN RISING
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — A Swedish court on Tuesday found a German woman guilty of murdering two toddlers and seriously injuring their mother in a rampage spurred by jealousy over an ex-boyfriend.
A panel of judges found that there was convincing proof to support the charge that Christine Schurrer entered the Swedish family's home in Arboga, central Sweden, armed with "a hammer or hammer-like object" and that she struck them repeatedly with intent to kill.
The ruling required that Schurrer — who previously had a relationship with the Swedish mother's boyfriend — undergo a psychiatric examination before the court decides on a sentence.
The 32-year-old has denied involvement in the attack and defense lawyer Per-Ingvar Ekblad told local news agency TT he would appeal the ruling.
One-year-old Saga Jangestig and her 3-year-old brother Maximilian died from their injuries in the March attack. Their mother Emma survived but was hospitalized for weeks.
Ekblad has questioned the evidence in the case, pointing to the fact that there is no DNA data linking his client to the crime and that the murder weapon has not been found.
Prosecutor Frieda Gummesson built her case on circumstantial evidence from more than 50 witnesses as well as handwritten and electronic records she claimed prove that Schurrer was resorting to "increasingly drastic measures" to stop her former boyfriend's new relationship.
The evidence included the exposure of lies in Schurrer's testimony and a photograph of the defendant wearing a pair of shoes that matched a footprint at the crime scene. She was also spotted on CCTV footage in Arboga at the day of the murder.
Schurrer claimed she was in the area to study boulders with Viking inscriptions and that she threw away the shoes before the killings because they were worn out. They have not been found.
During the trial the court heard how Schurrer had started a relation with the man in Crete in 2006. She visited him in Sweden on a couple of occasions but his interest soon cooled.
Although the affair was over and the man had started a new relationship, Schurrer moved to Stockholm in 2007. In e-mails to the man she also said she had given birth to his child and put it up for adoption — claims that have been questioned by witnesses who saw her at the time of the alleged pregnancy.
The psychiatric examination will take between four and six weeks, after which the court will announce a final sentence.
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