Avisen Danmark has visited the farmhouse in Thy that stands empty after its owner, a 33-year-old man, was sentenced in July for a murder in Vejle and an attempted double murder.
The white property near the station town of Snedsted in northwestern Jutland still looks lived in. The rooms are furnished and there are dishes in the kitchen sink, Avisen Danmark reports. The man bought the 100 square meter house in September 2024 for 600,000 kroner.
He has not returned since the night of November 25, 2024, when he drove more than 150 kilometers south to Vejle. Retten i Kolding convicted him on Friday, July 10, of murder, attempted double murder and indecent handling of a corpse. He was sentenced to indefinite placement at the secure forensic psychiatric unit Sikringen in Slagelse.
According to the account read out in court by special prosecutor Lone Hesselmark, the man grew up in Vejle and later studied in Aarhus. He moved to Thy on an early retirement pension. He began hearing voices four months before moving in, and the voices told him to kill two men.
In September 2024 he drove past both addresses in Vejle to check for surveillance cameras. He bought rain gear, shoe covers, tape, a crowbar, a visor and flammable liquid. He lined his black Citroën C1 with plastic, planning to abduct the first victim.
Around 4 a.m. he forced open an apartment door on Mindevej in Mølholm with the crowbar. He struck the 58-year-old resident repeatedly, then stabbed him more than 20 times with a butterfly knife. He carved the word “PEDO” into the dead man’s forehead and thighs.
He then drove about three kilometers to Svinholtvej in Vinding and broke in at 5:15 a.m. He struck the male resident twice in the back of the head, before the man’s wife hit the intruder with an acoustic guitar. Police arrived and arrested him at the scene. The case was later handled as a confession case rather than a contested murder trial.
Court and police statements
Sydøstjyllands Politi states that the man has been in custody since his arrest on November 25, 2024. He has been held at Sikringsafdelingen since June 2025. According to the case summary from Retten i Kolding, he must also pay about 86,000 kroner in compensation to the dead man’s three children.
The court found him insane at the time of the offenses, based on psychiatric assessments. As reported by Fyens Stiftstidende, experts disagreed on that question, but the court accepted the assessments from Sikringen and Retslægerådet. Doctors have diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia.
Hesselmark stressed in court that the police investigation found nothing to confirm that the 58-year-old had abused the defendant as a child. Nothing confirmed his claim that the man in Vinding hit him with a glass bottle in 2010.
The farmhouse in Thy has now stood empty for close to two years. The 33-year-old still owns it, and it has not been put up for sale.
