Woman charged with necrophilia crimes

File photo

File photo

Published Nov 21, 2012

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Sweden - A Swedish woman was on Tuesday charged with "disturbing the peace of the dead" after six human skulls and other human skeletal remains were found in her flat.

In addition to the skulls, police found a human backbone and a large number of other bones including femurs. The 37-year-old woman had arranged the parts to form a body on the floor, the charge sheet said.

The finds were made in September when police were summoned to the woman's flat in a suburb of the west coast city of Gothenburg after a neighbour heard a shot fired from a window.

Some skeletal parts were kept in a freezer, others were used for sexual gratification and therefore the woman was "guilty of treating the dead in an offensive and unethical manner," prosecutor Kristina Ehrenborg-Staffas said.

The woman denied the charges saying she bought the skeleton parts over the internet because of an interest in history and archaeology.

In her flat however, investigators found digging equipment, body bags and instructions on how to open graves.

"We don't know how she acquired the remains," the prosecutor told reporters. Forensic tests suggested the bones were at least 45 years old.

The woman could face a maximum two-year jail term or a fine if convicted.

Other finds in the woman's flat included photos of people who had died in traffic accidents, and images from a morgue.

The woman in the summer also sold three skulls to a man in another Swedish city but the buyer was not suspected of a crime.

According to a psychiatric assessment the woman was not legally insane. She was unemployed and had few social contacts. - Sapa-dpa

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