Helge Fossmo

Case record: Helge Fossmo

Background

Helge Arnold Fossmo (1971-) was a Pentecostal pastor. He was involved in the Knutby community and had been sentenced to life imprisonment for solicitation of the Knutby murder in 2004.

Helge Fossmo originated from the village of Björneborg, close to Kristinehamn in Sweden. His parents were Norwegian. His family was not particularly religious. When he was about ten years old, Helge joined the scouting organization of the Mission Covenant Church in Björneborg. Not long before he turned twelve, he was born again.

He went to high school in Kristinehamn and volunteered in a christian youth café. At age 17 he met Heléne Johansson, who was identified as his future wife. In 1989 he joined the Pentecostal church of Kristinehamn, where also Heléne was a member.

After graduation, he studied in Karlstad to become a science teacher, but he dropped out. For a while he worked as a teacher in his old school in Björneborg. In the spring of 1993 he was involved with Jaspis. In Kristinehamn this was described as a small group inspired by Ulf Ekman’s Livets Ord, part of the Word of Faith movement. After a few months, he left Jaspis and rejoined the pentecostal church, where he was employed as a youth pastor.

In May 1995, he organized a march for Jesus. The christian newspaper Dagen published Fossmo’s experience of xenoglossy.

Fossmo met Åsa Waldau for the first time in August 1993. The main pastor Claes Frankner had invited Waldau to Kristinehamn from Knutby. Claes Frankner’s son Samuel was already an adherent of Waldau’s and moved to Knutby in 1994. The Fossmos moved to Knutby in August 1997 with their two children, and a third child was born in Knutby.

Fossmo also started the missionary foundation Aid for Nations. At first it tried to be active in Estonia. Later, this foundation organized bible schools in Coimbatore (India) and in Hongkong.

Fossmo’s web page with Christian links was described as being dominated by Word of Faith (Livets Ord, Morris Cerullo, Kenneth Hagin, Benny Hinn, John Avanzini, Kenneth Copeland), but it also included Pentecostalism (IBRA Radio, Kensington Temple, Oral Roberts) and others (Willow Creek Community Church, Ray Stedman). The web page also showed strong support for the State of Israel. Later, Fossmo was photographed with the Israeli ambassador, Zvi Mazel.

The Fossmos moved to a house next to Åsa Waldau, and Helge was spending most of his time with her. In the process of reading the Bible, they found that the metaphorical interpretatation of Bride of Christ as the Church was not explicit in the New Testament texts. Fossmo told Waldau that if the Bride were a person, it would have to be her. Waldau then bought a gold ring with seven diamonds.

On March 29, 1999 he was the only other person present at the ceremony where Åsa Waldau was betrothed to Jesus. She became the Bride of Christ and also assumed a new name: Tirsa.

Fossmo told Waldau that he had to mediate Jesus to her by satisfying her sexually with his hands; Waldau denied this in court.

The offence

Background relationship involving the killings

In Knutby, Fossmo and Waldau started in 1997 a month-long training school, which had been held three times a year since then. It attracted young Christans from all over Sweden, some of whom would move to Knutby permanently.

Fossmo and Waldau were close in the time after the Fossmos moved next to Waldau. It was later described that Fossmo was spending most of his time with Waldau.

Death of Heléne Fossmo

On December 18, 1999 Helge found his wife Heléne dead in the bathtub. Although there was a hole in her skull and although there was a toxic concentration of dextropropoxyphene in her blood, her death was ruled an accident.

Within a few months, Helge Fossmo had a new wife, Alexandra, who was identified as Tirsa’s youngest sister.

Illness, nursing, and Sara Svensson

In June 2001, Fossmo fell ill in an undiagnosed disease. He was nursed by Sara Svensson, who moved into his bedroom. She divorced her husband a year later, but Åsa Waldau did not approve of Fossmos liaison with her. Sara Svensson was put under church discipline and shunned.

It was also described that Sara Svensson said she was a sex slave in Fossmo’s bedroom.

Affair with Anette Linde and anonymous text messages

Pastor Fossmo coveted his neighbour’s wife, Anette Linde. They started an affair in the autumn of 2003. Soon thereafter, Sara Svensson started getting anonymous text messages, which she regarded as prophetic.

Together with Fossmo’s verbal instructions, these messages convinced her to try to kill Alexandra Fossmo.

Assault and attempted killings

In the early morning of November 8, 2003, Sara Svensson attacked Alexandra with a hammer. Alexandra woke up and resisted the attack. She called her husband who was out in his car with his lover, Mss. Linde, as well as some church elders. Sara Svensson was sent away from the community. The assault was not reported to the police, and the Fossmos took a plane to a Bible school in Hongkong.

Secretly, Fossmo and Svensson kept in touch. The anonymous text messages also resumed. Svensson was instructed to buy a handgun, and she was told to shoot Daniel Linde too.

January 10, 2004 shootings

The shootings took place in the early morning of January 10, 2004.

Alexandra Fossmo was shot dead in the head in her bed.

Daniel Linde was shot in the chest and in his mouth, but he managed to call emergency services and he survived.

A short while after the shooting of Alexandra, the killer knocked on the door of a neighbour whose wife was having an affair with the pastor and shot him as he opened the door; this neighbour survived.

Sara Svensson admitted to the shootings from the start, but claimed she was being controlled by the manipulative pastor. Fossmo denied all accusations but was found guilty of instigating murder and attempted murder.

Investigation and arrest

After Fossmo admitted guilt in an interview with TV4 at the end of August 2006 and said that he would put his cards on the table for the police, he had a new lawyer, Peter Althin.

In March 2007, after three interviews, the police decided not to reopen the case.

It was described that the anonymous text messages were traced to Mr Fossmo’s cell phone.

Trial

District court outcome

The district court sentenced Fossmo to life imprisonment for solicitation of murder of Alexandra and attempted murder of Daniel Linde. Fossmo was acquitted of the murder of Heléne.

Appeals court outcome

The Appeals Court sentenced Fossmo to life imprisonment for the murder of his second wife, Alexandra, and for the attempted murder of a neighbour in January of that year.

He was found not guilty of the murder of his first wife in 1999.

The verdicts were described as being precisely the same as those handed down by the district court in August.

The prosecutors and defences described that nobody was happy with the decisions at first: Fossmo appealed against his life sentence, while the prosecutor appealed against the not guilty verdict for the murder of his first wife and wanted Svensson sentenced to life imprisonment rather than psychiatric care.

The prosecutor indicated that she accepted the verdict and the case was not expected to proceed to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights

Fossmo’s appeal to the Supreme Court was denied.

He wrote without success to the Chancellor of Justice.

He then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, but on February 13, 2007 the judges decided not to hear his case.

Sentencing

On July 30, 2004, Fossmo was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The family’s nanny, Sara Svensson, was described as mentally ill and placed under psychiatric care. In November 2004, she was found guilty of murder and attempted murder and sentenced to secure psychiatric care.

A court believed her statement about her psychiatric state, and it was quoted that:

"In the judgement of the investigation into Sara Svensson's psychiatric state, the court cannot find grounds for any conclusion other than that she suffers from a psychiatric disorder of such a nature and extent that it constitutes a serious psychiatric disorder in the meaning of the law."

Fossmo got married in prison on July 20, 2007.

Admission of guilt and statements

At the end of August 2006, Fossmo admitted involvement in the murder of his wife in their home in 2004 in an interview with TV4’s news programme Nyheterna.

He said:

"I feel that I have recovered. I lived a lie and I don't want to do that any longer,"

He also said that several others were involved in the crime.

It was also reported that Fossmo said:

"I'm going to discuss what I've previously kept quiet regarding the events in Knutby,"
"I'm going to put my cards on the table and talk about my role in what happened and other facts which I know."

When asked whether he meant both the murder of his wife and the attempted murder of the neighbour, Fossmo said:

"Since I left Knutby I have gone through a long process. Feelings, thoughts, behaviour - my whole self - were impregnated by a poisonous sect culture,"

He said that he had slowly recovered and that today he saw both his own role and that of others differently.

Fossmo declined to reveal specific details. He said that he did not want to give any information:

"that the media can wallow in".

He said he was refraining out of respect for other people who were involved. He said he would hand his information to the police and added:

"Then they can handle it," said Fossmo.

It was also stated that Anne Sjöblom was one of two prosecutors who dealt with the Knutby case. Sjöblom said:

"There isn't really much more to say since he's already been sentenced for it and we knew that he was guilty," and: "Perhaps I'm a little surprised that he has admitted it."

Sjöblom added:

"no other people were suspected of involvement."

Statements at trial from Sara Svensson and Defence

During her earlier testimony, Sara Svensson said she was ordered to carry out the attack by mobile phone messages she believed came from God but which were traced to Mr Fossmo’s cell phone.

She quoted a conversation in which she said:

"Suddenly Helge said to me: 'If God were to tell you to kill a human being, would you do it?'"

She then said:

"I thought it was a very strange question, but thought that if I really knew it was God saying it, I would have to obey. There would be no alternative," she said.

Fossmo’s defence attorney insisted during the trial that his client was innocent and said:

"his client was innocent."

The attorney said the former nanny misunderstood the text messages, which were meant only as spiritual guidance, not as an incentive to murder.

It was also described that the trial painted a picture of a religious community in the town north of Stockholm controlled by a woman known as Christ’s Bride, who claimed to be engaged to Jesus in a special ceremony.

Other details

Fossmo was described as “a Swedish pastor” who was found guilty of inciting Sara Svensson to shoot his wife by sending mobile phone text messages he said came from God.

Alexandra was described as 23-year-old Alexandra Fossmo in one account, while the family nanny Sara Svensson was described as 27.

Fossmo was described as acquitted of having anything to do with the death of his first wife in 1999 in a bathtub.

A statement also said:

"A short while later, the killer knocked on the door of a neighbour - whose wife was having an affair with the pastor - and shot him as he opened the door. He survived."

Outcome

The verdicts for the January 2004 murder of Alexandra and the attempted murder of Daniel Linde were upheld on appeal, and Fossmo remained convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Fossmo remained acquitted of the murder of his first wife, Heléne, in 1999.