Martin Hensvold
Divorce can be a rough thing.
Couples have their problems, which lead to arguments, which lead to fights.
Martin Hensvold and 24-year-old Frida Stenberg, Martin’s now ex-wife, are a perfect example.
Martin and Frida were going through a custody battle through most of 2009. That battle finished on the 26 of August, 2009 – when the courts decided that the couple’s 2-year-old son and 4-month-old daughter would be in the custody of Ms. Stenberg.
Three hours after the court decision, Frida Stenberg drove her daughter and herself out to pick up her son, who was being watched by Martin Hensvold at his parent’s farm.
Martin met his ex-wife at the door, with his 2-year-old son in his arms. Frida and Martin talked for a bit before Frida told her ex-husband that it was time to go and that she’d like her son to have some shoes and socks on before she left.
Now this farm, located in the village of Smedsbyn outside of Lulea in northern Sweden, had the usual farm-type implements. One of those implements that was handy was a bolt pistol, a device most commonly used to put down cattle.
When he returned with the shoes, the socks and the 2-year-old boy, Martin Hensvold demonstrated, quite effectively, why someone should never bring a neck to a bolt gun fight.
What you should bring to a bolt pistol fight
Putting the bolt pistol to the back of Frida Stenberg’s neck, Martin pulled the trigger, killing his children’s mother in front of their children.
The police got involved and Martin was arrested. For some reason, Martin’s sanity was questioned and his frame of mind tested. According to the doctors, Mr. Hensvold was sane at the time of the killing, but since then he has suffered deep depression and symptoms of psychosis.
The prosecutor, Karin Hansson, was unimpressed with Martin Hensvold’s claim that the killing was a psychotic break, stating:
We’re talking about a straightforward execution.
Karin Hansson successfully argued that Hensvold knew from experience using a bolt gun that one shot in the neck would be fatal. I’m not sure who would think that a bolt gun to the neck would be like a gentle touch from a lover during foreplay, but I guess there are always two viewpoints for every action.
Martin Hensvold was ultimately found guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in jail – where he will be provided psychiatric care by the Swedish prison service for the duration of his stay.
His children will, of course, have a lifetime to imagine the scenario we’ve just laid out for you in the story above.
Does Martin Hensvold deserve Hell?
- Yes (96%, 659 Votes)
- No (4%, 27 Votes)
Total Voters: 686
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48 Comments »
Only 14 years? Assuming he’s around his now deceased (hmm how’d that happen?) wife’s age he’ll be under 40! His kids will be 16 and 14! Wow Sweden, that’s just enough time for him to be released and apply for custody of his kids and probably win and screw them up even more. Or marry again, have more kids, and kill the current wife when she wants to bolt (no pun intended…maybe) with the kids.
Well now I know if I ever feel like going into a murderous rage, to do it in Sweden.
Yeah, that’s the Scndinavian way to punish criminals: put them to jail for a couple of years and, of course, they’re magically healed. He probably doesn’t even have to do the whole time if someone decides he’s been well-behaved. He might (probably will) get out in about seven years.
Let’s just hope the social services will never give him his children back…
What do you know of Scandinavian (see how i used spell check there?) justice? Unless you’ve lived in such a country, and have been subject to it’s laws, i don’t see how you can judge it.
Having lived in Iceland for 2 years while being stationed at Keflavik, i got the impression that their justice system worked at least as well for them as mine did for me (American). After all, with a (somewhat dense) population of ~350,000, they had only had 1 murder in the last 20 years while i was there. And incidents of violent crime of any sort were very low. I’m not saying American justice and Icelandic justice have the same issues to deal with, they are two very different entities, but i think you shouldn’t judge them until you’ve had some hands-on experience.
Iceland does not have a border problem like here in America
In many cases a lot of stuff just does not happen or happens less in colder climates. I am sure that NYC would clean up nicely if heating subsidies were redcued ti the point tha people could only afford to heat to 70 degrees in the day time, 65 at night.
I admit I don’t know anything about Iceland’s justice system. Though according to my knowledge Iceland is one of the safest countries in the world.
But I DO live in Finland, have also lived in Sweden, and I DO follow the news, also the Swedish news, so I think I know a bit more about that than you do. I don’t think I have to commit a crime to experience that myself following the debate about that stuff on the news.
I’m not saying murders, rapes etc. are as big of a problem around here as they are in America but I think the punishments here should still be harder than they are now. A murder is a murder even if it only happens once a year, don’t you think?
Sweden’s penal system has been shown to be superior to the US by every conceivable measure; as a result their society is far safer and far less violent. Since rehabilitation is obviously working for them far better than your punitive system is working for you, shouldn’t you be following their lead instead?
Gina, you are comparing two COMPLETELY different things. Scandinavia’s population is smaller and more homogenous. A nation with a homogenous populations is less likely to have higher crime rates. America has a larger and more heterogenous population. So the penal system may work in one area, while it may not work in another area.
To Gina:
Sweden started with a lower crime rate, a different sort of criminal code, and different sort of population. There are aboriginal tribes that practice ritualized murder that have no penal system, yet have almost zero crime. Compare apples to apples please.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The United States did not get invaded by the Soviet Union in the Winter War, but Finland did, thus the United States is safer from invasion than Finland. Both statements are false.
This is actually a strawman, not an observable.
They have something that works for them, what that is takes analysis a little more stratified than you’ve currently presented.
The United States makes excellent, genetically hybridized seeds. It does not mean that Sweden can do the same with the same infrastructure, economic model and production schedule.
jesus that’;s the second bolt gun slaying in a year and i blame the film No Country for old men for making bolt guns cool
here check out this story and mug shot a PYSIH candidate for sure
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8357977.stm
PS: i also blame Johnny Depp for the rise of piracy in somalia but that’s another story
I just watched No Country for Old Men last night. Far out movie for sure. I’d hate to have that Mexican hit man after me…..
Isn’t that the truth. That is one scarey ass character. Funny thing, in real life, the actor who played that Mexican, is actually Italian and killed a man. He did time for killing his sisters ex boyfriend/husband for beating on her…..something like that. But I still like him :)
kathybird, are you sure about that? Javier Bardem played Anton Chigur in the movie, and he’s a Spanish actor not Italian. Also, I can’t find any reference to him killing anyone. Got any links? I’m curious now.
Oh, wait, I bet you’re thinking about Christian Brando?
http://www.nndb.com/people/436/000024364/
There’s definitely a physical similarity between the two.
Thank for that correction Hollywood :) All this time, I seriously thought it was Javier. Wow, the resemblance is uncanny, though I really thought I came across that info through a link while reading on Javier….hmmm, I wonder how I managed that? Oh well, thanks again!
That is a great movie…Gotta love the scene in the gas station where the guy flips a coin deciding whether he will live or die.
Gah, sorry I clicked on your link Stormy, I will now have nightmares for months. That is easily the FUGLIEST (& creepiest) werewolf looking A-HOLE I have ever seen. Its no big surprise his poor victim rejected his advances. I’m sure she worried she didn’t have nearly enough silver bullets or wooden stakes to slay that beast.
OMGOMGOMG!!!!! Was he dug up from some arctic ice block and brought back to life??? Ahhhh, he is scarey!
Also, “No Country For Old Men” AND Johnny Depp both rock! They are just scapegoats. I blame the crazies for taking stuff to heart that they see on T.V.
…Course, they slaughter beeves dif-
ferent now. Use a air gun. Shoots out
a nut, about this far into the brain
…
He holds thumb and forefinger a couple inches apart.
…Sucks back in. Animal never knows
what hit him.
There’s nothing nastier than a drawn-out custody battle. When I worked in the San Bernardino court system, before they had metal detectors at the doors, every shooting that happened in the building was done on the Family Law floor, not the criminal division. The attorney I worked with finally had to get a concealed carry license due to threats on his life while practicing family law.
Real criminals are attempting to look good for the judge, while family law clients are just warming up to thinking about how to kill the other parent and get away with it. By the time it gets to court it’s like a bomb waiting to go off.
Yup. I think it’s sad that resorting to a little of the ‘ol ultra violence is where most people go when things get rough. I wish i knew a way teach people to take a moment to *breath* and calm the hell down.
You are right. Family law is the worst. The prolonged divorce cases are the worst. No one is a winner. Even, police do not want to get involved when they are kids involved. Now I think about it, courthouse shootings are in the family law area, not criminal law.
URL Deleted By Editor
guess i have to ban you again. you’re are definitely the most pathetic troll i’ve ever run across. you get zero reaction, but you just keep posting your incredibly lame comments. it’s sad really.
-editor
I find myself sickened by the quesions regarding a person’s sanity when crimes like this are committed. Although it seems that people are always using mental illness as an excuse for criminal activity, I also find myself asking “What sane person could possibly commit such an act?” I see many different kinds of people in my profession; many of which have mental illnesses, and many who do not. I find that some of the people who do not have mental illnesses tend to be bigger assholes than those that do. Many of the people who I have met who suffer from mental illness are among the friendliest people I have come into contact with, and would not hurt a fly. It seems almost a steriotype to classify people who commit crimes as someone who is “crazy”. Even at my most “insane” moment, I can not picture myself losing my common sense over whether or not is is right to brutally murder someone who I once loved in front of our children, but what sane person would do such a thing? The question itself tends to drive me insane, but I won’t be going on any killing spree because of it. My only conclusion is that people can just be evil; sane people and insane people alike. Evil such as this deserves to plucked from our society, not thrown back in once they have “done their time”. If there is a hell, I am sure all of these evil people will certainly get the sentence they deserved in the long run. P.S. I am new to this sight but have quickly become addicted. Thanks for the great job that you all are doing here at PYSIH!
When a soul goes to hell, it stays there – it does not go to heaven after 14 or 1,400 years.
lol…excellent point!
Depends on your interpretation of Christian Hell. I say Christian Hell, ’cause they aren’t the only ones who believe in one.
So all towelheads go to heaven?
But the suicide bombers get 72 virgins???
I’d prefer 72 sluts – heaven for me – hell for them! (Yeah – I know I am not all that, so that’s why it’s hell for them!)
Whoopsy daisy on my use of the word “sight” instead of “site” lol
I should have taken my X to Sweden rather than NYC. When sh e gave me her speech about “too little too late…” I could have whacked her there and I’d be coming home right about now – or maybe earlier with good behavior?
Maybe he could tell the jury that this was foreply – she liked it rough…..
He also could be “Father of he Year” – after all he did not lie to his children – he let them see what happens when one disobeys…. After all – a war time president won the Nobel Peace Prize…
What a fucked up world……..
14 years – no wonder why we’re all gong to hell in a handbasket.
The State department rightfully would have remanded you to the custody of the United States and convicted you of conspiracy to commit murder. You’d have served seven years, then 25 years here.
14 years huh? I wonder what it would take to get a life sentence in these liberal countries.
I don’t even want to know.
Undoubtedly anything perverse enough to warrant a death penalty would most certainly automatically give one warrant to claim mental deficiency at the time of the hypothetical crime in question. Defense lawyers for years have failed to see the flaw in this logic. Of course, defense lawyers deserve their own little page on PYSIH, imho. My favorite defense was that presented by the lawyer of Mr. Sarinana stating “yes but did anyone actually SEE my client abusing the children?”
People. Human beings.
LilMissSunshine: Life sentence is almost never given in Sweden, or Norway, where I live. To give you an idea: Arnfinn Nesset (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnfinn_Nesset) who was convicted in 1983 for 21 murders is today a free man – after serving the maximum sentence of 21 years.
While I do think that 14 years is so much less than this guy deserves, you have to remember that we don’t have many murders in Scandinavia (Norway had 29 murders in 2008 – that’s counting every “kind” of murders) , and if you look at the rehabilitation side of it, and not just the punishment, our system works pretty well. Of course morally, it’s a fair thing to debate if our system have too much respect for the criminals and too little for the victims – and that is a debate that we are having in our country (can’t speak for Sweden, though) constantly.
Norway has a population density of 14 per square kilometer. There are only around 3000 prisoners in all of their jails. They have the second highest GDP per capita, largely based on oil and gas revenues the vast majority of the population do not have to participate in to see benefit from. Two decades ago, the low crime rates of Saudi Arabia were snapped beneath the noses of the United States. Almost three decades ago the same was done by Japan. The weakness of the United States in the efforts of crime is not that we’re too hard on our prisoners or our criminals but three main items.
1. Crime has been more profitable in our history than any other profession or undertaking.
2. Despite laudable natural resources, the United States comes by its initial wealth as a forefront of the industrial revolution, a messy, greasy time that heralded the beginning of modern war.
3. We are a nation of nations, composed of fifty nations that have internal rivalries that since our founding have led to bloodshed. Men from New York killed men from New Jersey before ink hit the paper of the Bill of Rights.
4. And despite the ire of millions if not billions that we are a fat, lazy people who waste and outspend the rest of the world, we work on average 1.1 hours for every hour worked by any other citizen of any other industrialized nation, per capita and per day.
5. We have nearly every racial and ethnic division imaginable, combined with a class and caste warfare rivaled only by India and Pakistan. Only in sporting events are we more civil to one another than in other nations.
Nationalistic pride aside, comparing Norway’s problems to our own and vice versa is like comparing walnuts to Cantaloupe.
There was supposed to be a division adding the fourth and fifth as secondary items. My apologies.
“The weakness of the United States in the efforts of crime is not that we’re too hard on our prisoners or our criminals but three main items.”
And please believe me when I say that my comment was not made to suggest that we have a better system than you guys. It was merely an observation. Of course population enters into it – my point was merely that even if you guys may think that 21 years is ridiculous, it’s not considered that here. At least not generally.
Fundamentally, most Americans are stuck with a very puritanical (or more aptly said Calvinist) view of the world in which we think that someone predestined by God for heaven, would know better than to kill someone and get caught. It’s the way our world works, because it’s the way our grandmothers and grandfathers believed and were indoctrinated into that uniquely American experience. I don’t know how or what makes a Scandinavian tick at their elemental component, but I can safely say that our criminals believe it even more than the men and women who beg for the justice. I do not think an American Murderer turned Scandinavian would be properly rehabilitated by the prisons of Norway in as much as a Scandinavian torn down by an American prison would conform to our sense of monstrous proportions.
I’m not actually a Calvinist by choice, but I know what a Calvinist is. I wasn’t anything for years, but then I became a Christians when I read this neat and interesting book called the Bible in which people are blessed with this thing called Common Grace.Some call it “being made in the image of God”, but I refer to it as Common Grace. This is what allows us to know that something is wrong. Hence, when someone violates this sense of wrong, they deserve the wrath of God. That wrath is mighty indeed. :) That makes me happy. And just so you’re aware, John Calvin…the originator of Calvinism was actually French, and the Puritans were English, and the Puritans were under the leadership of many who opposed the basic core Bible principles set forth by John Calvin, so connecting them on principle and then claiming that either movement is solely a fundamentally American movement is inaccurate at best. :) Wiki is your friend.
And even if someone DOES get a life sentence they get out after serving about 20 years, at least here in Finland. (for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Fouganthine – though I really don’t know is Finland is comparable to Sweden or Norway even if we are neighbours)
If someone cares to know more about the prison service system in Sweden and Finland:
http://www.kriminalvarden.se/sv/English/
http://www.rikosseuraamus.fi/14994.htm
Eesh. Whenever i read things like this, i always try to place myself in the killer’s head, try to get a sense of why. But this….to me it boils down to nothing more than a little man-child who couldn’t take the ego hurt of losing to someone else. He didn’t do this because he wanted to be with his children; if that was the case, he wouldn’t have done something to put him in jail for (only?!) 14 years. He didn’t do it because he was afraid that his children would be raised improperly; if that was the case, he wouldn’t have done something that likely puts his kids in a foster home, or worse, an orphanage. No, he just couldn’t take the fact that his ex-wife had won the custody battle, so he decided he was ‘gonna show ‘dat bitch what for’ and so on. What a sad, stupid, little
manboy.What a complete piece of shit. He deserves a far, far longer sentence than what he got. Now this murderer is depressed and paranoid because he has to spend some time in jail. Boo fucking hoo. I’m sure that poor little boy, the child he was suppose to protect from the evils of the world, won’t be feeling extremely depressed, paranoid and every other emotion that comes with the PTSD associated with seeing a psychopathic piece of shit execute your mother right in front of you. Hensvold’s life may have been ruined, but he has no one to blaim but himself for that. This monster has also ruined his child’s life, the lives of the people who loved his victim AND ruined Frida Stenberg’s life in the worst possible way — by stealing it from her. Absolutely disgusting. He can rot in jail and be depressed about it for his entire life, for all I car.
Wtf. Seriously. Some people should be sterilized and not even allowed to HAVE children. Asshole.
only 14 years? disgusting…
Just curious… If the custody-battle had been going on for ‘most of 2009′, and the infant was 4 months old in August of that year, I wonder what happened that made this marriage go sour so quickly. I can’t imagine they were in the middle of splitting-up when they decided to have a second child.
Oh well, probably one of those questions that will never be answered… In any case, I just hope this filth dies before he gets a chance to enjoy his freedom again in only 14 years.
Here is a picture of Martin Hensvold:
http://frianyheter.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/martin-hensvold.jpg
14 years. Pathetic. Good old european punishment.