Isakin Drabbad (born Jimmy Daniel Isaksson; born 1978), also known as the Skara Cannibal (), is a convicted Swedish murderer. In November 2010, in Skara, he murdered his girlfriend Helle Christensen and ate parts of her body. He was subsequently committed to a mental health institution.
During his time at the institution, Drabbad has sparked several controversies that made headlines both in Sweden and internationally. In December 2011, he became engaged to Michelle Gustafsson, known in the media as the "Vampire Woman", who is also a murderer and an inmate at the same psychiatric hospital. Together, they mockingly blogged about their crimes from the hospital's computer, which led to a motion in the Swedish parliament to prohibit internet use for patients in Swedish psychiatric institutions.
In 2017, Drabbad made headlines again after selling voodoo dolls and other art containing blood and bodily fluids online from inside the hospital. He also posted several clips of himself on YouTube, filmed on the hospital grounds and during his furloughs. That same year, he garnered significant attention when it was reported that he had been involved with caregivers at Karsudden Regional Hospital in Katrineholm. Drabbad was denied furlough to marry one of the women, who subsequently resigned and was placed under a restraining order due to being considered a security risk. Drabbad continues to receive care in forensic psychiatric care, but since 2020, he has been registered at an address in Katrineholm.
Background Isakin Jonsson was born Jimmy Daniel Isaksson in 1978 in Köping, Sweden. He moved to Västerås at the age of two. He was in and out of institutions throughout his upbringing and has been convicted of drug offenses and theft several times in various locations in southern and central Sweden. When Jonsson committed the murder in 2010, he had a nine-year-old daughter. The daughter, Jamie-Lee, later wrote the book Skarakannibalens dotter ("The Skara Cannibal's Daughter") about her upbringing.
Jonsson met Helle Christensen in 2009 when they were both patients at a psychiatric clinic in Borås. They each had troubled pasts, with mental health issues and criminal convictions, and limited connections to the labour market. Christensen had five children, all of whom lived with their fathers. In the fall of 2010, Christensen and Jonsson moved from Borås to Skara. The three-bedroom apartment located at Valhallagatan 13 D in Skara was rented by Jonsson's mother. The apartment was sparsely furnished, and contact was made with social services in Skara regarding grants for home equipment. Jonsson and Christensen planned to live together in the future and possibly start a tattoo and piercing shop in the apartment.
Christensen's sister told the media that Jonsson had a violent temper and that she often had to pick up her sister after they argued. Christensen reportedly said that he never hurt her, even though she showed up with bruises and, on one occasion, broke her leg in three places. During the preliminary police investigation following the murder, the police discovered Christensen's diary, which painted a different picture of Jonsson. Written shortly before the murder, it described how scared Christensen was and that she did not dare to tell her loved ones. She wrote that Jonsson was a different person, noting "he talks about punishments, about all the evil". She also detailed his bad moods, personality changes, and aggressiveness, but added, "I can handle it because I love him".
Shortly before the murder, she contacted a woman at a local library near her home, asking for help finding a hostel where she could feel safe, but the librarian had to promise not to call the police. In his statement during the trial, public prosecutor Lars Johansson mentioned that Christensen had planned to start a new life in Skara, including opening a tattoo and piercing shop.
Murder of Helle Christensen Jonsson murdered Christensen in Skara on 12 November 2010. On the day of the murder, the couple got up at noon and dressed before going out shopping. Jonsson bought four beers and Jägermeister at Systembolaget, while Christensen purchased food at the local Ica store, Munken.
They were alone in the apartment until the murder, which occurred between 17:00 and 19:00. At one point, Christensen went to lie down on a mattress to rest or read. Jonsson then allegedly took a knife, cut the mattress, sat over Christensen's shoulders, and slit her throat. He then dampened the blood flow with a pillow. Christensen did not have time to resist, and death occurred rather immediately.
Jonsson then cut Christensen's pants, panties, shirt, and bra. He had an erection and penetrated Christensen but did not ejaculate. Using a knife, saw, and axe, Jonsson severed Christensen's head from her body. He also cut off pieces of flesh from one of her arms and legs, which he carried into the kitchen to cook. In a frying pan, he prepared the pieces of flesh with salt and homegrown cannabis leaves. Jonsson also took Christensen's head to the kitchen counter and processed it with an axe and knife, possibly with the intention of eating it.
After the murder, Jonsson called the police and confessed. In the emergency call, he said, "When you get here, you don't have to jump on me, I'm as calm as can be." Furthermore, he stated in the call, "I want to do the right thing for myself. What I have done now, I have no idea that I have actually done it, but I have woken up".
Investigation During the first police interrogation, Jonsson stated that he was most dangerous when he did not take his medication. He also mentioned that there was a bit of a fight on the day of the murder but could not explain what triggered his rage against his girlfriend. In the interrogation held the day after the murder, he tried to clarify, saying, "I can be perceived as unaffected, but when it happened yesterday I was in someone else's guise. Someone else acted in me."
When asked why he cut off his partner's head, dragged it into the kitchen, and placed it in the sink, Jonsson explained, "Why I have no idea. It felt like there were several people in the room. It's almost like a movie is playing."
Jonsson was arrested on 14 November 2010 during a hearing at Skövde police station, on probable grounds for suspicion of murder. The following day, the decided that he would undergo a comprehensive examination conducted by a forensic psychiatrist. An analysis of the blood sample taken at the time of his arrest, carried out by the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine, showed that Jonsson had 1.35 per mille ethanol in his blood and 4.1 micrograms of tramadol per gram of blood. Tramadol is classified as a narcotic in Sweden.
During a search of the apartment, several items connected to the murder were found, including a frying pan from the kitchen and several horror movies on DVD. Among a large number of titles were films such as Green River Killer (2005) and The Wonderland Murders.
Large parts of the investigation were classified.
Trial and verdict On 11 March 2011, the trial against Jonsson began in . By that time, Jonsson had already confessed to the murder, and the comprehensive forensic psychiatric examination he underwent indicated that he suffered from a serious mental disorder, including hallucinations. He was brought into the courtroom with his hands cuffed, accompanied by guards and his lawyer, Tore Brandtler. The hearing was held in the district court's special security room, Room 5, with a glass pane separating Jonsson from the audience and journalists.
Lawyer Tore Brandtler stated that Jonsson was psychotic when the police arrived at the apartment but was able to explain what had happened. He claimed that the substances in his body had been taken after the murder and that he had only consumed a few beers beforehand. Furthermore, Brandtler noted that there was no motive beyond Jonsson's serious mental disorder, asserting that voices had compelled him to commit the act. When the prosecutor reviewed the photos from the crime scene and the autopsy, the proceedings took place behind closed doors, and journalists and other audience members were asked to leave the courtroom. When the emergency call was played in court, Jonsson did not move a muscle.
Jonsson was convicted of murder and sentenced to forensic psychiatric care with a special discharge review at the Karsudden Regional Hospital in Katrineholm. He was also ordered to pay SEK 75,000 in damages to Christensen's parents and SEK 75,000 in damages to each of her five children.
Time in psychiatric care
Initial hospital time In the autumn of 2011, it was reported that Jonsson refused to take his medication for several months. This was evident from a medical report by Chief Physician Jan Golebiowski submitted to the in Linköping. The report also indicated that during his initial stay at the psychiatric hospital, Jonsson mostly kept to himself; however, he later began to move around the ward and socialize with other inmates. He engaged in strength training and was regularly allowed to go for walks around the hospital with caregivers.
New girlfriend At Karsudden Regional Hospital, he met Michelle Gustafsson, known in the media as the Vampire Woman. Gustafsson was convicted of slitting the throat of 24-year-old father Daniel Stenman in Jakobsberg in 2010. Before the murder, she had written threatening posts on her blog about how she was going to cut the throats of people in the Stockholm Metro. She also posed for pictures like a vampire, with bloody lips, knives, and a chainsaw.
Jonsson and Gustafsson became a couple on 13 November 2011 after Jonsson asked in a chat on Windows Live Messenger "Will you be my girl?". They got engaged on 9 December. The relationship with Gustafsson, who, according to a judgment from the administrative court in March 2017, has non-institutional psychiatric care, ended in 2017.
Blogging, YouTube and art selling On 23 February 2012, Borås Tidning reported that Jonsson and Gustafsson mockingly blogged about their committed crimes from a hospital computer. The newspaper also highlighted how offensive the victim's little sister found this behaviour. A chief medical officer can only decide to restrict internet use for an individual inmate under very specific circumstances, and the decision may apply for a maximum of two months at a time. A motion to prevent this (2016/17:855) was submitted to the Swedish parliament by Sweden Democrats Kent Ekeroth and Per Ramhorn in October 2016. On the blog, Jonsson answered questions from readers and expressed his indifference to what society thinks of him and his crime: "Most people say at some point in their life that they would never take someone else's life, but have you done it it's not a big deal anymore."
In April and May 2016, Jonsson published several video clips on YouTube in which he filmed himself speaking into the camera in broken English. He discussed how he is "fighting for survival" and stated that "the meaning of life is survival, nothing more. Because if you don't survive, you're dead. I'd rather have that philosophy because it means I never have to doubt what's right and what's wrong in life. As long as I know I'm fighting for my survival. I have been in such a mental state in my life because of drugs and so that I've been sure I've seen devils and angels and aliens and everything. But even then, when I look back at the most "fucked up trip" you can imagine, I gave up."
In one of the clips, he said, "I'm not a racist. Or I am a racist. I hate everyone, except a few people in the world. So I'm a racist against the human species, if you want to label me. I see me myself as anti-human. There's nothing about humans that I like. The only people in history who have any sense as I see it are the Vikings, the Spartans and people like that."