The murder of Catrine da Costa
The unsolved murder of Catrine da Costa inspired the books of Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell. This case shines a light on Sweden’s dark underbelly of sexual violence and misogyny
My investigation into Sweden’s most notorious (and unsolved) murder of a woman trapped in the sex trade
This article was first published in 2010, and updated in March 2024
Sweden was the first country to criminalise paying for sex (in 1999) after a feminist campaign prompted by the murder of Catrine da Costa. The law prohibiting the purchase of sexual services in Sweden came into force as part of the larger Violence Against Women Act, with the parliament defining prostitution as a serious form of male violence against women and children - harmful not only to the individuals involved, but also to society at large.
This law broke new ground and helped to galvanise the abolitionist movement. A number of feminists had been fighting for the introduction of this law for many years because they saw prostitution as simply another form of men’s violence towards women. The unsolved murder of da Costa, a sexually exploited young woman found decapitated near to the notorious street prostitution zone in Stockholm, gave a further push to the campaign to deter men from paying for sex.
The arrest of two seemingly respectable men for da Costa’s murder provoked the women of Sweden to organise against the sex trade. They marched through the city centres; circulated petitions; and appeared on television programmes protesting against the ill treatment of women, particularly vulnerable females such as da Costa. The case led to a change in the law on prostitution and the act of paying for sex has been criminalised since 1999.
When this law was introduced, there were an estimated 2,500 women in prostitution in Sweden. Today there are around 500. And what is particularly impressive is that the number of women trafficked into Sweden is now between 200 and 500 a year - the lowest tally in Europe. Not only are those selling sex (largely women) not arrested, they are also offered bespoke services and support if they wish to exit prostitution.
Malmskillnadsgatan, Stockholm, used to be where the street prostitutes in the capital gathered. The 600-meter long road in the city centre was always teaming with drug addicted women at night, weaving in and out of the traffic, some barely able to stand. This was the street where Catrine da Costa, a 28-year-old prostitute and heroin addict, was last seen alive in June 1984. Her remains were later discovered in bin bags. Her head and some internal organs were missing, and have never been found.
Catrine da Costa
It is not unusual for prostituted women to be murdered, but police knew that the mutilation made this case different. The case, known in Sweden as ‘styckmordet’ (the ‘cutting up murder’) provided the country with a horror story about which people are still divided today. Although the case has remained high-profile – there are at least four books and numerous TV programmes and newspaper investigations on the topic, and the case sparked a feminist campaign which eventually changed Swedish law on prostitution – the gory, complicated details are about to be aired all over again in a Swedish court. The two men at the centre of this case, doctors named Teet Härm and Thomas Allgén, successfully sued the Swedish government for forty million Swedish Kronas (just over £3m) in 2010, as they were labeled as ‘guilty’ of cutting up da Costa by a judge, despite being acquitted of her murder.