Costa News Spain Breaking News | English News in Spain.
Joona Hasselqvist, convicted of the murder of teenage girl Jenna Lepomäki in Mijas, Costa del Sol, 13 years ago, has died at 32 years old.
Hasselqvist, who in recent years went by the name of Christian Jonathan Harjanko, died of an unspecified illness on Thursday, February 13.
The murder of 18-year-old Jenna Lepomäki shook the Finnish community in 2012 when Joona Mikael Hasselqvist and Joel Aarne Esaias Lilo were convicted in Spain of Lepomäki’s murder in 2011 and sentenced to life imprisonment in Finland. Her mummified corpse, wrapped in a sleep bag, was found near where the men lived after months of investigating the disappearance.
Hasselqvist’s sentence was later commuted to manslaughter, while Lilo’s sentence was reduced to aiding in the abetting. Hasselqvist, who was 19 when the crime occurred in 2011, received a manslaughter sentence. Lilo’s sentence was reduced to aiding and abetting. Finnish law grants parole for crimes committed under the age of 21 after one-third of the sentence has been served.
The Finnish killer who was convicted of murder has reoffended
Since serving his prison sentence, Hasselqvist has been convicted of a variety of other crimes, including robbery. He was also convicted of assault while in prison after throwing hot oil over an inmate. Hasselqvist received parole on September 4, 2016 and was released from prison.
The prosecutor said that the men killed her as she refused to become a drug mule or prostitute. The killing occurred in a detached home in Mijas (Spain) in June 2011.
The day before the crime, Jenna Lepomäki reported the men to the police 13 times by phone for having threatened her with violence, but after this, the two men lured her back to the house, strangled, stabbed, and killed her.
