Murderer: The Sadist Kjell-Åke Johansson (Part 1)

Scandinavian Crimes (w/ Devante & Delila)

Years Active: 1985-1990
Location: Sweden
Murderer: Kjell-Åke Johansson
Victim(s): 5 Victims (2 Dead)
Method: Torture, Murder

In 1990, Johansson was again convicted of serious violent crimes, this time after torturing a 10-month-old infant to death. In this case, too, Johansson was the victim's stepfather. Johansson was sentenced to six years in prison for aggravated assault and aggravated manslaughter after he caused the death of the 10-month-old infant.

In 2002, he was sentenced to life in prison after torturing Birgitta Lönnhager, then 43 years old, over a long period of time, until she died on May 27, 2002.  After Lönnhager had died, he forced her fiance to burn her body and take the blame for the murder.


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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:10 Story - Childhood History
• 5:37 Story - Adult Life
• 7:07 Story - The Child Abuse
• 10:29 Discussion Section
• 29:04 Conclusion/Outro

Transcript

Welcome to Scandinavian Crimes. My name is Yvonne and say hello to my lovely co-host Delilah. Hi.



 And on this podcast, we'll cover famous Scandinavian criminals who made their mark throughout Scandinavian history. So this story is definitely an odd one. It's a lot different compared to a lot of stories that we've told so far. So this one is jam packed with a ton of information and just a lot of things transpired. So this will be divided into two parts. And we're going to tell the story of Kajal Ak Johanissen, who becomes one of Sweden's worst sadists and torturers, pretty much in history.



 Now, his acts were, however, one of the most gruesome in history as well, which kind of makes the story even more wild. And trust me, I need you to prepare mentally for this ride that we're about to go on. So prepare yourself mentally, you know, grab your snacks,



 grab your drinks, grab tea, coffee, whatever you're doing at the moment and prepare because this is only going to be part one to what happened during this whole situation. So here is the story of Kajal Ak Johanissen.



 Johanissen was born November 30th, 1955. His parents divorced when he was three years old and Johanissen grew up with his father in the village of Näsland, Västerbotten. Johanissen liked animals playing and participating in sports with other children in the village.



In other words, he was just like any other little boy. He was quite robust as a child, skilled in sports and sometimes had a bit of a difficulty controlling his strength when playing with the other children. But it wasn't to the point where there was anything dangerous, as well as he was pretty much floating under people's radar, especially back then.



Johanissen didn't have an easy time as a young boy. His upbringing with his father was very characterized by violence as well as just an overall unsafe environment. He spent most of his time at his father's grandparents' house, but even there he experienced a lot of mistreatment. There were many times when Johanissen tried to take part in activities with other children. However, this often led to his father and grandparents humiliating Johanissen in front of other children by using mental and physical abuse.



Sometimes his grandparents stripped Johanissen of his clothes in front of his friends and beat him. This was a highly degrading situation for Johanissen. It's not just about being exposed to violence, but also being humiliated in front of one's peers.



Johanissen was also not allowed to play with other children, isolating him from the others, which made him even more sad. This ended up with him having a hard time making friends. Even when he tried multiple times, he failed to establish friendships with other kids in the area. During school, Johanissen was truly struggling. Around the age of 10, he starts developing facial takes and has difficulty sitting still.



Johanissen was described by classmates as "different" and as someone that many people in school rather would avoid. During this time, a darker side of Johanissen also emerges. He is said to have, among other things, tried to lock his friends in when they wanted to go home. On many occasions, he crosses the line in a way that scares those around him. When Johanissen turned 15 years old, he tried to manipulate a seven-year-old girl into doing something truly terrible. The girl, along with her childhood friend, was at a bathing area playing. When they were done, Johanissen approached them and started talking to them. He suggested that they play a game together. Since neither of them had a game, Johanissen asked a childhood friend of the girl he was trying to get the attention of to go get the game by herself, while he kept the friend company.



While the friend rode off, Johanissen asked a seven-year-old girl if he would like to see a bird's nest with baby birds, to which she eagerly agreed.



When they arrived at the spot, he proposed a play game of house. He then forcefully held the young girl down and tore off her clothes while pulling down his own pants. She screamed and fought back, eventually managing to break free.



Her resistance prevented him from carrying out his horrifying intentions. Although the incident wasn't a completed act of rape, it was still deeply traumatic for the girl. To this day, as an adult woman, she wished she had reported it to the police, hoping that it could have prevented Johanissen from inflicting more harm in the future.



During this point in time, after finishing school, Johanissen tries various odd jobs, but he never quite fits into the working world. A former colleague reveals that Johanissen had difficulty arriving on time for work, and when he did arrive, he performed his job poorly. After some time, he stopped working and relied on social welfare while engaging in petty crimes to get some type of income. It was during this time that he also started consuming large quantities of alcohol. Johanissen's main income was deceiving an elderly man in a nearby village. Over the course of time, he managed to swindle a significant amount of money from the elderly man. He used to buy groceries for Johanissen and ensured that he had enough food for the day. The elderly man ended up giving up all his money and food to Johanissen, and as the man grew older, he became more and more malnourished and neglected. Johanissen continues down the path of crime.



In his 20s, he was convicted of grand theft, drunk driving, as well as fraud. In 1983, he served a short prison sentence for theft and aiding and abetting in a major fraud case. Jenny Yorkstone, a doctor of psychology, described Johanissen as having an incredible power of persuasion. Many characteristics associated with psychopathy are evident in him. A lack of empathy, impulsivity, and easily triggered aggression. Manipulation is an integral part of the psychological profile, serving as a means for Johanissen to always prioritize his own desires. When Johanissen was released from prison, he moved to Strechsel, where he met a girl from Stockholm and they moved in together with their two children, aged four and six. Johanissen didn't like it when the children talked and screamed, so he started abusing them. This went on for a long time until it came to the attention of the police. He abused them with punches and kicks. In one incident, he dislocated one of the children's arms and legs, causing the children to have fractures as well as broken bones.



There were many harsh things that these two children endured too horrific and graphic to even be told on this podcast.



These targeted children were abused by this 30-year-old man for some time in 1986.



After that, Johanissen was sentenced to four years in prison for these crimes. In the spring of 1990, Johanissen moved back to his childhood village, Nasland. Around this time, he met a new woman and they lived together with her few-month-old daughter in Johanissen's grandparents' farm. A handyman was at Johanissen's farm to do some repairs in the attic.



At the attic, he saw a chair on the floor and above it was a rope, tied in a circle, fitting for a neck. The handyman got an uncomfortable feeling that Johanissen had planned to hang someone there. The handyman continued his work and saw the mother of a little child leave and go shopping. When Johanissen and the child were completely alone, a loud scream from the baby was heard.



When the handyman rushed in to check on the child, it was silent.



There, Johanissen sat, feeding the baby with a bottle.



The handyman felt that something was wrong and the feeling that things were not right in the farm would prove to be absolutely true.



A few weeks after the handyman's visit, an ambulance was called to the home. The child had been abused by Johanissen for a long time and at the medical center, it was determined that the little girl had died from her injuries.



There were signs of both new and old injuries which turned out to be repeated external violence to the head, neck, and spinal cord of the child. You all wonder, how could the mother have noticed this? Well, it was because Johanissen tricked her into believing him to be this really nice person. The mother stated how Johanissen had been like a father to the baby. She described him as caring, devoted, always looking out for her child's well-being. There was no indication of impatience or bad temper.



He was eager to assist the mother in caring for the child, showing willingness to be responsible as well as an involved parent. On July 13th, 1990, Johanissen was sentenced to six years in prison by the Umea District Court along with other things, aggravated assault and causing another person's death. In the aftermath, the handyman expressed his regrets of not being able to help the baby. He wished he could have done more for the child. He wished that he could have taken the child with him from that horrible nightmare. Yeah, intensive. And this is only the first part, y'all.



The second one is even...



Okay, well, I'm not going to spoil anything.



So, I want to talk about, you know, his childhood onto his adulthood. So, many of the kids, when he was like really young, he seemed to be a normal boy, like any other child, right? He wanted to play, he wanted to have friends, you know, regular things, right?



The thing that changed him, it was the abuse from his father and also the father's parents or the grandparents. And, you know, oftentimes when you are abused as a young age, you want to try to find any different ways to protect yourself. And it can manifest in different ways, you know.



So, in my...what I think is that Johanissen, I think he just wanted to gain control. And examples would be, for example, like he got, you know, he got isolated from the kids in an abusive way and also he couldn't really, like, meet anybody at all. He also learned that abuse is a way to gain control, not only from the other people, like, not only inflicting and damaging other people, but also, like, get more control of himself. Because not, you know, not being the one receiving the abuse, but afflicting it is like a control in itself. Not being the one getting the painful, you know, hurt and everything.



And for him to see others being humiliated or hurt is more fun than him being humiliated and hurt, right? So, I think this is the time where he started developing these, like, thought processes and wanted to just protect himself from pain and humiliation as well.



He started also learning manipulation skills, for example, with the poor girl who almost got raped. And, you know, the thing that was, as we also said in previous podcasts, me and Devontae, that fight for your life and, you know, you will be able to get away with most of the things.



And in this case, she was fighting and because he felt like he couldn't get that control over her, he kind of just let her be. And I want you guys to remember that he wants to control not only this part, the first part, but also on the second part, because it's very important.



Because this will follow him throughout his whole life, you know? Also something I want to kind of bring up to people as well, which is a very fascinating thing about people who suffer with psychopathic tendencies, antisocial personality disorders, stuff like that on those lines, is that also narcissistic as well. Well, in this case, I guess I'm referring specifically to psychopathy. This is what kind of branches off, kind of makes it different. Even when people think, you know, people who are psychopathic don't feel anything, that's not entirely true. They do feel things, but it's extremely limited as well as distorted. But in his case, I think, personally, it's in my opinion, it's not a fact. So remember, this is just my personal opinion and how I do, how I see it. I think that his abuse towards children weren't solely, obviously it was for some sense of control and I wouldn't even be surprised there was a little bit of pleasure behind it. But I think his abuse against children in different relationships are also a different form of vengeance.



And what a lot of people don't realize is sometimes with people who suffer from like these kind of psychosis of being a psychopath, where



what happens sometimes is that because during his childhood, he experienced abuse from not only his parents, but his grandparents,



he's trying to make up for that anger in his present day by kind of dishing out this vengeance towards other people. This is, like I said, my opinion. I think because of his distorted view of relationships with kids,



parents, parental figures, authority figures, he views them as a target.



And being the parent in that situation, there's either two things that kind of probably transpired in his head. Either he wanted vengeance towards himself, where he viewed the kids in response to his self because he's weak, because that can actually happen a lot with a lot of people who are psychopaths, who were abused when they were younger. They'll take out their frustration on themselves, like, you know, their figurative selves via the children, or



in their head, that's their way of getting even with their abuser or abusers in this case. And I think he has a lot of conflicting emotions because



it's like even he didn't really abuse adult women too much. It's always seemed to be tied to some sort of child. When he was like, what, 14, 15, it was a child, it was a seven-year-old girl. When as an adult, the wife supposedly didn't even notice, but he's seen his anger seems very directed towards children. And I think that's kind of, like I said, this is my personal opinion. I think he's kind of dealing with some sort of vengeance to like Vendetta in his head personally.



I completely agree with you. I think, like, there's so many things that is going on in his head. And to me, it sounds like he targets weak people.



And this is also very prevalent on the, if we look at the, for example, with the seven-year-old girl, who escaped because he couldn't control her, he let her escape.



And I feel like he just want to have a sense of control and also revenge because he was being poorly treated when he was young. Like, I think there's a lot of things going on. I agree with you on that part as well.



He started with the, you know,



manipulation to get whatever he wanted. He just wanted, he just want to be free, it seems like. He just want to do whatever he feels like is what I can tell. And he thinks that it's fun to hurt. And he think it's like, as long as it doesn't affect him in a way. So there's a lot of different components here. And I think it's like you can get a lot of information just from his childhood self, but also from adulthood as well. Because like that's when it manifests and just evolve into, you know, something more, you know, it just progressively gets worse.



Also, I want to say something as well regarding the multi-generation of abuse. So it's very clear the grandparents probably abused his parents and obviously his parents abused him.



Classic example, actually. This is kind of the prime example of what we said in the last episode, in the previous episode, how environment is so important to children. Because children don't stay children forever. They don't stay weak and defenseless forever. They grow up to be adults.



And if you are not prepared to have a child, if you don't have the patience to deal with the child, if you don't have the understanding to deal with the child, if you don't have what it takes to raise them to be very decent human beings, because children don't grow out of bad behaviors that they're learning from you. It doesn't just turn off. It amplifies as they get older. Then you need to not have children.



And you have to understand that these children will grow up to be adults.



Very grown adults who can affect the environment around them in such a huge and massive way. Especially if, you know, as we can see throughout history and even, you know, like when it comes to like, you know, school shootings and serial killers, especially men, you know, a lot of them will end up causing so much damage because they have the will, the veracity to out like basically take out their vengeance or whatever they're feeling on the people around them and they become very dangerous.



So if you want to have children, environment is important and it is important above all else. They don't, if you see behavior that's alarming, they will not grow out of it. - Safe environment, you know, like it's so, it just saddens me. - They will not grow out of it. It's something you cannot ignore. And I know there's parents out there, even parents who listen to this podcast, you know, just, oh, my child will never do that. I'm like, you don't know what children are capable of. - What they're thinking. - Because they're living life from their perspective. So you need to make sure that you're paying attention, that you're providing a safe environment, emotionally, mentally, physically, because they can evolve at any point into a monster if you don't take the proper steps to make sure that they are well taken care of. So don't, I get it. You love your children. Everyone loves their family. Everyone loves their kids. I get it. But when you see the signs, if you like, just please go do something about it while it's still early, because there's nothing you can do when they're like 25, 30, especially like I said, young boys, when they physically get strong enough, there's nothing you can do and it's too late.



So please pay attention to the signs. - I just wanted to ask you, Devontae, like, what do you think about, do you think that Johan Sun actually was having some type of tendencies when he was young and the environment just drastically changed him? Or do you think that the environment only was the reason that he turned out to be the way he turned out to be? - I personally-- - Because to me, everybody was saying, based on witnesses from when he was younger,



that he seemed to be like any other regular boy. He seemed to be perfectly fine, nothing wrong, just a normal guy just wanted to play and stuff.



- Yeah, it seems to me, it seems like he, at least based on the information that we have, obviously I wasn't there to see it, so I'm only going off of secondhand information. - Yeah. - But based on the information, it seemed like he was normal and the environment was the driving factor behind his actions. That's the main reason why he is the way he is today.



Especially he grew up in a house where there was multi-generation of abuse. The crayon, I said the crayon, the grandparents were-- - Grandparents. - The grandparents were abusive to him, the father was abusive to him. So it's like he was getting abused at home and then they were isolating him because, of course, the best way to abuse someone is to isolate because if they think they're alone, if they think that it's normal, they won't seek help. And like I said, it sucks, but I think in this case, the environment was 90% of the problem and 10% of it could have been, let's say, a genetic predisposition. I think environment in this case was almost the sole reason of why this happened. - Yeah. - Because he seemed like a normal kid. He wanted to have fun. Yeah, he was bigger than average, but that was the same. - That's a normal thing. - That was the same way. - Yeah, I was the same way. I was a pretty big kid. You just learn how to control your strength, but I still have plenty of fun and all that stuff. So he seemed normal.



- Another thing that I just want to mention regarding the mother of the,



sadly, the child who died or the infant that died.



Before you guys be like, yeah, she should have noticed anyways because of the damages and stuff. Actually, she didn't notice, but she did see that for some reason, the baby, I never put this in this story because it was gruesome, but I just wanted to mention this, that the baby had difficulty in moving because it seemed like the baby had never logical damages of the muzzle, but it was never like the mother just saw that, oh, my child doesn't move that well. Why? And she went to the doctors who was like, they were just like, no, there's nothing wrong. We see that there's a little bit of weakness. And then they started to do more tests. And that's when they realized, we see weird things going on, but they didn't really know why. - Probably like scar tissue and stuff like that. - Yeah, and then they went back. And then that's when the baby died, basically. - This is what I said. Please pay attention. - The mother did notice difficulty for the child to move, obviously, because damages to the head, spine and everything is going to lead to that. But she thought it was a thing that was born with. - Like a birth defect. - Yeah. So she noticed those things, but she couldn't really put them together, that he would do something. Who would do something like that? Sometimes if you truly believe somebody, it's hard to just like put two and two together, you know, especially if you haven't witnessed this or anything. The only one who seemed to like some who could witness was the handyman. And he was like, looking, he ran down when he heard something was off. He just felt like everything just felt off, you know?



- Yeah. And I know there's going to probably going to be a couple of people out there that are like, why didn't the handyman do anything? One, it's not his job. Two, it's really tough to be, it's tough to be in a situation like that because he's never been there before. And even though he felt like something is off legally, you can't take it to the police. Like, hmm, something feels off. People are not going to respond to that. - He had no evidence of anything. So that's also a hard thing to prove, you know? - So he had to, it's not his fault. And if he's by some chance, if he manages to be listening to this podcast, it's not your fault. You know? - Yeah. Don't blame yourself. You had regrets, we know. - You did the best you could. That's the only thing you could do. That's the only thing you do in that situation. - You being a witness is far better than not even doing anything. So you did the best you could. And I think that, you know, it's hard to decide what to do in certain situations like that. So you did good. - Yeah. It's very tough. So I personally, if you're listening, if you're one of the audience, not just, you know, the guy himself, but, you know, if you're just a listener and you're probably like, why didn't you do anything? I'm like, in a situation like that, it's what can you do? There's nothing you can do in that situation. And he didn't do anything wrong. So, but like I said, situations like this, please pay attention. Not even just people, but also like just other parents. You know, if you see kids where, you know, their behavior is shifting, because there's a pattern to that too. If you notice the parents are constantly isolating their children from other children, you see that their behavior is changing. You see that they're bruised. You see that they're not acting as a child should. I think, you know, if we're going to create a community, a world where, you know, we support each other and help each other, we need to pay attention and look out for each other as well. And it doesn't matter if it's your neighbor who should, who is doing these like abusive tendencies or acts, you know, you should be looking out for the interest of the child, as well as, you know, the future. Because, you know, if we could prevent this stuff as much as possible, then the world would be such a better place. And people like this would never be so notorious because of the things that they do. I know that we're focused a lot about, you know, his mental state and obviously like the witnesses and the mother and stuff. But I also want to mention how strange that he wasn't charged like worse or more for his crimes, especially where there were history of him abusing children. And he also ended up like killing or murdering that one infant. And he still didn't even get a lot of years in prison. He got parole. He was released twice and like inflicted even more harm and damage, which will be on part two. Even Ola, Ola, oh my God, I should say that the Swedish Ola Laurel, who was he was heavily involved in the case. He was he was also very surprised that no charges were brought against him for murder or manslaughter. He was subjected to severe violence. Everyone can understand that the risk of the children dying is like imminent. So why wasn't he charged for longer for his crimes or why could how could they release him after, you know? So even like the people involved in his case thought that it was very strange that it was accepted for him to go out after that. And, you know, I don't know. Huh? That's that's the of that. I don't know. That's that's a little weird for sure. It's very interesting. You got a very weird, especially if it's like children.



You know, well, either way, I guess we have to round up. Right. Not for a round up. You don't have to announce it. I don't know. I feel like I have to. I know because I see what you're talking about. But yes, this case was absolutely wild. And this is only part one. I feel like I want to leave you guys on a cliffhanger a little bit. So may make you wait two weeks for part two. You know, put a different case in between and, you know, really just edge you a little bit more. I see how I feel. You know, let's see. I'm going to leave it as a surprise. You'll never know how I feel. Maybe I want to be a little sadistic or maybe I want to just, you know, give you what you need. I don't know. Let's see how this plays out. But this episode is only the tip, the very tip of the iceberg and be prepared for that part, too. That's all I know. But let's end it on a good note to help even out some of this negativity for part one. And I don't know. What are you feeling like today, food wise? I kind of want like toast, like cheese and stuff in it, I guess. Basic. I want bacon pancakes. Well, you know, you take the bacon and then you dip it in the batter and then you that's what I want. That looks so good. You know, that's the TikTok one that. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to we're going to do that. So that's what I want for today. And once again, to end the episode, be careful, be safe. Look out for your neighbors. Look out for yourself. Take care of yourself. Pay attention. Keep your eyes. Keep your third eye open, too. Remember 101. Don't let manipulation like win over you. Be strong minded. Don't let them do anything. OK, be strong. That's what I guess to put it in a nice sweeter way to put a bow on it. If you feel like someone's trying to take advantage of you, they're probably trying to take advantage of you. That was like a smooth that was OK. So OK. So love you guys. Be careful. Be safe. And we shall see you next week. Peace out.