– I am ashamed of what I have done, but I have never killed anyone, said Johny Vassbakk from the prosecution bench during the last day of the main proceedings in the district court just before Christmas last year. Then he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for the murder of 17-year-old Birgitte Tengs in 1995. The verdict was unanimous, but was appealed. On 5 September, a new round started in the Gulating Court of Appeal. Birgitte Tengs had been at a prayer house party in Avaldsnes the night before she was found murdered. Vassbakk was in Haugesund, he explained. – I remember driving to Haugesund that evening and picking up two hitchhikers. I don’t know who they were, but there were two well-dressed women in their 30s. The hitchhikers have never been identified. I think she got into a car Birgitte Teng hitchhiked from the prayer house party to the center of Kopervik. It was a popular place to meet friends on the weekends back then. Haiking was a very common means of getting around for Tengs and her friends. She was last seen at the end of Hovedgata, the city’s pedestrian street. Witnesses believe they saw her getting into a car. No one has seen her walking home from the center of Kopervik. Birgitte Tengs was only 17 years old. Photo: Private According to Vassbakk, he was back at home in Skudeneshavn between half past two and three on the night of the murder. He had not driven by Kopervik. – Do not think so. I am reasonably sure of that. I had no reason to drive by. Not when I was alone, he said. Samples from Birgitte Teng’s pantyhose have been analyzed several times. Photo: The police The prosecution’s most important piece of evidence is a bloodstain that was found on Birgitte Tengs’ pantyhose. In this, a Y chromosome belonging to the defendant was found. In the district court, he gave three possible explanations for how his DNA had ended up there. The hitchhiker – I only know that I have not met Birgitte Tengs, but it could have been a foreign hitchhiker, said Vassbakk during his testimony in the district court. He particularly described one hitchhiking episode with an unknown woman who was going from Kopervik to Haugesund in the spring of 1995. The description of the clothes coincided with clothes Tengs is said to have worn. He explained that she was going to the Old Slaughterhouse – a place Tengs often went to concerts. Author Bjørn Olav Jahr stated to news the same day that it could appear that Vassbakk tried to place Tengs in his own car. He never told about this hitchhiking episode when he was in for questioning in the 90s. Not until questioning in 2022 did he tell about the female hitchhiker. The prosecutor’s friend spent a long time asking the defendant about contact with young girls and gifts of underwear. According to Vassbakk, one of these was one of Tengs’ close friends. He explained that he had met her outside a hotel in Haugesund in 1995 to give her a pair of panties and a bra. He named the friend who later testified in the case. She denied that she had ever met the defendant. After her friend’s testimony, Vassbakk said that he did not recognize the woman in the witness box and that he had taken the wrong person. The girl on the dance floor A third possibility The defendant explained whether in the district court was an evening at a night club on Karmøy. Birgitte Tengs had gotten into a fight with a girl from another place on Karmøy. A girl who was accused knew that he gave her and her friends a lift. Vassbakk explained in court that he had read about the episode in the criminal case documents. He believed that one possibility was that his DNA could have been transferred to Birgitte Tengs that evening, via the girl at the nightclub. But the court did not believe this explanation either. The judgment states that the episode at the disco, according to Tengs’ diary, took place during the winter holidays in 1995, but the defendant did not meet the other girl until Easter of the same year. Calling it the fight of his life Defense attorney Stian Kristensen says Vassbakk is ready to start the appeal case. – It was completely unthinkable for him to be convicted and he is ready to start again. At the same time, he knows how much of a burden it is for him to stand in this once more. But he is ready to continue the fight of his life, as he calls it, to be acquitted. Stian Kristensen is one of the accused 52-year-old’s defenders. Photo: Marthe Synnøve Susort Johannessen / news Kristensen says that neither can they present evidence in the Court of Appeal that the two actually met before the murder. – It is completely impossible to find any concrete reference point for the hit point. But we know they lived in the same area. She took the bus every day. He drove the same route to work every day. All the shops or toilets that lie between there are a potential possibility that they may have met each other or visited right after each other, says Kristensen.
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Johny Vassbakk still denies murder – last time he had three possible DNA explanations – news Rogaland – Local news, TV and radio
