Henning Hotvedt

Henning Hotvedt is a Norwegian man who murdered 12-year-old Kristin Juel Johannessen in 1999, when he was 23.

Kristin set off on her bike from home to go swimming at nearby Lake Goksjø at 6:30pm on August 4, 1999. At 9pm she was reported missing and her strangled body was discovered around midnight in a nearby woodland. A 50-year-old local was quickly charged but found not guilty at trial. He received compensation for being wrongly accused. Hotvedt was arrested in 2000 and convicted in 2001, largely on the basis of a human hair found on Kristen. The conviction was overturned on appeal when it was realised the hair came from a woman.

Hotvedt was detained for a minor drugs-related crime when the case was reopened, in order to obtain his DNA. This was compared to a sample of DNA from under Kristen's fingernails. The skin was left there when she fought her attacker while he strangled her with his bare hands. The ability to analyse this DNA did not exist in 1999.

The sample matched Hotvedt and he was charged again in 2015. In 2016, then aged 40, he was again convicted of Kristen's murder. He has consistently denied his guilt through the years.