Killing of Ingrid Marie Skotte

Ingrid Marie Skotte, a 13-year-old girl from Lesja Municipality, Norway, disappeared on Tuesday afternoon, 10 February 1987, while hitchhiking toward the village of Lesja. She had intended to meet her boyfriend at a café but never arrived. Witnesses reported seeing her hitchhiking along European route E136. As no trace of her was found, police became convinced she had been the victim of a violent crime, and the national criminal investigation agency KRIPOS became involved. Area searches were conducted without result, and investigators focused attention on a Ford motor vehicle reportedly seen in connection with her disappearance.

On 4 March 1987, police released composite sketches of two men in an effort to advance the investigation, but the case saw little progress in the following weeks. On 21 March 1987, Ingrid Skotte's body was discovered on a slope along Dyrkornstranda in the neighboring Stordal Municipality, in the Sunnmøre region. An autopsy determined that she had been raped and then strangled.

Following door-to-door enquiries in the area, investigators received information about a 37-year-old man, Per Otto Stenvåg, a divorced father of four with a troubled and violent history who drove an older Ford Granada. Stenvåg was arrested on 29 April 1987 and confessed to the murder immediately. During his subsequent trial, a 30-year-old woman came forward stating that Stenvåg had violently abused and raped her on 11 April 1987, and that during that attack he had told her he was responsible for the Lesja killing. She said fear had kept her from reporting the assault earlier, and she only came forward after Stenvåg admitted in court to assaulting an unidentified woman.

Stenvåg pleaded guilty. On 17 October 1987, he was sentenced to 21 years' imprisonment plus 10 years of preventive detention for premeditated murder, rape, abduction, and use of violent force. In February 1988, Norway's Supreme Court rejected his appeal and confirmed the sentence.

On the morning of 17 March 1988, Stenvåg was found to have hanged himself in his cell at Gjøvik Prison using bed sheets. Two suicide notes he left behind indicated that the decision to take his own life had been deliberate. The case became one of the most widely publicized criminal cases in post-war Norway.