Although the suspected serial killer James Schmidt sits in custody for the death of three pensioners in the us, so is his stepfather Henning is not in doubt: “He is a good boy.”
“It was his mother who called and told me that he was arrested. It was absolutely grotesque. I could not think.”
In a small courtyard at an address in Hellerup, north of copenhagen sits the 82-year-old Henning and thinking back on the conversation he had with his ex-girlfriend one Sunday in the month of march. She was upset, he remembers, when she told that her son, 27-year-old James Schmidt, were charged with being behind the deaths of three pensioners.
You can see the entire third section of the ‘Reopened’ at the top of this article. You can also see section one and two.
“It was hard for me to understand, and I was very surprised,” continues Henning, who does not want his name forward.
Henning is James Schmidt, not anyone.
In well over 15 years the two have known each other. Even denotes Henning their relationship as father and son, before he connects a little story to the name.
“I was in a relationship with his mother, so I took him often on trips. When he did not fit his avisomdeling, so I had to go out with them early Sunday morning. I knew rarely, where he was, and so I had to give him an earful when he came home,” says Henning.
This is how Henning remembers James Schmidt.
A ‘fresh boy, who sought the limits’, as all other boys his age. But also as a boy who sometimes had a different behaviour, and as with Hennings words and ‘lived outside of time and place’.
And the side of James Schmidt came to the fore, soon after he was of age.
James Schmidt was charged and imprisoned for the three murders in the city, it was not the first time that he became acquainted with the Danish legal system. Already back in 2011, he was at the age of just 19 years sentenced one of the country’s strictest penal custody for an indefinite time.
First in the district court and the district court were James Schmidt, who was then the Lual Lual, sentenced to a forvaringsdom for the rape of a young girl of just 14 years, as well as to have raped and tried to kill his mother’s friend. However, in april 2012, the Supreme court to overturn the indefinite forvaringsdom to seven years in prison.
“It was very strange. I had no pre-requisites to understand it, but I spoke regularly with him, as he sat in prison. I think it was a foul place, and I can not understand that one cannot do everything in order not to end up in such a place again,” says Henning.
Why was Henning also sure, James Schmidt had crossed swords with the Danish legal system for the last time, when he picked him in the pouring rain, the 17. January 2017 in front of the Horsens state prison.
“On the way home to Copenhagen, we talk about everything, but not about his judgment. I could sense in him that he was happy to be free,” he tells the today the 27-year-old mordsigtede, who came to Denmark from south Sudan at the age of seven years.
In speeches, at no time that he has raped a girl and tried to kill a woman?
“I have never asked for it, and why should not I also it? I do not understand, that he could behave like that, and I could not understand, it was him. Him, I had known for so many years.”
As the two came home to Copenhagen again helped Henning James Schmidt to find a place to stay, just like he also got him enrolled in a studenterkursus, he explains. If he did it, he knows not, though.
Had James changed when he came out of prison?
“No, not that I watched it. But I see him also in one way, and that’s how I also think, he was. I find it hard to say anything bad about him,” says Henning, before he adds, that he, in the subsequent two years continuously have contact with the stepson, until the day in march, where he will be arrested.
Since James Schmidt in custody for the killing of the three retirees. First, a 83-year-old woman Thursday 7. February of this year. Next, an 80-year-old man Saturday 2. march. And finally, a 81-year-old woman Thursday 7. march.
“the Night before he gets arrested, gets the police knocking on my door. They ask whether James lives here, because he has had a mailing address here. They don’t say anything about any murder, but the next morning, calling his mother and telling what has happened.”
And although Henning in the first place did not intend to visit James Schmidt in the prison, so is he ago come on other thoughts. Before long he will probably visit the mordsigtede 27-year-old man, while he sits in custody.
What will you say to him when you visit him?
“nothing. We are going to talk together as we two, but I will not ask him in to it. I do not turn your back to it, but I can still not do a damn thing about it. He will also slide of the answer. I think damn not that I ever would get a reply.”
Henning is also not something that suggests that his views on James Schmidt will change, although the 27-year-old man therefore, according to the police are behind the killing of three defenseless pensioners in the us.
“I blame him not, but of course, I condemn it, and it is incomprehensible. I can’t understand that people can beat the other to death. It happens, but I don’t understand it,” says Henning, before he concludes:
“There is hope ahead. I live in a christian culture, and there is forgiveness one of the strongest arguments. It is the only way we can get ahead in life.”
Wednesday, 11. december there was a hearing in the case in a Copenhagen city Court. There were not details about the actual crime, but the public got insight in Retslægerådets assessment of James Schmidt.
the Council believes, that he is hard deviant with psychopathic traits, and if he got free, there would be at great risk of reoffending to serious crime. Retslægerådet therefore recommend – if he is found guilty – that he be sentenced to custody.
Copenhagen Police has on Friday charged James Schmidt for all three killings.
