Why are young girls contacting Danish prisoners serving life sentences for heinous crimes? What do the brutal perpetrators want with the teenage girls? And where’s the sense of justice in all of it, given that Peter Lundin and Peter Madsen are able to create romantic relationships with minors?

In the series ‘In Love with a Murderer,’ we follow 19-year-old Cammilla, who is in love with prisoner-for-life Peter Madsen. For those unaware, the inventor ‘Raket Madsen’ achieved world notoriety in 2017 after abusing, killing, and dismembering a young female journalist in his submarine. Since Cammilla was 17 years old, she has been building a close relationship with Peter Madsen via letters and telephone conversations. Despite the horrific crime he committed, it’s now her biggest dream to marry him and give birth to his child.

However, as incomprehensible as it may sound, Cammilla is not the only one fascinated by dangerous inmates. The Facebook page ‘Date en Indsat’ (Date An Inmate), has close to 30,000 members. In Herstedvester Prison, which houses some of the country’s most dangerous criminals, 32 weddings have taken place since 2009.

Peter Lundin’s ex-wife Mariann takes us back to the time she fell in love with one of Denmark’s most infamous killers. Now, more than ever, she is struggling with the consequences of the mistake she made as a 14-year-old – when she chose to write her first letter to Peter Lundin. An innocent letter that ended in a marriage, a quadruple murder, and the beginning of an agony she has a hard time coping with, even today. “One letter and you’re trapped,” she warns.

Discovery reveals evidence proving that there is free access to communication between young girls and dangerous life-sentence prisoners in closed prisons. How can this be, in a modern law-based society like Denmark?

Through the use of audio recordings and letters, the methods Peter Madsen and Peter Lundin use to manipulate young women are revealed. The series must then ask the question: “should this be legal?” After all, both of these individuals are extremely dangerous to other people, and known to be so.

The program further reveals that an employee at the Danish Prison and Probation Service illegally arranged telephone contact between Peter Lundin and young women for a fee. Former Prison Officer Lærke Mogensen says in the program “It would rattle the population’s sense of justice if they knew to what extent these criminals have the opportunity to have contact with the outside world when they are sentenced to a ‘closed prison’ in Denmark.”

Psychiatrist Henrik Day Poulsen, former PET chief Hans Jørgen Bonnichsen, and DF party chairman Peter Skaarup (and others) are extremely critical of this issue. The latter states in the program: “It is simply not right. It is deeply offensive to any sense of justice.” Skaarup previously fought a futile battle to reign in the life prisoners’ opportunity to create new romantic relationships from inside the prison. He will resume doing so with help of the program’s broadcasts.

Producer Birgitte Koefoed
Editor-in-Chief Mette Sofie Thrane