A 26-year-old woman has been sentenced to eight years in prison. This was the decision on Tuesday evening in Nuuk, after the Sermersooq Circuit Court had reviewed a dramatic incident in Tasiilaq on June 26, 2025.
At that time, it had started as a festive day celebrating a family member in the house where the woman lived with both her mother and her siblings. But on that Thursday evening, a violent development occurred, certainly pushed along by alcohol.
The daughter stabbed her mother twice with a knife while the two were alone together. She then went to the neighbor and asked him to call the police. She then went back, sat on the couch, drank a can of beer and continued stabbing her mother.
The prosecution was successful
According to the indictment, there were approximately 75 stab wounds distributed in many places on the body, carried out with two different knives from the kitchen. The cause of death was stated as a stab wound to the heart, possibly in combination with blood loss.
The prosecutor believed that this should result in eight years in prison. The defense argued for a significantly milder sentence for assault and also disputed the number of cuts. However, the court essentially agreed with the prosecutor, and the sentence thus ended at eight years.
Seven years is the starting point for a murder in Greenland. The woman has thus been sentenced to an extra year above normal, and this is justified by the severity and violence of the murder.
Taking time to reflect
The daughter told the court that the mother herself got a knife and asked to be stabbed. Her two sisters confirmed as witnesses that alcohol sometimes had a destructive effect on their common mother. In those situations, the mother could become uncomfortable, talk about suicide and want help to die.
However, the mother's alleged statements while drunk were not a mitigating circumstance in the eyes of the court.
In addition to the sentence to prison, the perpetrator was also sentenced to pay compensation to the victim's survivors, who are her own three siblings. She now owes them 100,000 kroner each.
The 26-year-old woman is taking time to reflect after the sentence. This means that she has two weeks to consider whether she wants the case appealed to the Greenland High Court.
