Deaths in Norway attack came from stab wounds, not bow and arrow, police say By Reuters

OSLO (Reuters) – 5 individuals killed in a small Norwegian city final week have been all stabbed to demise and never shot with a bow and arrows as initially suspected, police mentioned on Monday.

4 girls and one man, aged between 52 and 78-years-old, have been killed within the Oct. 13 assaults in Kongsberg, a city about 70 km (40 miles) west of the capital Oslo.

Three individuals have been additionally injured, together with an off-duty police officer who was shot with the bow and arrow within the early part of the 35-minute rampage.

However the assailant then appeared to have discarded this weapon, investigators mentioned.

“5 individuals have been killed with stabbing weapons,” police inspector Per Thomas Omholt instructed a information convention.

He declined to say whether or not these have been knives or bigger weapons.

“Some have been killed inside their very own properties, others out in public,” Omholt mentioned.

Final Wednesday, police had mentioned a person “armed with” a bow and arrow had dedicated the killings. They later added that different weapons have been additionally concerned. Omholt didn’t say why it had taken six days to make clear what weapon was used.

Witnesses have described to Reuters how they fled for his or her lives because the assault unfolded.

The only suspect within the case, named by police final week as Espen Andersen Braathen, 37, is believed by investigators to be mentally ailing and is presently held in a locked psychiatric facility.

The demise toll was the worst of any assault in Norway since 2011, when far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 individuals, most of them youngsters at a youth camp.