A trans-identified male in Norway recently convicted of beating his female partner to death with a baseball bat has had his sentence reduced on appeal. Despite the crime being committed by a male, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), which is subsidized by the government, has described the killer as a “woman.”
On the evening of November 27, 2023, a 22 year-old female who went by the name Oliver Ravn Rønning was beaten to death with a baseball bat at her apartment in Porsgrunn, which she had just moved into days before with her partner after having met via an LGBT dating app that summer. Rønning is a female who identifies as a man, while her partner, who Reduxx will refer to as Jonas, is a 19 year-old male who identifies as a woman.
The couple had just been married five days prior to the murder.
A trans-identified male is in custody for the brutal murder of his trans-identified female partner in Norway.
— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) June 5, 2024
The suspect, who identifies as a "woman," physically abused the victim, who identifies as a "man," in the weeks leading up to the murder.https://t.co/rvGDaaWLCT
Leading up to the November 2023 murder, Jonas had previously been reported to police multiple times for domestic violence against Rønning.
According to police reports, on October 12 Jonas had pinned Rønning down, and strangled her as he beat her head into the floor. While being questioned by police on her injuries, Rønning explained that her head was hit so hard that she temporarily lost hearing in one ear. She also stated that she had hoped to seek emergency care, but was prohibited from doing so by Jonas. Following the incident, police assessed Jonas as being at a “medium risk” for recurring violence.
Two weeks later, police were again called to the scene after Jonas had engaged in the same style of physically abusive behavior. After this, authorities re-classified the trans-identified male as having a “high risk of violence.”
However, despite being aware of ongoing abuse, authorities did not take appropriate action to prevent the homicide – a matter which has now been taken up by Marit Storeng, head of prosecution investigations in the Bureau of Police Affairs.
Attorney General Helene Holtvedt, when initially handing down a sixteen-year prison sentence at the Telemark District Court, was convinced that Jonas killed Rønning for attempting to end the relationship. Holtvedt stated that no mitigating factors ought to be taken into account, and that the killing was a “brutal act committed with great intensity.”
Two court-appointed experts, psychologist Karin Susanne Nordby Johansen and psychiatrist Ove Westgård, testified that they believed Jonas was likely to commit a violent crime again in the future.
However, Jonas’ defense attorneys, Heidi Ysen and Tore Moen, appealed the murder conviction and requested an acquittal on the claim that the trans-identified male had beat the young woman with a bat in self-defense. Jonas attempted to claim that it was in fact Rønning who had been abusive towards him during the course of their brief relationship.
“She has admitted that she beat Oliver to death,” said Ysen, referring to the male defendant with feminine pronouns. “She has been doing that ever since she was arrested, but it was in self-defense.”
The judges in the Agder Court of Appeal disagreed with the acquittal request, and noted that, “Violence, threats of violence, and social control of the other are a repetitive pattern of action in the defendant’s relationships.”
Despite this, the Court of Appeal reduced Jonas’ sentence from 16 years to 14 and a half years.
The Institute of Forensic Medicine determined that Jonas struck Rønning in the head at least seven times. The victim’s mother witnessed the brutal murder of her daughter from outside of the apartment, having run to the window when she heard the young woman crying out in pain.
Rønning’s mother was aware that her daughter was in an abusive relationship and had tried to convince her to leave. On the night of November 27, they had returned to the apartment in Porsgrunn so that Oliver could pick up her bank card, code chip, phone and laptop.
After the young woman rang the doorbell, Jonas appeared with a baseball bat and beat Rønning to death just inside the entrance as her mother ran to the window and rapped on the glass desperately, begging him to stop.
News outlet Kragerø Blad has reported that Jonas “began to dress in girls’ clothes” while in high school, and was described by those who know him as someone who “could become enraged over little things.”
Some Norwegian sources have speculated that both Rønning and Jonas were once patients of a prominent gender clinician who was recently deemed “unfit to practice responsibly” by the Norwegian Health Authority. Rønning’s parents confirmed that their daughter was given testosterone by Esben ‘Esther Pirelli’ Benestad, a clinician who himself identifies as transgender, and who had his medical license revoked over malpractice issues related to minors. But Østlandsposten reported that Jonas had begun illicit hormones without medical supervision just before the slaying.
The murder has received significant attention and media coverage in Norway. However, the language used to describe the case has perplexed some readers. Many news reports have altered language used to refer to both the victim and suspect, or have described the case as one in which a woman violently beat her husband to death, obfuscating the sexes of those involved completely.
Yet in official records, the deceased 22-year-old victim is registered as a woman, while the trans-identified male convicted of murder is registered as a man.
