The Russian sailor and the axe-killings

Jensen's novel, The Axe Ship, is inspired by a real life drama that caused a sensation in Denmark - and made headlines all over the world. A Russian sailor was accused of killing the entire crew of a German coaster with an axe.

READ THE STORY ABOUT THE REAL AXE SHIP

POSTSCRIPT, JANUARY 2019

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the macabre mystery of the axeship Bärbel the daily JydskeVestkysten published several pages about the murdercase in August 2018.

Reporter Mark Michael Hede succeded in having a telephone-interview with the Russian sailor Andrey Lapin, who left the court in Germany as a free man many years ago. During the interview (the newspaperpicture, right) he was posted at Arctic Rescue Center in Murmansk.

Now Lapin is 53 and lives in Kaliningrad with wife and two kids. He works as a rescuediver for the russian government and has more than 250 rescuemissions on his cv. In his freetime he paints pictures.

Among other things Lapin told the Danish newspaper: "It is not fun to need to kill, and I would rather prefer to have avoided that. You know, I feel sorry for the families to those I killed. But I do not regret it. If I had not killed those two, I would not have been alive today."

FOTOS:

1) Daily JydskeVestkysten: Headline, Andrej Lapin: "I regret nothing."
2) M/S Bärbel.
3) In the middle: Andrej Lapin, 1993.