WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT. Jamie-Lee Arrow, the daughter of ‘Skara Cannibal’ Isakin Drabbad, has opened up about her stepmother Helle Christensen’s final chilling message before she was butchered in her own home
A woman has opened up about the “misery” of growing up with her cannibal father, who committed one of the most atrocious murders in Swedish history.
In November 2010, Isakin Drabbad, now 46, slaughtered his girlfriend Helle Christensen by slitting her throat. He then decapitated her and cut away pieces of flesh from her limbs, which he cooked in salt and cannabis leaves before devouring them.
Helle was just 40 years old when she met her horrific end at the hands of her partner, who remains known as the notorious “Skara Cannibal”. Drabbad later confessed to the brutal murder and was remanded to a psychiatric hospital following his 2011 conviction.
The crime continues to haunt the historic city of Skara, Sweden, and, for Drabbad’s daughter Jamie-Lee Arrow, memories of life with her Satan-obsessed father remain all too vivid.
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In a new interview with The Sun, Jamie-Lee, who was just nine years old at the time of her stepmother’s murder, recalled how Drabbad and Helle had been embroiled in a fierce 24-hour fight beforehand.
Sharing her beloved stepmother’s final words to her over a fraught family dinner, Jamie-Lee told the publication: “[She said]: ‘Enjoy your meal because this is the last time I will cook for you… because Isakin is going to kill me’.”
It was Jamie Lee’s mother who broke the devastating news, and she remembers them both “crying and screaming” as they grappled to come to terms with what had happened.
As shared by Jamie Lee, her parents split up when she was still a toddler, and so she split her time between her mum’s and dad’s separate homes. Entering her dad’s apartment, which contained pictures of Friday the 13th and Freddy Krueger, felt “like walking into a horror movie”.
Drabbad had a dark obsession with the occult and even tried to get his own daughter involved. Jamie-Lee remembered: “He often talked about the devil, demons and evil spirits, and when I was little, he liked to introduce me to the other side.
“We would lay in the dark on the bed and he would go, ‘Do you see the faces on the wall, can you see them?’ Then he would say it so much I would actually start seeing them.”
He would gift her sinister presents, including a satanic bible, and even a Voodoo Doll when she complained about being bullied.
Helle’s death left Jamie-Lee completely traumatised. She began drinking at an early age and dropped out of school at 15, unable to pursue her childhood dreams of becoming a doctor. Thankfully, at 23, mum-of-two Jamie-Lee has managed to turn her life around, and is now looking forward to marrying her partner of five years.
A public speaker and author, Jamie-Lee now inspires others to find a more positive path after enduring serious challenges. Sharing her philosophy on life, Jamie-Lee continued: “Just because your childhood sucked doesn’t mean your entire life has to. We have the power over our own lives and we can create something beautiful even if we came from something ugly.”
In a recent two-hour episode of Evil Lives Here: The Killer Speaks, which aired back in April, a tearful Jamie-Lee was seen bravely confronting her father, telling him: “Do you know how much you have to love someone to still want to see the person who is scaring you to death?”
Drabbad replied: “I think it’s extremely difficult to have me in your life. You can only see heaven from hell … I look at you from hell. And I’m sorry.”
Detailing her motivation for wanting to be on the show at the time the episode aired, Jamie-Lee told People: “I want people to understand the darkness I came from and that I actually managed to get myself out from under it. I still struggle with feeling like I am my own person and that my dad has got nothing to do with who I am.”
Drabbad has now been released from the mental institution, but remains under its supervision. He now hopes for full freedom.
Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com
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