You’re rumbling around in a beaten down jeep. The smell of the ocean fills your lungs, the peak of Snæfellsjökull looms on the horizon. It’s beautiful, it’s stunning, it’s immaculate, just like in the brochure.
But oh? What’s this? A run down farm in the middle of nowhere? What do you mean this is the murder farm? There’s a murder farm?! Hello, Charlie here, and those who know me can attest that I have an unhealthy obsession with true crime. Also, as much as Alþingi propaganda wants you to believe otherwise, Iceland actually has quite a lot of crime. We even have serial killers! Well, just the one.
.. in the 1500s — but let me have this, okay!? I have been itching for some true crime drama! So today, I shall tell you the true story of this island’s one and only serial killer, Axlar-Björn.
According to the informational plaque I found in the middle of bumfuck nowhere along the Útnesvegur, Björn Pétursson was a farmer born in the year 1555. He lived on a lovely little property called Öxl farm with his wife, Þórdís. The farm is actually where he gets his name because Öxl becomes Axlar, somehow (I still don’t speak the language).
But it is on this farm that he and Þórdís attacked, killed and robbed unsuspecting wanderers, travellers and merchants. He was eventually caught and confessed to nine murders. But forensic science in the 1500s wasn’t what it is today — and Björn chopped up the bodies — reports indicate there were between.
