MN Student Stabbed To Death In Netherlands: Killer Gets 6 Years

NETHERLANDS — A 24-year-old Dutch man has been sentenced to six years in prison after fatally stabbing a college student from the Twin Cities. Sarah Papenheim, 21, was attending Erasmus University in Rotterdam when she was killed on Dec. 12, 2018.

Joel Schelling will serve time in prison and psychiatric incarceration for manslaughter. He was not convicted of murder.

According to the Star Tribune, the Dutch court ruled that Schelling will spend less time in prison because he can "not be fully blamed" in Papenheim's death due to his mental condition. "I'm disgusted with the six-year sentence, then a mental institute with an undetermined length," Donee Odegard, Papenheim's mother, told the newspaper.

Papenheim was reportedly stabbed at the off-campus residence where she lived. Authorities told local newspaper AD/Rotterdam Dagblad that screams were heard from Papenheim's room before the incident. A man was later arrested after trying to flee police.

Papenheim, an Andover, Minnesota native, was studying psychology before her death. Her studies focused on suicide. Her own brother took his life at 21.

Odegard told news outlets last year that the roommate had been mentally unstable and was becoming more angry.

"He'd have highs and lows and she noticed that and I told her she needed to get out of there because something ain't right," Odegard told FOX 9.

Before Papenheim was killed, she was planning to come home for Christmas. In Minnesota, she was a rising star in the Twin Cities music scene and was scheduled to play at the Schooner Tavern before her death.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Papenheim's family.

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