Two men are being held in police custody for their suspected involvement in a murder in Reykjavík.
According to the initial police report and Morgunblaðið, a woman was found dead in her car Saturday morning in the 105 district of Reykjavík, near Laugardalur. It is not clear how long the woman had been dead in her car until the case was reported, but this question is now under investigation by Reykjavík police.
The two men held in custody are in their forties and are said to have known the victim.
Because the investigation is still in its initial stage, the police have not provided more details, given the sensitive nature of personal information in such cases.
Read more: Two Women, One Man in Custody Following Ólafsfjörður Homicide
The murder is notable as the fourth murder so far this year in Iceland.
Iceland, often cited as one of the safest nations in the world, generally has a low murder rate. This year appears to some as an outlier, with already four murders before year’s end.
However, as Icelandic criminologist Dr. Margrét Valdimarsdóttir has noted, such statistics can be somewhat misleading in the case of Iceland. The mean murder incidence between 2001 and 2020 in Iceland sat around two a year. With such small-scale numbers, statistical outliers can also be given too much weight, with an increase of two to four murders representing a 100% increase in murders.
Icelandic society has also grown rapidly in recent years, meaning an increase in murders is also inevitable.
More details will be reported on the case as it develops.
