Swedish man accused of double murder

A Swedish man who confessed to killing two women and drinking their blood was charged with double murder on Thursday in a case that shocked the nation, police said. The 29-year-old man was arrested in October on suspicion of stabbing the women to death in two separate attacks. He confessed to the killings and told investigators he drank the women's blood and ate pieces of flesh stripped from one victim's torso, said Anders Persson, police spokesman in the central city of Gavle. "I have never seen anything like this before," Persson said. "He is a very sick person." Autopsies of the victims support the suspect's claims of cannibalism, Persson said. The man told police he drank the victims' blood with hopes of "gaining their strength," he said. The man's defense lawyer, Magnus Isaksson, said his client would plead guilty to the charges, adding that the man was mentally ill. In Sweden, people with grave mental illnesses are sentenced to psychiatric care instead of prison. The suspect will remain in guarded psychiatric care until his trial later this month in Gavle, a coastal town 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Sweden's capital, Stockholm, reports the AP. D.M.