revenge killing
A descriptive term for a killing motivated by retaliation, not a legal category.
A revenge killing is a homicide in which the perpetrator acts out of a desire to punish or retaliate against a person for an earlier wrong or injury — real or perceived. The term is not a legal category in Danish legislation, but is used as a descriptive label for the motive behind the killing.
Under Danish criminal law, a revenge killing is treated as ordinary manslaughter under the Danish Penal Code (straffeloven) § 237. There is no separate provision designating revenge as an aggravating or mitigating circumstance in itself. The revenge motive may nevertheless form part of the concrete assessment of the circumstances of the case, including when the sentence is determined.
In true crime contexts — including in articles on specific cases such as the killing committed by Jade Janks on New Year's Eve 2020 — the word revenge killing is used to convey that the act was premeditated and motivated by retaliation, rather than spontaneous or random. It is therefore a tool for understanding and describing the perpetrator's motive, not a legal distinction.
The difference between a revenge killing and, for example, a killing committed in the heat of passion or an opportunistic killing lies primarily in the degree of planning and the character of the motive. A revenge motive typically implies that the perpetrator has seen themselves as the wronged party, and that the killing is conceived as a form of self-administered justice. The applicable penalty range for manslaughter in Denmark is imprisonment from 5 years up to life, regardless of the motive underlying the act.
