Kniven i Malthes hjerte

What Is the Series About?

Kniven i Malthes hjerte — translated as The Knife in Malthe's Heart — is a 42-minute documentary streaming on TV 2 Play that examines the fatal stabbing of 15-year-old Malthe B. Termøhlen at Grenaa Station in Denmark on 26 November 2023. The film uses the case as a lens through which to explore the broader and increasingly urgent question of why Danish teenagers carry knives — and what happens when they use them. TV 2 Play frames it explicitly as a documentary about the deadly consequences of knife culture among young people, making it both a portrait of one family's grief and a piece of social journalism aimed at a national audience.

The Case

On the evening of 26 November 2023, Malthe B. Termøhlen, a 15-year-old boy from the Grenaa area, was stabbed at Grenaa Station and died from his injuries shortly afterward. The circumstances that led to the confrontation were rooted in a deeply personal conflict: Vito Lorentzen, also 15 years old at the time, had been accused of raping Malthe's ex-girlfriend. That accusation formed the backdrop to the fatal encounter.

According to subsequent reporting, Vito took the knife from a drawer in his own bedroom before going to the station. The premeditated nature of arming himself became a significant factor in the prosecution's case. Malthe died at the scene or shortly after emergency services arrived, and within one hour and 23 minutes of the killing, police had tracked Vito Lorentzen down to his father's residence and placed him under arrest.

The case moved swiftly through the Danish justice system. On 11 June 2024, Retten i Randers found Vito Lorentzen guilty of manddrab — the Danish term for homicide — and sentenced him to eight years' unconditional imprisonment. During the proceedings, Lorentzen denied that he had intended to kill Malthe, instead admitting only to vold med døden til følge (violence causing death), a lesser charge. The court rejected that framing and handed down the full manddrab conviction.

Lorentzen appealed the verdict. On 5 December 2024 — by which point he was described as 16 in court records — Vestre Landsret, the Western High Court of Denmark, heard the appeal and upheld both the guilty finding and the eight-year sentence in full. As of the time of writing, Vito Lorentzen remains in custody serving that sentence.

The reaction from Malthe's family to the appellate ruling was one of anguished but partial relief. TV 2 Echo reported that the family believe the killing might have been prevented had authorities acted earlier on warning signs surrounding Vito Lorentzen — a claim that gives the documentary a pointed institutional dimension beyond the tragedy itself. The question of systemic failure: whether schools, social services, or police could have intervened before a teenager left his home with a knife, hangs over the film and has resonated strongly with Danish audiences.

Production

The documentary was produced for and distributed by TV 2 Play, Denmark's major streaming platform, and runs as a single 42-minute episode. No director has been publicly identified in available sources. The format is consistent with TV 2's tradition of producing short-form documentary journalism that addresses social issues through the prism of individual cases — a style that has become increasingly prominent in Scandinavian true crime programming.

A companion podcast episode discussed on Acast and an Apple Podcasts episode — titled Kunne knivdrabet på 15-årige Malthe være undgået? (Could the knife killing of 15-year-old Malthe have been avoided?) — extended the documentary's reach into audio journalism, suggesting a coordinated editorial effort by TV 2 to maximise the impact of the story across multiple formats. The podcast framing, asking directly whether the death could have been prevented, mirrors the institutional-failure angle embedded in the documentary itself.

Reception

Formal critical reviews and quantified audience scores for the documentary have not been publicly aggregated in available sources, and no IMDb listing has been confirmed. However, the case attracted significant national media attention in Denmark both at the time of the killing and throughout the trial and appeal process, indicating a substantial built-in audience for the documentary. The family's public statements, their willingness to engage with TV 2's journalism, and the framing of the story around preventability rather than purely around punishment suggest the documentary struck an emotional chord.

The revelation that Vito Lorentzen had previously been accused of rape — a fact woven into the narrative context of why the confrontation at Grenaa Station occurred — adds a layer of complexity and potential controversy to the series. It raises difficult questions about how the justice system and social institutions handle serious allegations involving minors, and whether those failures created a chain of events that culminated in Malthe's death.

The Case Today

With the Vestre Landsret appeal dismissed on 5 December 2024, the legal proceedings against Vito Lorentzen have concluded. He is serving an eight-year prison sentence — a significant term for a juvenile offender under Danish law, reflecting the gravity with which the courts viewed the killing. Malthe B. Termøhlen's family continue to advocate publicly around the issues raised by the case, particularly the question of whether earlier institutional intervention could have saved their son's life. The documentary stands as a record of both their grief and their demand for accountability — not only from the individual who carried the knife, but from the systems that failed to stop him before he used it.