Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
the sad story of Engla Höglund. A Swedish girl who went out for a bike ride and met a cruel fate.
on saturday april 5th 2008 Engla höglund was riding her bike home after playing football at the local community center.
her house was 4.5 kilometers from the field but she just disappeared.
the 10 years old girl who lived in the city of stjärnsund about 190 kilometers from the capital of sweden stockholm was never seen again .
Engla höglund didn’t have her helmet on and she hadn’t ridden her bike fora few months but she begged her mother karina to let her go home alone and she eventually agreed
carina told her daughter that she would call herself on every 10 minutes during the drive home and if she was tired she would pick her up in the car.
carina did so and called her daughter several times to find out where she was and from Engla’s response she was about 20 minutes from home and decided not to call her anymore wanting to give the little girl a little independence when Engla didn’t come home carina began to worry.
she realized that the trip should only have taken 15 minutes not 30 .she called her daughter cell phone to find out where she was but Engla didn’t answer this time .
panic rising she got into her car and started looking for her daughter ,hoping she had just fallen off her bike or had a flat tire,she drove back to the community center where she left her daughter that morning but there were no sign of her .
carina went to Engla’s friend’s house to see if she had gone there but that friend said she hadn’t seen her since she left on her bike an hour earlier .
carina drove slowly back to the house, and waved at a couple she knew , they said they saw Engla cycling not far from the house and assumed she had already arrived.
her mother continued down the street and when she was about to get home she found engla’s bicycle at the entrance of the forest about 200 meters from the house.
carina then called her husband and they began to search the area for the girl.
she wasn’t strong enough to pull her bike into the woods on her own due to a steeper vine and soon they found tire tracks from a car,it looked like the vehicle had taken off a high speed and there was mud on the trail .
the police were immediately called and the parents were told that the search party would arrive at the scene .about 50 police officers , sniffer dogs ,boats and a helicopter were sent
the police quickly understood the seriousness of the situatuon and beggan recruting volunteers to help search for the girl .a group of over 100 people was formed and they stared looking everywhere for Engla. they searched wells ,abandoned barns and abandoned buildings but there were no sign of her .
a few days later, the police moved their base of operation from the school to the community center where Engla played football,investigators were divided into two teams.
one group was looking for a missing person and another group is looking for evidence of crime
the team focused on a possible crime began interviewing family and friends and examining known criminals in the vicinity .
the other team led the volunteers in search of Engla and followed leads everywhere, in theory splitting the police departement in two separat groups was a good idea but it also meant the officers weren’t working together , which could lead to a big misstake
while gathering volunteers at a school, thomas langton sought out the search party to report what he had seen that fateful morning.thomas and his wife accompaned by another couple took a long walk throug the region, the farmers bought a new digtigital camera so he took it with him to try it out on the hike .
as they walked Engla rode down the road on her bicycle thomas wanted to see how the camer would react to movements so he took a photo of it and shortly he took another one of a red car passing by at the moment the images were clear and he was able to photograph the license plate and he could even see the driver inside.
realizing that the person in the photo taken with his camera was Engla he took it with him in hopes of helping the investigation.
an officer who was a part of the search party was tasked with finding the driver of the car and called him to see if he had seen anything unusual ,what no one suspected was that driver had a long and violent criminal record and now he knew the police were very close.
to betther understand the story we have to go back to june 4 ,2000 when a 31 year old woman named pernilla hellgren was killed 45 kilometers from where the little Engla was last seen.
pernilla worked as a florist in stockholm but had returned to her mother’s country house to celebrate her mother’s birthday and participate in the city festivities to summer fast .
the next day the women was found dead a few meters from her mother’ s house, she had been beaten and showed signs of suffocation, the crime was witnessed by a 16 year old girl passing by in a taxi.
she saw a man on top of a women near a bridge, as soon as the girl got home she called a friend and the two went to the bridge where the crime took place but there was no body there ,just cloths
the police were called and a sniffer dog was brought in and pernilla was found in a nearby woods naked wearing only her socks.
the girl told the police she couldn’t see the man’s face,however she was able to tell that he was bald pot bellied and had a jaw on his chin ,he wore a jacket with a patch on the back she futher said he looked like a truck driver and was very tall .
the details she provided were enough for a composite sketch to be made and the police were also able to take some DNA samples from pernilla’s body.
a man was arrested by the police a week later following a tip from his girlfriend , he had already been charged with a crime of the same nature.
and the day pernilla was killed he came home later than usual and was covered in blood, his clothes were also torn and wrinkled .
the man denied having any involvement with the crime and the only witness in the case was not sure he was the one she had seen , he was held for custody for three months until the DNA results came back and he was then released
a list of 1200 suspects was assembled by the police those whj were already in prison or had already died were removed from the list , until only 50 names remained
a few months later the homicide team running the case left and the local police were left to continue the investigation on their own.
due to lack of experience or error in the process,the list of suspects was never investigated and the case went cold.
2006
a truck driver of German origin was arrested after a women accused him of forcing relations with her and attempted murder in spain where the driver was working at the time
his name was volcker eckard , 47 year s old, he admitted that he took the lives of five women during his long European tour, but said the number could exceed 50.
wolker told the police he became a truck driver so that he could continue to attack call girls undetected, since that he committed the crime and left town afterwaards .
however he was not in sweden at the time of the crime against pernilla so he was quickly discarded,however he was arrested for the death of six people and before the trial volker was found lifeless in his cell .
the hunt for the person responsible for the crime against pernilla continued and the police received a tip with the name of a suspect said to be a man named anders
but he was never investigated, a year later another complaine was made by telephone with the same name’s name but the complaint was also ignored.
what the police didn’t know was that both anonymous reports were right but unfortunately pernilla’s case was closed.
returning to the case of Engla, the police became suspicious of the owner of the red car and other officers noticed the similarity between him and the composite sketch of a criminal who took pernilla’s life years before.
the man was anders eklund and he was a ball truck driver with belly and jaws, anders denied having anything to do with Engla’s disappearance or that he had seen the girl riding a bicycle yet his DNA was taken for testing,he was also tested with the sample taken from pernilla’s body
while the test didn’t come out ,anders was questions for days and while in police custody blood was found on the back seat and in the trunk of his car
his vehicle’s tires also matched the tracks found near Engla’s bike when the police searched his apartment thay found a huge amount of adult content including bizarre things involving animals
there was also a lot of underage related stuff on his computer and police found a number of women’s clothes that had already been used.
anders knew that there was no longer any way to escape and his long criminal history only fueled his guilt.
born in 1967 anders eklund had a relatively normaly upbringing but his uncle introduced him to adult content when he was still very young
when he was 13 the same uncle took him to a strip club by the age of 14 anders was already in trouble with the police for numerous offenses , he served times some of these crimes .
the longest sentence being one year and 10 monts,two days after his release he insulted a women and was arrested again , serving only a few weeks.
on april 11 2008, six day s after Engla’s disappearance investigators received confirmation from expertis the DNA showd with almost 100 % certainty that anders eklund was responsible for the crime against pernilla hellgren
corned ,he confessed and asked about Engla, he also admitted to the crime without missing words giving scary details of what he had done to the girl
anders told investigators that he took her life in the woods near where her bicycle was found and agreed to take them to where he had hidden her body .
when investigators arrived Engla was unrecognizable , anders did the most absurd things you can imagine for you to have an idea . she could only be identified by dental records
Engla’s funeral generated a national commotion and was broadcast on swedish television . where her sister and friends sing her favorite song “my heart will go on “.
anders eklund was charged with two crimes with various aggravations and on october 6 ,2008 he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment for the crimes agains pernilla hellgren and Engla höglund.
today he is in the correctional center in Sweden where he lives apart from the other prisoners due to the numerous threats he receives .
Anders is also suspected of being responsible for several other crimes in sweden,Denmark and norway, the number of victims could exceed 20 and the police continue to investigate.
now 56 year old , his 2018 sentence requesting early releas citing health issues but was denied.
the investigation against pernilla failed,due to the police forces lack of knowledge and experience probably due to the lack of crimes of this type in the country which means that many police officers had never been involved in such a large operation before.
which seriously jeopardized the case and of course could have saved engla’s life……