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……

 

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