Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
On March 17, 2008, Max, 4, and Saga, 2, are beaten to death in a terraced house in Arboga. Their mother Emma is seriously injured. Minutes later, the children’s bonus father comes home and finds his dying family in the hall
17 march , 2008
two children , 2 and 4 years old , have been stabbed to death in Arboga.
The murdered children in Arboga
in early ,2008 , 22 year old emma jangestig had started to create a new life
emma is a divorcee, and with her ex she has children max and saga .
max
Saga
emma has met a new man , torgny hellberg.
(Torgny has chosen to participate in the program without a picture.)
in January 2008 they buy their first house together in verktygsgatan , arboga and Torgny becomes a stepfather. the family is looking forward to a life together.
roland :“he was a wonderful stepfather . it was great to see how happy they were together .
Ida : ” a lot of things happened that spring they had a housewarming party and we went to sälen a week before this happened.
roland : there was no snow here that year , so we brought the whole family. sara and max slept on the way there and woke up to snow.
Ida : it was a wonderful trip . i’m so happy that we did it
Ida : since it was a wonderful goodbye, even if i didn’nt know it then.
that was the last time that i saw max and saga.
Ida : it was the evening of march 17 th. i’d been at work all day. emma and i started chatting online.we talked about how i was going to baby sit max and saga.
she and toggge needed some help.it’s not that easy to have two kids ,and they were in love. they needed some time alona as well.
i apologized for confusin the dates . i’d double -booked myself. but then she stopped replying, which i thought was odd.
she wouldn’t normally do that . she didn’t write me back. i was wondering where she went. that was at 7 : 09 p.m
but i didn’t think any more about it as i was going to have dinner.but now, , i know that something happened.
emmas partner torgny was on his way home from work ,he parkeed hiscar outside the house at 7 : 20 pm . just 11 minutes after Ida’s lda’s last contact with Emma .
he enters.
Torgny : i opened the door and thought: ” what game are you playing?” that’s the foirst thought i had. but then , i saw the children .
Torgny: vertygsgatan ,arboga .three peopple. it.. there’s so much blood …emma … emma? they all have dents in their heads. hang on …. emma.diy up , emma.- the ambulance is here. hurry! yes , hurry! it’s really bad. two children. one , a year and eighy months adn another three years old and a 23 year old women .
the first responder was ambulance technician ,bengt palmestål.
bengt palmestål : it was an unusail call , since we didn’t know what to expect. other than something about stabbing.but we could also hear that several units had been called
bengt palmestål : something strange was going on .i t seemed like we needed to hurry . when we arrived here, he was by the posbox. i got out and asked what had happened , he was really upset.
” they’re lying in there, on the floor ,” was all he said .
bengt walk towards the door and look into the hallway.
it’s a disaster.
he can see a person to the left from inside the dooor . a grown- up .
further away are two children.there’s blood and an awful mess.
bengt try to make contact with the person, who turns out to be the mother.she’s just moaning . he can’t cat through her.
he aproach the boy first. he’s breating and so is the girl. but their breathing is telling him that this is really serious.
Torgny is in shock and has called emma’s parents eva and roland who hurry to the scene.
right then a police car drove up and two officers got out , they asked if the house had been cleared. but it hadn’t.
one of the officers took out his gun andentered the house.
a peretrator might have still been in the house, they came rushing in with their guns drawn . it was chaos.
the police search the scene and establish that no one but the three victims is in the house.
they carried max out to the ambulance. after a little while they carried emma out.
emma looked like she had burns , she was all red.when they lifted her out , she screamed. emma is quickly driven to a hospital in Upsala.
and the children in different ambulances to Örebro.
the police lock the house and cordon off the crime scene.
while they wait for forensic investigators.
emmas sambo , torgny is taken in for questioning in köping. and emmas father ,roland is left alone at the scene.
roland gives the horrible news to emma’s sisters , Ida and Frida.
emma’s other sister , Ida has hard time accepting it.
Ida just thought that no one could hurt two little kids. no one can kill small children .
in bengt pamestål’s ambulance is one year old saga severally hurt. they drive towards örebro still hoping to save her life.
Torgny is released after questioning he and emma’s father roland get in the car and drive to uppsala where emma has been brought.
the news was on the radio.they said that two small children had been killed in arboga.
“two children , 2 and 4 years old. have been stabbed to death according to Örebro university hosptial.”
torgny tell them to stop the car and he get out. he can’t do anything but scream .
they were allowed in to see emma that night for a short while.but they didn¨t know how bad it was . she had injuries to her head,but they didn’t know weheter she might die.
her face was swollen and bandaged up .she was difficult to recognize. and shewas kept sedated.
while emma is kept sedated and fights for her life, detective thomas backman starts loooking for a perpetrator.
when thomas arrive at worl. there’s a meeting,they we’re informed about a serious crime in Arboga .
photographed from the front door.
overview of the hall floor closest to the living room, photographed from the stairs
a murder of two children and an attempted murder on their mother that’s the crime.
the only details police have to go on i s serious trauma.
shows two “stools” located directly to the left inside the entrance door.
the initial information in the report says that it as a stabbing. the weapon suppsedly was a knife. it later turns out that it’s a different kind of tool that has been used.
who would do this to children?
emma’s s partner torgny was questioned that night ,but was never a suspect.
the police look in a different direction.
in a situation like this , there mist be a connection to Emma.
the perpetrator must be a person close to her.
the father of the children was a suspect.
” a man has been arrested on suspicion of stabbinga mother and her two children in arboga last monday.
he’s suspected of two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
the police have a procedure to follow in cases like this .police need to look at the history of the victims.what is going on around them? when it comes to crime like these
statistics show that it’s usually connected toa relationship with this type of domesticviolence.
emma’s ex-hisbamd amd the father of her children is the main suspect.
he’s arrested on the night of the murder .
what ‘s his role? did he kill his own children or is he in mourning because hischildren were victims of this?
detective thomas backman goes to question him.he’s the one go fetch him from his cell. he’s been waiting for them and gives the dectetive thomas backman a hug.he really wants them to get started . a reaction like that is uncommon.
as he starts to tell dettective backman what he’s been doing the past 24 hours, detective backman realize that he’s a father who is mourning his children. and that’s it .
he’s released , as he has an alibi.
Hasse Aro- efterlyst ( wanted)
“the investigation took a turn yesterday asthe father was released , he’snot a suspect”
“that’s very uncommon.they brought the fatherin less than two hours after it happened. in 9 out of 10 cases , he’s the one who did it .”
(murder suspect father released)
the police couldn’t trust statistics .this was something different.
as the ex-husband is released the police have no other suspect.
the köping police call on help from stockholm and västerås.
anders pommer was a homicide detective in västerås. he¨s now left the profession asnd lives in öland but he clearly remembers his part in the investigation .
they drew a blank , they knew nothing. they realized right away that they needed to giv it all they got.
in difficult investigations like this,it’s not like on TV , where a smart detective does the thinking. this isa machine that needs to get working.
with 30 police oficers , the investigation machine starts.looking for clues about who did this.
they need to empty street drains and search the area with police dogs. they need to stop garbage trucks from picking up the garbage.
taxis. buses. train stations , etc.everything needs to be eexamined and time is of the essence.
it’s such a horrible crime and they just need to solve this.
who could do this? a maniac. who else? who could attack two small children? and beat them to death.that’s not a sane person . he or she must be locked up .
– roland
the police receive several tips .
one is from emmma’s friend.she tells about an ex-girlfriend of torgny’s who has acted strangely.
that’s not the only lead the police have. they take a wide approach. and are open to suggestions , but this is a new lead.
the police ask torgny to esplaine his relationship with the women.
torgny says that they met in august of 2006 at a tourist spot in Crete ,Greece.
the women is a 3o year old women named chrstine schürrer.
she was working at aa hostel in greece where torgny stayed .
she was a few yeas older than torgny and traveled the world
she worked here and there .her free life inspired torgny. they had common interests , such as history and music.so ,they started dating.
after Crete , Torgny and schürrer met in sweden a few times ,before torgny chooses to end it in january 2007 .
it was fun while torgny was in greece,but he had a reality-check when he came back.
i eventually wrote her a text message,saying that he wanted to remain friends ,but no more than that.
there was a relationship, but it was very peripheral .could she really becapable of this?
the police take a closer interest in christina schürrer.she recently left germany and now lives in stockholm.
they find her number and start looking at her phone records.
the police do a triangulation of her phone. they can see that it was in use in arboga on the night of the murder.
schürrer suddenly becomes an imortant lead to work with.
Torgny said that they’d made a mistake. this was a nice person .
emma jangestig andher children were attacked in their home.
the children are dead
but emma survived and fights for her life at a hospital in Uppsala she ‘ sedated and has severe head injuries.
meanwhile the hunt for the killer goes on in arboga.as long as emma is sedated the police have no main witness.
but they keep looking into german ,christine Schürrer.she lives in stockholm ,but the police cansee that ther phone has been in arboga several times in the past few weeks
her phone was in arboga on the night of the murder, as well on march 14th , march 12th and january 30th
but it’s not enough to prove that the phone was in arboga. the police want to catch the one holding the phone.
the phone’s location is tracked from stockholm to arboga.
once they have the phone ‘s location, they check with the train comapny.
and can see that the timtable matches the phone’s location.
on march 12th, march 14th and march 17th.
the police check her purchaase of tickets in stockholm. they can’t tie a card transaction to schürrer,but they see that someone bought a return ticket toarboga in cash on all three occasssions.
only one ticket is bought in cash each time . there’s a pattern. maybe the perpetrator wants to hide the transactions.
since the police had the ticket purchases and her phone’s location,
we could look at security camera footage from arboga train station. looking at the footage
the police can see a person in a black , hooded jacket and dark pants.
and a pair of shoes with a whte border. the person comes in each time that the cash purchases are made.
the police want to find out whether it’s possible to go to and from arboga and and carry out the attack within the timframe of the current train timetable.
this is the platform at the arboga train station. the train comes from stockholm,from the east , into arboga. the suspect gets off here. the traine arrives at 6:10 p.m.
the person goes into the building here and passes by the camera.
and goes down here to leave the station
this way
this leads to the back of the arboga train station
the person goes up to a walkway.this leads to bicycle paths to the area.
verktygsgatan is only 8-10 minutes within walking distance.
she’s seen by a witnes. a neighbor at verktygsgatan. it’s around 7 : 10 pm. when the witness locks or unlocks a car, which makes a sound
the witnesscan then see someone on emma and torgny’s driveway ,someone with the same clothes as the person on the camera footage.
the person is approaching the door from the driveway,but the sound from the car makes the person turn around , leave the driveway and walk into the driveway of the next house.
after that ,the witness doesn’t see the person again.that might be the first time she tried to approach the door.
the witness sees this person around 7 :10 pm, the attack took place between 7 : 09 and 7:20
this gives the perpetrator time to carry out the crime.
she arrives in arboga and has plenty of time to get to the crime scene.
she also has time to leave the crime scene. and get on the train to stockholm at 7 : 34 pm
detective backman dont know of no other case where the perpetrator went by train.
taking the train to commit a crime and only having a few minutes to get back.
the train might be late or canceled.
there ‘s a possible scenrio.but they can’t identify the dark figure or tie that person to the phone records.
the police had no clear image of the face of the person on the footage.it was more of a dark figure
the forensic investigation cotinues with very few leads. and the murder weapon is missing in spite of an extensive search.however, the weapon has been identified.
the coroner concluded that it must have been a hammer.there had been hits using both ends of the hammer even with the back end that’s used to pull out nails.
that combination told us that a hammer had been used.it would be useful to the police to find the murder weapon to match it with the injuries.
they keep looking for the hammer. a witness has seen someone throw an object into arboga river.
the police dive at the site, but no weapon is found. and the forensic investigation hits a dead end.
the police don’t have a mirder weapon or any DNA.every thing still feels very uncertain
the police need all the evidence they can get .
the fact that emma might wake up and tell them what happpened become increasingly important to police.
since they had no suspect, emma’s testimony was the key . her parent’s were certain that she knew who the killer was.
in thebeginning ,doctors couldn’t telllwhether she’d survive. but slowly but surely, she became more stable.
they said that her life wasn’t at risk and she’s survive ,but in what state? emma’s parents didn’t know how serious the damage was, they knew she had serious head injuries and was operated on several times.
doctors decided that emma is stable enough to be woken up.the police start hoping that she might remember.
Ten days after the brutal attack ,emma wakes up at the hosptial in uppsala. the police carfully start question her.
after she woke up, she quickly improved.the doctors were surprised.
the police started wondering whether she could remember tha attack.
at the start ,emma hs no recollection of the attack. anders pommer goes to stockholm to consult sven Å christiansson a professor of witnesss psychology.
anderspommer asked him whether there’s a chance that she might remember.
he says yeas.
but the police need to make sure that they don’t affect her any way, her memories will be very fragile.if she has read something or seen headlines.
they’ll have difficulty deciding what is true.are these fragments brought on by the headlines or are they memories?
the police din’t have mich to go on at that point and decided that they couldn’t afford to not do this.the police had to take a chance.
the family has to follow rules for their interaction with emma. they couldn’t tell her what happened or that her children were dead.that was really hard for the family .
she started asking about maxand saga.
the parent then had to say that they were with grandma or out in the hallway. Roland and Eva tried to distract her and look out th window.
she became agitated and ripped all the tubes out.she was so frustrated because she didn’t understand.
“they couldn’t tell me what happened. or why my hair was gone.early on i started feeling betrayed by them.they didn’t answer my questions.
they averted their eyes and i didn’t recognize them.we’d always had a close relationship and taken care of each other .i started doubting my own family.”
she gets no explanation, the police ask her why she’s in the hospital what’s happened? they give her nothing. it would have been more humane to only think about her.
but then the police lose their chances.
when emma improves and keeps asking about max and saga , police and doctors decide that she must be told that her children aren’t alive.
emmas father was there when the doctorcame in and the police were there ,when they told her . but you could see that emma couldn’t take it in. she didn’t want to understand.
when emma’sparent’s had to remind her . she asked about mas and saga . we said they were angels.
but she still didn’t understand.
” it took a lot of energy to be part of an investigation, while also trying to grasp that my children were dead.i’m not sure when i finally understood.torgny told me that i cried all night but ican’t rememeber that .”
they keep questioning emma, but she’smaking little sense and gives confusing answers
Emma:” i was very confused . what ‘s going on? what is all this a bout ? where do they expect this to lead? i haven’t done anything wrong , or have i ? i started doubting myself”
shows the front of the property but entrance facing the street./basis for questioning with ambulance personnel
the police know that the murder weapon isa hammer. but neither the hammer , clothingor any other findings that can be connected to a killer have veen found.
their only lrsf id 32 – year old german ,christine schürrer.she’s had a relationship with emma’s partner , torgny hellberg.
her phone was in arboga on the evening of the murder.the day afterthe murder ,she goes to germany.
the police have a court order to search the apartment in skarpnäck, stockholm, where she’s renting a room.
as an investigator , your curious when you enter a room like that. you want to find leads and traces.
the landlady had her bed in the living room.
and there was a kitchen . not a big apartment.
in christine’sroom , there was a bed. she had some belongings there. nothing stood out.
it just looked like a rental
at first , the search is disappointing to the police.no findings can be tied to the scene of the crime.
it would have been easier if the police found a garment with DNA on it .
or blood from the children or emma. that would have vdilitated things.
but when they go through chtistine schürrer’s computer they find things that strengthen the evidence against her.
the police look at the information on the computer.we see christien takes great interest in torgny.
the police ask the landlady to see if anything in her home is missing.
she says that nothing is missing
but she’s asked to look in her toolbox.which she keeps na bupboardi n her kitchen . as she tales it out, the detectives can see her react.
she tells rigth away that her hammer is missing.
finally , the police have a breakthrough
torgny’s vacation fling christine schürrer ,might be the perpetrator. her obsession with torgny hints of a motive.
and since the landlady is missing a hammer ,schürrer had access to a murder weapon
but can the german woman ……
really have killed two children ….
….and injured their mother? and how will the police prove this?
will their main witnes ,emma start remembering?