Thomas Quick

by Hannes Råstam

  Hannes Råstam was an investigative reporter for SVT (Swedish Television). He won a number of awards for his work, including the Guldspaden (the Golden Spade), the Stora Journalistpriset (the Great Journalism Award), the Prix Italia, the Golden Nymph and FIPA d’Or. After a battle with cancer, Råstam passed away while finishing this, his first book.

  THOMAS QUICK

  THE MAKING OF A SERIAL KILLER

  HANNES RÅSTAM

  TRANSLATED BY HENNING KOCH

  Foreword by Elizabeth Day

  CANONGATE

  Edinburgh • London

  Published in Great Britain in 2013 by Canongate Books Ltd,

  14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

  www.canongate.tv

  This digital edition first published in 2013 by Canongate Books

  Copyright © Hannes Råstam, 2012

  English translation copyright © Henning Koch, 2013

  Foreword © Elizabeth Day, 2013

  The moral right of the author and translator have been asserted

  Published by agreement with the Salomonsson Agency

  Originally published in 2012 in Swedish as Fallet Thomas Quick by Ordfront

  Extract from Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Soderberg. Published by Harvill Press. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd.

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 78211 070 5

  ePub ISBN 978 1 78211 071 2

  Editors: Leyla Belle Drake and Mattias Göransson

  Fact checkers: Jenny Küttim and Thomas Olsson

  Typeset in Adobe Garamond by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire

  To my children

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Elizabeth Day

  PART I

  Säter Hospital, Monday, 2 June 2008

  The Säter Man

  In the Headlines

  Charles Zelmanovits

  Appojaure

  Yenon Levi

  Therese Johannesen

  The Doubters

  Trine Jensen and Gry Storvik

  Johan Asplund

  Time Out

  Why Did They Confess?

  The Letter to Sture Bergwall

  My Conversations with Jan Olsson

  The Hermit

  Uncle Sture

  Säter Hospital, Thursday, 28 August 2008

  A Discovery

  The Dead End

  Reconnaissance in Ørje Forest

  Säter Hospital, Wednesday, 17 September 2008

  The Turning

  PART II

  Living a Lie

  The Arrival of the Serial Killer

  A Special Patient

  Drug Abuse and Therapy

  The Bathing Trip

  The Game Turns Serious

  Aimless Wandering and Diversions

  A Deep-sea Dive into the Past

  Sture’s Alibi

  The War of the Medics

  Birgitta Ståhle Takes Over

  Leading Questions

  Charles Zelmanovits’s Disappearance

  Cognitive Interview Techniques

  A Macabre Show

  Nocturnal Doubts

  Unique Interrogation Situation

  The Last Dam Builder

  The Missing Siblings

  A Missing Hour

  More Personalities

  An Incensed Roar

  Confrontation

  The ‘Shalom Incident’

  Sten-Ove Makes Contact

  The Trial in Gällivare District Court

  Setbacks

  The Quick Commission Breaks Down

  The Levi Trial

  To Ørje Forest!

  A Tight-knit Team

  Archaeological Excavations

  The Cracked Code

  Da Capo

  Interview with the Prosecutor

  Interview with the Lawyer

  Systemic Faults

  The SVT Documentaries

  PART III

  The Wind Changes

  Thirteen Binders

  The Crime Journalist

  The Last Piece of the Puzzle

  Meeting with the Journalist

  Chronology of Sture Bergwall/Thomas Quick

  FOREWORD BY ELIZABETH DAY

  Many of you will find it hard to believe the story you are about to read.

  I first came across the extraordinary tale of Thomas Quick, the serial killer who never was, when I read a brief news article in August 2012 about a book that had just been published in Sweden. The book, which went on to be a bestseller, was written by investigative journalist Hannes Råstam and exposed one of the country’s biggest miscarriages of justice in recent times. It told the story of how a patient incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital had confessed to more than thirty murders he never committed.

  The man was called Thomas Quick. He was once believed to be Sweden’s most notorious serial killer. Throughout the 1990s, his bespectacled face stared out from front pages and television screens. The newspapers even gave him his own nickname – ‘The Cannibal’.

  On the strength of his confessions, Quick was convicted of eight murders. But when Råstam started investigating the case in 2008, he discovered that there was not a shred of technical evidence that existed to back up the confessions. There were no DNA traces, no murder weapons and no eyewitnesses – nothing apart from Quick’s first-hand accounts, many of which were riddled with inaccuracies and had been given when he was under the influence of narcotic-strength drugs.

  The book you now hold in your hands is testament to Råstam’s bloody-minded genius, to the fact that he asked questions and kept asking them, even when it became clear that the Quick scandal reached the highest echelons of Swedish society and even when there were plenty of people who wanted him to stop, who dismissed Råstam’s painstaking research as wild theorising and who didn’t want to admit that something, somewhere had gone so terribly wrong.

  Because to admit that Råstam was right was to admit that an innocent man had been wrongfully incarcerated for years. It was to admit that there were murderers at loose who had never been brought to justice for their crimes. That the police, the lawyers and the therapists were all responsible for astonishing lapses of judgement, and an ensuing travesty of justice. And it was to admit that what happened in Sweden could conceivably happen again elsewhere, with equally devastating results.

  Perhaps the most extraordinary part of this story is that Råstam was right.

  When I read that small news item back in August 2012, it struck me that if I had been watching the tale of Thomas Quick unfold in an episode of a Scandinavian television drama, I would have felt the plot was too far-fetched. But there it was in black and white: this actually happened. I was intrigued. A cursory Internet search showed that Quick, now living under his birth name of Sture Bergwall, was still incarcerated in Säter – the same psychiatric hospital where he had made his ‘confessions’. He had been acquitted of five of the murders and was awaiting the outcome of two further retrials. I travelled to Sweden to meet him and wrote a piece about the case for the Observer.

  I was aware, throughout my trip, that the feature I was writing would not have been possible without the sheer dedication of Hannes Råstam. He was a brilliant investigative journalist. In Sweden, where he started out as a professional bass player before making a career change and becoming a documentary researcher in his late thirties, Råstam had won a clutch of prestigious awards. He was renowned for his fearlessness in tackling big subjects – from exposing police cover-ups to tracking down sex-traffickers – and for his relentless pursuit of the truth.

  At journalism school, his teachers said th
at if they sent a group of students to cover a car accident, everyone else would have returned to their desks and written the article while Hannes would still be at the scene, examining a wheel nut. The lawyer Thomas Olsson, who worked with Råstam on many of his stories and who now represents Sture Bergwall, says this attention to the tiniest element of an investigation was typical. ‘Hannes was devoted to what he believed was the journalistic mission, and, as a consequence of that, extremely careful with the details,’ Olsson says. ‘Every statement or detail was turned around several times and had to be confirmed before publishing. I once told him that if the court was as careful about the evidence as he was, there would be no risk whatsoever that anybody would ever be wrongfully convicted of a crime.’

  He respected the facts. And it was this that led Råstam to the Thomas Quick case. There had long been controversy over the convictions in Sweden but no one had ever been able to nail down exactly why.

  Råstam was the first journalist to gain Bergwall’s trust. He had a rare capacity to listen and to keep an open mind, and the two men became friends. ‘Hannes was a very intense person with an ability to really listen to other people and also to share,’ said Bergwall when I met him. ‘It was the first time that I remember thinking, Something’s going to happen. I felt Yes! Something’s going to change, and I was ready to come clean . . . It was so liberating to finally tell the truth.’

  In order to establish Bergwall’s innocence, Råstam spent years ploughing through thousands of documents, re-interviewing key players and putting together a complex timeline of events on the Quick case. His friend and journalistic colleague, Mattias Göransson, recalled that it took nine seconds for Råstam’s laptop to calculate the size of his Quick archive. By the end of his investigations, the folder contained 12.5 gigabytes of data and 5,218 documents. To have been able to shape all of that into this coherent and gripping narrative is, in itself, an incredible feat.

  Some of what you will read in this book will be discomfiting. A few of the psychiatric transcripts, for instance, are deeply unsettling and border on the bizarre. But this is the language that was used; this is how confused and desperate the whole process had become.

  When you read further, you begin to wonder why the close-knit group of people around Quick seemed so eager to believe what he was telling them, and so unwilling to voice dissent from the prevailing view. Råstam would no doubt say it was because they wanted to believe their charge was guilty – the more entwined they became in the case, the more their professional reputations were at stake. In stark contrast, Råstam refused to believe anything until it was shown, beyond doubt, to be the truth. He would keep digging until he got there.

  Jenny Küttim, Råstam’s researcher on the Quick case, says that all his work displayed ‘an obsessiveness towards journalistic truth’. ‘He taught me to read all the pages and the footnotes and to read the articles referred to in the footnotes,’ she explains. ‘He taught me to speak to the people responsible and always keep an open mind – never stop collecting facts. He always questioned the context, the conclusions and people’s agendas. That was his strength.’

  I wish I had met Hannes Råstam. I wish he could be writing this foreword instead of me. But in April 2011 he was diagnosed with cancer of the liver and pancreas. He was in the middle of writing this book when it happened. For a while, no one wanted to believe the worst. He kept working, with the help of his literary agent, Leyla Belle Drake and Mattias Göransson, who would often sit by his bedside while he dictated key passages. In January 2012, the day after he completed the manuscript, Råstam died.

  ‘The most vivid memory I have is the last time we saw each other,’ recalls Thomas Olsson. ‘It was early summer and I had gone down to his summer house outside Gothenburg to discuss the manuscript. He had cooked some food and we sat in the sunlight in his garden, drank a beer and discussed the Quick case. After a pause, I asked him how he felt over the uncertain outcome of the treatment of the cancer. He answered, “You know, Thomas, I have lived a good and interesting life. I want to live, but I am not afraid to die . . . and I want to finish the book.” In that moment I understood that he knew he was going to die and that he would do so happy with all the things life had given him.

  ‘I think it shows that he was not only a devoted journalist, he was also a person who loved life. Only if you love life is it possible to die happy over the things you had, instead of being furious over the things you will miss.’

  His death at the age of fifty-six is not a just ending to Råstam’s life story. But he would be the first to say that justice can often be elusive. It’s asking the questions that counts.

  Elizabeth Day

  London, April 2013

  ‘We want to be loved; failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. Our soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact.’

  From Doktor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg

  PART I

  ‘Once you know the terrible truth of what Thomas Quick did to his victims – and once you have heard his deep, bestial roar – only one question remains: Is he really human?’

  Pelle Tagesson, Crime Correspondent, Expressen, 2 November 1994

  SÄTER HOSPITAL, MONDAY, 2 JUNE 2008

  THE SERIAL KILLER, sadist and cannibal Sture Bergwall had not been receiving visitors for the past seven years. I was filled with nervous anticipation as I was let into the main guarded entrance at the regional forensic psychiatric clinic in Säter.

  ‘Hannes Råstam, Swedish Television. I’m here to see Sture Bergwall . . .’

  I dropped my press pass into the little stainless-steel drawer under the bulletproof glass between me and the guard. He confirmed that my visit had been logged and approved.

  ‘Go through the security gate. Don’t touch the door!’

  I obeyed the scratchy voice from the speaker, passed through an automatic door, then a couple of metal detectors and finally through one more automatic door into a waiting room where a care assistant rummaged through my shoulder bag.

  I followed my guide’s firm steps through an inexplicable system of corridors, stairs and elevators. Her heels tapped against the concrete floors; then silence, the rattling of keys at every new steel barrier, the bleep of electronic locks and slamming of armoured doors.

  Thomas Quick had confessed to more than thirty murders. Six unanimous courts had found him guilty of the murders of eight people. After the last verdict in 2001 he withdrew, announced a ‘time out’, reassumed his old name – Sture Bergwall – and went quiet. In the seven years that followed, a heated debate about whether Quick was a serial killer or a pathological liar had bubbled up at regular intervals. The protagonist’s own thoughts on the matter were unknown to all. Now I was meeting him, face to face.

  The care assistant led me into a large, deserted ward with plastic floors so polished that they shone. She took me to a small visiting room.

  ‘He’s on his way,’ she said.

  I felt unexpectedly uneasy.

  ‘Will you wait outside the room during my visit?’

  ‘This ward is closed, there are no staff here,’ she answered curtly, then as if she had read my mind she fished out a little device. ‘Would you like an attack alarm?’

  I looked at her and the little black device.

  Sture Bergwall had been detained here since 1991. He was considered so dangerous that he was only allowed to leave the grounds every six weeks for a drive, on the condition that he was accompanied by six warders. A case of letting the madman see the horizon to keep him from getting even madder, I thought.

  Now I had a few seconds to determine whether the situation called for an attack alarm. I couldn’t quite bring myself to reply.

  ‘There’s also a panic button next door,’ said the care assistant.

  I almost had a sense that she was teasing me. She knew just as well as I did that none of Quick’s victims would have been saved by
a panic button next door.

  My train of thought was cut short by the appearance of Sture Bergwall in the doorway, all six foot two of him, flanked by two care assistants. He was wearing a faded sweatshirt that had once been purple, worn-out jeans and sandals. With a nervous smile he offered me his hand, leaning forward slightly as if not to force me to come too close to him.

  I looked at the hand that, according to its owner, had slain at least thirty people.

  His handshake was damp.

  The care assistants had gone.

  I was alone with the cannibal.

  THE SÄTER MAN

  THE UNSETTLING NEWS was delivered via the media. As usual.

  The reporter from Expressen was in a hurry and got straight to the point: ‘There’s a bloke down in Falun who’s confessed to the murder of your son, Johan. Do you have any comment on that?’

  Anna-Clara Asplund was standing in the hall – still wearing her coat, with the front door keys in her hand – at the end of her day’s work. She had heard the telephone ringing as she was unlocking the door.

  ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry,’ the journalist explained. ‘I’m having a hernia operation tomorrow and I have to hand in the article.’

  Anna-Clara didn’t understand what he was talking about. But she did have a clear sense that the old wound would once again be torn open. From this day on, Monday, 8 March 1993, she would be forced back into the nightmare.

  A forty-two-year-old patient at Säter’s forensic psychiatric clinic had confessed to the murder of her son, the journalist told her. ‘I murdered Johan,’ the man had claimed. Anna-Clara wondered why the police had informed Expressen before contacting her.

  Anna-Clara and Björn Asplund descended into hell on 7 November 1980. ‘A completely normal day’, as people like to say. It’s always a normal day when it happens. Anna-Clara made breakfast for her eleven-year-old, Johan, before saying goodbye and rushing off to work. Her son left home at about eight o’clock. He only had a 300-metre walk to school, but Johan never got there. Since that day he had been missing without trace.