On an icy January day in 2015, the 39-year-old mother of two was found dead in a cove in Sigtunafjärden after a friend reported her missing just a few hours earlier.
The woman and her husband were going through a divorce, she had met a new man and described in messages to friends that she was happy – but at the same time worried about her future ex-husband’s well-being.
Shortly after she was found, her husband was arrested, but a month later he was released because the evidence was insufficient for prosecution.
Just over a year later, the preliminary investigation was closed.
The conversation
In 2024, a relative of the woman called and requested the coroner’s report, as the woman’s relatives had never been able to find out what really happened. The call led to the police’s cold case team taking on the case.
The cold case group reviewed old interrogations, held new ones, conducted new examinations of old evidence, and collected technical information.
In October last year, the husband was arrested again, on probable-cause suspicion of murder. The trial begins today.
Prosecutor Vida Paridad is basing the case largely on circumstantial evidence. The coroner believes the way the woman was found in the water indicates that she was forced into it and then drowned there.
New interrogations of the man have also revealed information that is incriminating for him.
Lied about cancer
The woman and the man separated some time before the incident. According to the preliminary investigation, the suspect was mentally ill after the separation and, among other things, tried to lie to the woman about having incurable cancer, according to interrogations. He is also said to have been financially pressured.
The man, who is now 51 years old, denies any wrongdoing. In questioning, he says that he and the woman went down to the pier and that they talked for a while; according to him she wanted to call off the divorce. He objected to that and went home after a while. The woman was alive at the time, he says.
