Sture Bergwall

Sture Bergwall
Born	Sture Ragnar Bergwall (1950-04-26) 26 April 1950 Korsnäs, Falun, Sweden
Other names	Thomas Quick Sätermannen ("the Säter Man")
Criminal penalty	Psychiatric confinement
Details
Victims	Convicted of 0 Acquitted in retrials after convictions in 8 other cases
Country	Sweden
Date apprehended	First time: 1969 Last time: 1990

Sture Bergwall (born Sture Ragnar Bergwall; 26 April 1950 in Korsnäs, Falun, Sweden), also known as Thomas Quick, is a Swedish man who was previously believed to be a serial killer, having confessed to more than 30 murders. Quick was convicted of eight of these murders, but all of these convictions have now been overturned. With no forensic evidence of his guilt, Quick was convicted on the merit of his own confessions. Elements in these confessions had been judged to match classified details from the police dossiers on the crimes in question (e.g. clothing and birthmarks of victims). The credibility of Quick's confessions have been widely debated in the Swedish media. Critics of these confessions, and the trials, claim that Quick never murdered anyone, and that he is a compulsive liar. In December 2008, Quick recanted his confessions, and denied taking part in any of the murders for which he was convicted, or any of the other murders he has confessed to. Subsequently some of murder convictions were revoked and finally in July 2013 he was cleared of any remaining murder charges by the Swedish authorities.

Early life

Bergwall grew up in Korsnäs with his six siblings. He adopted his mother's maiden name, Quick, around 1991. After a history of delinquency (substance abuse, molestations of boys and stabbing a man), Quick was convicted in 1991 for robbing a bank].

Confessions and convictions of murder

After the robbery conviction, Quick was confined to compulsory psychiatric care. During therapy, he confessed to some 20 murders committed in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland between 1964 and 1993. One of his confessions led to the solving of an 18-year-old murder considered to be unsolvable, and another to the informal solving of a murder in Växjö in 1964. The 1964 crime was outside the then 25-year statute of limitations in Sweden, but with the information given by Quick, the case was considered closed.

Between 1994 and 2001, Quick was convicted of eight murders (in chronological order) at six different District Court trials:

• Charles Zelmanovits, Piteå 1976, sentenced in 1994 – no forensic evidence, except for the confession – Charges waived July 2013
• Johan Asplund, Sundsvall, 1980, sentenced in 2001 – no body, no forensics except for the confession. Charges waived March 2012.
• The Stegehuis couple, Appojaure (Gällivare) 1984, sentenced in 1996 – no forensics, but Quick gave information regarding facts that had never been disclosed to the public. His confessions were later questioned, as Quick seemed to have been privy to all information before the trial - retrial granted by the Supreme Court. Charges waived May 2013.
• Yenon Levi, tourist from Israel, Rörshyttan, 1988, sentenced in 1997 – no forensic evidence, but statements included in Quick's testimony were matched against undisclosed police facts. Charges waived September 2010.
• Therese Johannesen, Drammen, Norway, 1988, sentenced in 1998 – no forensic evidence. Charges waived March 2011.
• Trine Jensen, Oslo, 1981, sentenced in 2000 – no forensic evidence. Charges waived September 2012.
• Gry Storvik, Oslo, 1985 – no forensic evidence, confession; the semen found in victim did not belong to Quick. Charges waived September 2012.

In Sweden a defendant always gains access to the full police investigation prior to the trial. Quick's lawyer Claes Borgström has been criticised for failing to protect his mentally disturbed client's objective interest in being judged not guilty.

Confessions and subsequent withdrawals

In the years following 1990, when Quick was sentenced to closed psychiatric confinement, he confessed to several unsolved murders. His first murder, according to his own accounts, occurred in Växjö in 1964, when Quick was only 14 years old. The victim, Thomas Blomgren, was described by Quick as being the same age but not as strong and tall as himself. The second alleged victim was Alvar Larsson, whom Quick claimed to have murdered at Sirkön in the lake Åsnen outside the town of Urshult. According to Quick's sister, Quick never left Falun at the time of this murder. The credibility of Quick's confessions had been widely debated in the Swedish media since 1993, up until 2008, when Quick withdrew all of his confessions. There have been consistent doubts about the reliability of his statements, and some of his confessions have been proven to be fabrications – in some cases the victims have turned up alive and well. Another dubious circumstance is the fact that no witnesses have ever testified to seeing Quick in the proximity of any of the crime scenes, even though more than 10,000 people were interviewed for intricate details.

Critics of these confessions and the trials claim that Quick never murdered anyone, but that he is a compulsive liar. Among the critics are the parents of a child he confessed to having murdered in the late 1970s. In response to these accusations, Quick himself wrote an article for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter in 2001 in which he said that he refused to cooperate further with the authorities concerning all open murder investigations.

May 2009: Quick's brother Sten-Owe Bergwall and lawyer Pelle Svensson with the books they authored, wherewith they criticise the Swedish authorities' handling of the Thomas Quick cases.

In November 2006, Thomas Quick's trials were reported to the Swedish Chancellor of Justice by retired lawyer Pelle Svensson on behalf of two relatives of a murder victim who wish to have the trials declared invalid.

Several principals in the fields of law and psychiatry, amongst them Swedish police professor Leif G. W. Persson and secret sources in the Swedish police all claim that Quick has a history of mental illness, but is not guilty of many, if any, of the crimes to which he confessed. Handling of the Quick cases has been described as the "most scandalous" chapter of Scandinavian crime history, branding it as glaring incompetence, naiveté, and opportunism within the police and judicial system.

Quick withdrew all of his confessions in 2008 during the taping of a TV documentary. Quick's attorney now contends that the prosecution withheld important investigative material from the defence (which the prosecution adamantly denies). Quick's attorney also maintains that his client is mentally ill and had been under the influence of prescription drugs when he confessed to the killings.

Thomas Quick, now Sture Bergwall, recanted his confessions and requested the Svea Court of Appeal order a new trial for the murder case of Yenon Levi at Rörshyttan. In December 2009, the court of appeals granted a retrial of the Yenon Levi case. As the prosecutor found that the evidence was not sufficient, Quick moved for a judgment of acquittal, and he was acquitted in September 2010.

Quick's counsel also declared his intention to ask for a retrial of the Therese Johannesen case, claiming that Quick has an alibi for the day when Therese Johannesen was abducted and murdered. SKL (Statens kriminaltekniska laboratorium, State Forensic-Technical Laboratory) found in March 2010 that two forensic objects which the prosecution had claimed were bone fragments were in fact wood, glue and some synthetic material. A retrial was granted, and Quick was formally acquitted when the prosecutor dropped the charges.

Quick was acquitted of all eight murder convictions; the last aquittal was handed down on 30 July 2013.

On 19 March, 2014 Falun administrative court determined that there was a need for continued psychiatric care, but that it need not necessarily be in the form of compulsory confinement.

See also

• Henry Lee Lucas, an American "serial killer" whose confessions are now believed to be fabricated

Further reading

• Hannes Råstam: Thomas Quick: The Making of a Serial Killer. Cannongate Books, 2013, ISBN 9781782110712
• Elizabeth Day: Thomas Quick: the Swedish serial killer who never was. The Observer, 2012-12-20
• Bergwall, Sten-Ove (1995). Min bror Thomas Quick: en berättelse om det ofattbara. Stockhol: Rabén Prisma. Template:Sv icon
• Quick, Thomas (1998). Kvarblivelse. Stockholm: Kaos Press. Template:Sv icon
• "Quick-mål har anmälts till JK" Template:Sv icon. Dagens Nyheter. 20 November 2006. Archived from the original on 1 October 2007.
• "Court orders retrial in new serial killer case". The Local - Sweden's News in English. 26 September 2010.
• "Thomas Quick frikänd för mord" Template:Sv icon. SvD Nyheter. 3 September 2010.

Media

Thomas Quick: Confessed Mass Murderer didn't do it (9 minutes)