Last updated: Very recently
She was found murdered in a ditch at an exit along the E18.
Now five people stand and watch as her coffin is lowered into the ground.
None of these five even know her name.
Almost a year after she was dumped among drunken beer cans and old cigarette packs by the side of the road, the unknown woman is now being buried.
Six men in black suits roll the catafalque with the white coffin across the gravel path.
The sun is shining at Kungsängen’s cemetery.
When the men reach the almost two meter deep pit, they stop, attach three lifting straps around the coffin, and lower the dead man.
She has no headstone, but only a black plaque marking her resting place.
Unknown woman, it says.
The church bells begin to ring, and at the same time as the woman is buried, another funeral begins, inside the whitewashed church.
Inside the church are friends and relatives of the deceased, afterwards they will gather for funeral coffee in the parish hall.
Where the unknown woman is buried, there are only five people gathered: an undertaker, two policemen, a journalist and a photographer.
No one who ever met her in life.
No one who knows what made her laugh, no one who knows her childhood wounds and no one who knows the name of her first love.
“We work for you”, says the card
Because despite the fact that 353 days have passed since she was found murdered in a ditch at an exit along the E18, not even two kilometers from the cemetery, her identity is still unknown.
Detective Inspector Kickis Åhré Älgamo, who has been trying to find out who the woman was and who murdered her for as long, approaches the grave and places a flower decoration consisting of red, pink and purple flowers.
“We work for you!” she has written on the card.
Three red roses and a flower arrangement financed by the state.
This is also how a farewell to a life can look like.
1 of 4 Photo: ANDREAS BARDELL
So what can we say about the woman?
Because despite the fact that her name is still a mystery, the police have managed to find out several pieces of the puzzle about who she was.
The woman was born in Central America and has lived at least her first years there.
She was not a vegetarian, but ate meat and fish.
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She lived to be about 55 years old – had black, wavy, medium length hair with a hint of gray and was about 156 centimeters tall.
Through a hair analysis, the police have now also managed to find out that the woman lived at least the last 1.5 years of her life in northern Europe – so at least since January 2021, approximately in connection with the outbreak of the corona pandemic, she has been in northern Europe.
– She may have been around even longer too, we don’t know. We also cannot say exactly where in northern Europe she has been during all this time, it could be Sweden – it could be Germany, Poland, the Nordics or the Baltics, says criminal inspector Kickis Åhré Älgamo.
Can apply for a residence permit
One of the police’s hypotheses is that the woman has lived in the parallel society.
– And then there must be people in the parallel society who have knowledge of her, who miss her and who know who she is, says Kickis Åhré Älgamo.
Due to this, there is a legal possibility to apply for a temporary residence permit, to people who have information or tips to provide about the woman or about the murder.
– It applies for six months at a time and is something that the prosecutor can apply to the Migration Agency with reference to the fact that it is needed for the preliminary investigation.
Do you have any other hypotheses about why the woman was in Sweden?
– She could just as well have been here as a tourist, came here when she was little as an adopted child or lived here and had a family – since we cannot search the Swedish passport systems for her fingerprints, we cannot rule it out, says Kickis Åhré Moose.
The answer about dentures
Aftonbladet has previously told about the police’s struggle to identify the woman – who has not been reported missing in Sweden and who is also not in the police’s national or international systems. Among other things, the police tried to trace the woman through a temporary denture. Now they have received answers about the dentures.
– It is not made by a dentist trained in Sweden.
There is no priest who says anything at the woman’s grave.
No prayers are offered.
It is not known to which denomination she belonged.
And you never know when – or if – those who once knew and loved the woman will mourn at her gravesite.