Tells for Jönköpings-Posten • Girl found murdered in basement • “Affects the whole family”
It is a summer day in 1982 when a five-year-old girl goes out to play in the yard next to the high-rise building where she lives in Jönköping. But she never comes back home for dinner.
During the evening, one of the family’s neighbors goes down to the basement to get a jar of jelly. There lies the girl. Her body is lifeless and it is established that she has been stabbed, perhaps also exposed to sexual crimes.
The police start knocking on doors in the house and get in touch with a witness, who has seen a teenage boy running from the scene at the same time as the murder took place. He also lives in the house.
The boy’s fingerprints are found at the scene of the murder and in interrogation he confesses to the murder, but because he is under 15 years old he is taken into the care of social authorities.
Found his name in a thread online
42 years later, a man finds out that he has been reported to social services, after someone reads about him on a popular internet forum.
The man lived during his upbringing in Jönköping, in the same apartment building that the girl was murdered in. He was about the same age as the boy who confessed to the murder at the time of the incident.
– I remember the murder, even though it was a long time ago. We were away when it happened so we were never questioned. I know who the boy was, but I didn’t know him. I imagine he was fairly new. I remember the little girl too, she used to be out in the yard playing, the man tells me Jönköpings-Posten who was the first to report on this.
Now he can read his name in an online thread where the murder of the girl is discussed.
– There is a thread about the murder that was started a few years ago. There I am singled out and posted as the perpetrator with name, social security number and home address. I didn’t know the thread existed, I don’t sit and look for myself on the internet.
“Affects the whole family”
The man has now reported the allegations about him to the police and is in contact with a lawyer to get help removing the incorrect information on the internet forum.
The social services investigation against the man has now been dropped after he presented evidence of his innocence, but there remains concern that the accusations will harm his family.
– I am called a child killer there. It is very tough. Child murder is a gross thing to be hanged for when you are innocent. The wrong people can realize that this is true and then there is a threat image against me. This affects the whole family and there is a risk that we will all have to seek protected identity. It’s a rather unfunny situation.