Children murdered in Södertälje – the trial begins

Two small children were found dead in a bed in Södertälje.

Their 37-year-old father is charged with murdering them.

Today the trial against him began.

The mood is muted in Attunda district court, in Sollentuna north of Stockholm, where the trial against the 37-year-old father begins today.

When chamber prosecutor Ulrika Rosén presents parts of the evidence, and shows pictures from the defendant’s home in Södertälje, several of the audience burst into tears.

The pictures show the crime scene where the father is suspected of having murdered his two children on April 23 this year.

One picture shows a small pink children’s table where the last meal was laid out.

Another shows the bedroom where the murders took place.

Prosecutors say the boy was found on one side of the bed. His eyes were covered with a green children’s sleep mask.

On the other side of the bed, the girl was found. Beside her was a pink sleeping mask with a unicorn on it.

Confess to the murders

The day the murders took place, the children’s mother was scheduled for surgery.

When she got home from the hospital, she discovered what had happened.

By then the two small children had been dead for several hours.

– It was her only child. For her, it is important that we convey that they wanted to live. They were cheerful, had dreams and looked forward to things. She was very close to both her children. She lived for them, says the mother’s lawyer Lina Holmgren.

In the bedroom, the children’s father, the accused 37-year-old man, was found with self-inflicted injuries.

In interrogation, he admitted that he had murdered his children.

The reason must have been that he had been depressed for a long time and thought about taking his own life.

He didn’t want to leave the children behind, in a world he thinks is horrible, without him.

– What is there? Only money, sex, alcohol and drugs, he says in questioning.

Carried out of the room

Both the mother and other witnesses describe the man as a good father, but also say that he was unwell for a while.

Several times he is said to have expressed that he did not want to live anymore.

In the father’s phone, the police have found countless searches about “the meaning of life”, how to get “healthy in a crazy world” and a film where he says he is prepared to die to “save the world”.

The accused father sits slumped in a wheelchair on one side of the courtroom while the prosecutor speaks. Several times he cries.

When the prosecutor begins to read messages from him and the children’s mother from the days before the day of the murder, the man’s defense attorney suddenly asks for a break.

He then says that the accused father is not feeling well, is about to faint and asks to leave the courtroom.

Bent forward and pale in the face, the father is then taken out of the hall.

Bought helium and sleeping masks

In questioning, the man has said that the idea of ​​taking the children with him to death arose only hours before the murders.

– My client had no intention of killing his children before this day. However, there have been thoughts of suicide to take his own life, says the man’s lawyer Mikael Westerlund.

But prosecutor Ulrika Rosén believes that there is evidence that he had planned this carefully for a long time.

Among other things, he purchased two tubes of helium and two sleeping masks with unicorns already in February.

– I mean that these are the masks that the children wear when they are murdered, says prosecutor Ulrika Rosén during the trial.

Wants to do a new psychiatric examination

A major forensic psychiatric examination, a so-called RPU, has previously been carried out by the man.

It shows that he was not suffering from a serious mental disorder at the time of the murders.

This is something that the man’s lawyer Mikael Westerlund wants to be reconsidered, and he has requested that the district court take in an opinion from the National Board of Health and Welfare’s legal council in order to properly review the case.

But no new opinion has yet been received.

– We believe that if you have depression with elements of suicidal thoughts, and have also attempted suicide, it can constitute a serious mental disorder. In the RPU, it has been concluded that this is not the case, but after it was obtained, more material has been received and my client has been heard further. We believe that the nature of the act means that you should try to investigate this, he has previously told Aftonbladet.

The verdict is expected to come in December.

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