GROUND BRIDGE. The sound of the crash was reminiscent of broken glass.
Then the suspected murderers climbed upstairs and escaped through a balcony – and in the room next door, Peter Eriksson gripped his bedroom door convulsively.
– The police said they found a Kalashnikov left in the car, says Peter, whose home was completely demolished last night.
The devastation is total.
Peter Eriksson and daughter Tuva pick through the rubble and find an old idol picture of Elvis.
– It made it! exclaims Peter.
Even the wine bottle with Elvis on the label is complete. He got it from his mother and even though it was worn out, it is a cherished possession, as is the idol image.
– What to do? he says, shrugging.
Half a day earlier, Peter Eriksson had experienced at extremely close range the consequences of the wave of violence that is taking human lives at an unfathomable rate.
Three young men in a white Dodge fired wildly at some other men who were barbecuing in central Jordbro and then fled the scene.
After a few minutes of driving, they ended up in a dead end, and judging by the brake marks on the road outside Peter Eriksson’s house, they tried to drive into a cycle path.
But a curb stood in the way.
Instead, the Dodge plowed into Peter’s garden and thundered straight into the front of the house.
Held against the bedroom door
A wall. Two walls. Three walls. Then it stopped, right by the stairs to the upper floor of the small villa in the townhouse block.
– I had just fallen asleep, maybe an hour or so earlier, so I slept deeply, says Peter.
Wide awake, he tried to form an idea of what had happened. Then he heard voices from below.
– Then I called SOS and said that I thought I had a burglary and that they had to send someone. They said they couldn’t send someone right away, but I said you have to, they’re still in the house.
He was told to stay in the bedroom and try to hold the bedroom door in case the burglars tried to get in.
In retrospect, it has turned out that it was not burglars, but at least three suspected murderers who recently cold-bloodedly and indiscriminately shot at men grilling in central Jordbro.
Peter could then hear how the men made their way into his daughter’s bedroom. Thank God that it was Mother’s Week, and that his three children were sleeping a safe distance away from here.
From Tuva’s room they went out onto the balcony. Peter looked out the window and could see how the perpetrators climbed down the balcony and ran towards the woods at the back of the house.
– It was dark so I didn’t see their faces. I don’t know if they were masked, says Peter.
When he finally ventured out and looked down the stairs, he saw the somewhat unlikely sight of a car with the ignition on, parked in what had once been his kitchen, hall and living room.
The car had jammed all the way out.
The perpetrators had been trapped and could not get anywhere else but upstairs in the house, and found the escape route through the daughter’s room.
They have left automatic weapons behind in the car, Peter hears from the police afterwards.
When photographer Jerker Ivarsson and I get there, Peter and 21-year-old Tuva have started looking for dear things to fix before the chaos is handed over to insurance companies and renovation companies.
Pulled the car out
Peter Eriksson is improbably collected, calm and matter-of-fact. What has happened has happened, now we have a job to carry out, he radiates.
He picks up jackets from the ground, covered in construction dust and methodically shakes them off and hangs them up.
– I’m not that surprised. He is usually quite calm and logical thinking, says Tuva.
What did you think when you saw this? I ask.
– I was most worried about my chinchillas and fish up there, she answers and nods towards the upper floor.
Both rodents and fish seem to be doing well under the circumstances.
The white Dodge was pulled out by the police during the morning, and what was left was a gaping hole in what was once a neat home.
A macabre sight.
Where are you going to sleep tonight? I wonder.
– I do not know. I hope I can talk to the insurance company soon, says Peter.
A police car rolls onto the turnpike in front of the house and two uniformed officers step towards us to talk to Peter. We thank you for the chat and leave.