Early this summer, the Judicial Council was tasked with reviewing the controversial autopsy report regarding the murder of Tove in the fall of 2022. On April 19 this year, two women, 18 and 20 years old, were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder and the district court attached great importance to the cause of death , which according to the coroners was strangulation.
Cause of death disputed
Both women appealed the verdicts and the legal process has since dragged on considerably, because the 20-year-old’s lawyer hired professor Anders Eriksson to review the forensic report. In his submission, he criticizes several of the conclusions that contributed to the 20-year-old being convicted of murder. Eriksson’s main objection is that it cannot be considered clear that Tove died as a result of strangulation, it could instead be suffocation through inhalation of her own stomach contents.
Prosecutor Adam Rullman then requested that the National Board of Health and Welfare’s expert body, the judicial council, should review both the original statement and Eriksson’s submission.
The Judicial Council shares the image of the coroners
The Judicial Council has hired Brita Zilg, specialist in forensic medicine and member of the council, to go through the forensic investigation and the various submissions. SVT Nyheter has read her statement as well as the legal council’s conclusions. Both documents are partly heavily classified, but together with other sources we can state that the council largely shares the coroner’s picture of how Tove died.
The council believes that the forensic findings indicate that Tove died of manual strangulation. However, it is reserved for the possibility that inhalation of stomach contents may have been a contributing factor, but it is not possible to say to what extent. The main cause of Tove’s death is still believed to have been strangulation.
The legal dispute about how Tove died has led to the appeal court proceedings being greatly delayed, they will begin on October 4 in the Göta Court of Appeal in Jönköping.
The text is updated