Thomas Quick. Hannes Råstam
argument was doubly hypothetical, partly because the statute of limitation for the murder – which at that time was twenty-five years – had expired and partly because the Säter Man had been only fourteen years old at the time of the murder and therefore too young to be tried in a criminal court. Nonetheless, the murder of Thomas Blomgren became highly significant in the continuing investigation: that the Säter Man had murdered at the age of fourteen was undoubtedly compromising.
However, Christer van der Kwast did not reveal how the Säter Man was connected to the murder of Thomas Blomgren, and as there couldn’t be a prosecution in the case, the investigation was never made public. Nevertheless, the Säter Man’s lawyer, Gunnar Lundgren, fully agreed with the prosecutor’s views and asserted that his client’s statement was credible.
Increasingly unpleasant details were emerging in the media coverage of the Säter Man’s background and character. He had committed an ‘attempted sex murder’ of a nine-year-old boy at Falu Hospital, according to Gubb Jan Stigson in the Dala-Demokraten: ‘When the nine-year-old screamed the man tried to strangle him. The forty-three-year-old himself describes how he tightened his grip on the boy’s throat until blood spurted from his mouth.’
According to Dala-Demokraten, the doctors had been warning since 1970 that the Säter Man was a likely child killer, and the news paper cited a forensic psychiatrist’s statement confirming that he suffered from ‘a constitutionally formulated, high-grade sexual perversion of the type known as paedophilia cum sadismus’. He was not only a threat but also, under certain circumstances, extremely dangerous to the safety, well-being and lives of others.
On 12 November 1993 Gubb Jan Stigson revealed that the police investigation regarding the Säter Man had been widened to include five murders. In addition to Johan Asplund in 1980 and Thomas Blomgren in 1964 he was under suspicion for the murders of fifteen-year-old Alvar Larsson from Sirkön, who disappeared in 1967, forty-eight-year-old Ingemar Nylund, who was murdered in Uppsala in 1977, and eighteen-year-old Olle Högbom, who disappeared without trace in Sundsvall in 1983.
According to Stigson, the Säter Man had confessed to all five murders. Increasing numbers of journalists were claiming that Quick was Sweden’s first real serial killer.
‘He is telling the truth about the boy murders’, Expressen’s
The Säter Man had confessed that he and an older friend had driven from Falun to Piteå in search of a young boy to assault. They came across Charles and lured him into the car. In a nearby wooded area the Säter Man had strangled the boy and cut up the body, taking some of the body parts with him.
According to the investigators, Quick had not only provided the sort of information that had enabled them to find the various body parts, but also specified which body parts he had taken home with him.
For the first time, van der Kwast had the sort of evidence the police hadn’t managed to obtain in their other investigations: a confession involving actual body parts and a statement demonstrating that the Säter Man had information that could only possibly be known by the perpetrator.
‘The 43 year-old is a sex killer’, Expressen declared in an article on 17 June.
‘We know he is telling the truth about two of the murders,’ van der Kwast confirmed.
IN THE HEADLINES
WHEN THE SÄTER Man’s therapist, Birgitta Ståhle, went on holiday in July 1994 there was widespread concern about how he would manage without the constant therapeutic support that had become increasingly important to him. On Monday, 4 July his team of carers had planned a lunch at the golf club restaurant in Säter. The Säter Man was accompanied on the outing by a young psychiatry student who was standing in for Ståhle.
She and her patient left Ward 36 at a quarter to twelve and strolled in the direction of the golf course, when he suddenly told her that he urgently needed to relieve himself. He went behind a derelict building that had once served as Säter’s security ward. As soon as he was out of sight, he ran along a path through the woods to a road known as Smedjebacksvägen, where, according to plan, an old Volvo 745 was waiting with its motor running. In the driver’s seat sat a young woman and, beside her, a man of about twenty who was on trial release from Säter Hospital. The Säter Man jumped into the back seat and the driver pulled off with a wheel-spin.
The car’s occupants laughed excitedly: the escape had gone according to plan. The man in the front seat handed over a little plastic bag, which the Säter Man opened and expertly, with a moist fingertip, emptied of every last grain of the white powder inside. He put his finger in his mouth and, using his tongue, fixed the bitter load to the top of his palate, then leaned back and closed his eyes.
‘Damn, that’s good,’ he mumbled as he worked the amphetamine paste in his mouth. Amphetamine was his favourite drug and, unusually, he actually liked the taste.
His young friend in the front seat passed a razor, some shaving foam, a blue baseball cap and a T-shirt to the escapee in the back, then gave him a shove.
‘Come on, we don’t have time to mess around.’
As the Volvo swung onto the S-70 trunk road towards Hedemora, the assisting psychiatrist was standing by the club house wondering if she should be worried. She called out but there was no answer, and before long she realised that he was neither behind the wall nor anywhere else. It was inconceivable that her sincere and amiable patient should let her down in this way, but after a few moments of fruitless searching, she had to go back to Ward 36 to report that the patient had absconded.
By this time the fugitive was clean-shaven and wearing his disguise. He relished the freedom and the amphetamine rush while their aimless journey continued northwards on Highway 270.
By the time the police in Borlänge put out a call for the Säter Man, forty-two minutes had elapsed and no one had any idea that he was approaching Ockelbo in an old Volvo.
The evening newspapers picked up on the story straight away and immediately extended their print runs. Expressen’s headline went in as hard as it could:
POLICE HUNTING
the escaped
SÄTER MAN TONIGHT
‘He is highly dangerous’
Up until this point the newspapers had protected the identity of the Säter Man for ethical reasons, but when the most dangerous man in Sweden goes on the run, public interest demands a name, photograph and biographical information:
The 44-year-old ‘Säter Man’ is now known as Thomas Quick, after changing his name. He has confessed to the murders of five boys, and the police and public prosecutor believe he can be tied to two of these. The man has told Expressen that he would prefer just to live in the woods with his dogs – last night the police conducted a search for him in the forests around Ockelbo.
Once the woman driver realised the nature of the crimes for which Thomas Quick was under investigation, she had second thoughts and pulled over by an abandoned farmhouse to drop off the men. The companions found two unlocked bicycles there and, after getting them into some sort of working order, set off for the nearest town. Cycling along, they saw several police cars and were overtaken by just as many, while police helicopters circled overhead. No one seemed at all suspicious of the odd couple on the rusty bicycles.
A large force of police officers equipped with automatic weapons, bulletproof vests and dog patrols searched for them until midnight without picking up their trail.
After spending the night in a tent, the fugitives parted company in the morning. The amphetamine was finished, they were tired and it was no longer fun to be on the run.
While the police were searching the forest, a man in a baseball cap