Thomas Quick (43 page)

I contacted an independent medical examiner who confirmed that the injury to Yenon Levi’s ilium bone was unique. It was deadly in its own right and could only have been caused by high-impactviolence, most likely through being hit by a car.

Anders Eriksson solved the prosecutor’s problem by ignoring about 90 per cent of the information that Christina Ekström had used as the basis for her report. In the final version of the report, attention was given only to what Quick had described in his second reconstruction and the interviews that followed.

The three reports I now had before me suggested very persuasively that Jan Olsson’s description of the meeting at CID had been accurate.

*

‘But how are you going to get past the glasses?’ Jan Olsson had asked Christer van der Kwast.

It was a rhetorical question. There was no way of getting past the glasses.

Despite the fact that Olsson was in charge of forensics in the Levi case, van der Kwast sent Anna Wikström to Avesta to pick up the glasses.

They were handed over to SKL – the state forensic institute – with an enquiry about any possible new methods that might lead to a different conclusion.

However, SKL kept to their earlier assessment that there were ‘compelling reasons to suggest that’ the spectacles at the murder scene were identical to those worn by Ben Ali in his passport photograph. This was backed up by the investigation carried out by the optical company Hoya-Optikslip AB.

Christer van der Kwast took the decision that he would ignore the detailed investigation conducted by forensic engineers. Instead, he turned to the technical division at Stockholm police, whose conclusions were quite different. In other words, a report from a cooperative policeman, who relied on the expert judgement of an ordinary optician’s store on Hantverkargatan in Stockholm (also known for giving discounts to police officers who bought their glasses there), ended up overriding the scientific examination carried out at SKL.

When the Quick Commission was set up at the end of 1995 there was a sincere desire, using scientific methods and the best available investigators, to bring some clarity to the unfathomable Thomas Quick and his murder confessions.

By spring 1997 these ambitious plans had gone awry. A couple of police officers from CID openly said that they did not believe Quick. One person had resigned, experts had been shut out of the investigation and two camps had formed in CID. As the head of investigations, Superintendent Sten Lindström was responsible for personnel and the resource-draining Quick investigation was a significant problem for him.

During the first meeting of the Commission, the matter of Seppo Penttinen’s exclusive access to Quick had been brought up. No
adjustments had been agreed. On one occasion Lindström had asked whether further thought should be given to the matter.

‘No, damn it! No one but Penttinen can interrogate Quick,’ van der Kwast had answered.

And so it continued. There had also been suggestions that all interviews with Quick should be analysed. Detective Superintendent Paul Johansson, who was later put in charge of the Psychological Profiling Group and was considered the finest witness testimony analyst in the force, was available to scrutinise all the interviews that had been held in the investigation.

Such far-reaching measures obviously needed to be authorised, which was up to the head of the investigation. Johansson began looking through the interview transcripts, but no authorisation was forthcoming from van der Kwast and eventually the project was abandoned.

However, Paul Johansson did have time to read through the investigation into the Yenon Levi murder. When I got hold of him he was unwilling to make any kind of general statement on the Quick investigation because he hadn’t familiarised himself with all the material. But he did have a clear position on the interviews he had read.

‘I believe that the investigation shows that Quick had no idea how the murder [of Yenon Levi] happened.’

Johansson was extremely surprised when he read that the court had found Quick guilty as charged.

‘Nothing in the verdict matches what Quick was saying in the early stages of the investigation. He changed his story every time. But then once he was given access to the investigation material he was able to talk about it. To me it seems odd that the court should have found him guilty.’

Jan Olsson, who was Paul Johansson’s predecessor as the head of the Psychological Profiling Group, wrote a letter to the head of the investigation on 16 February 1997, giving his opinion on the matter.

To Christer van der Kwast

In my work in the investigation to determine whether Quick murdered Levi, my focus has been to look into this together with colleagues as objectively as possible. [. . .]

Obviously I am aware that the prosecutor makes the final judgement, but I cannot ignore my sense of justice, which has always guided me in my work. For this reason I am deeply shocked to hear that proceedings may be brought against Quick, thus indirectly freeing the person who committed the murder.

The letter continued with a run-through of a number of technical and forensic circumstances that had convinced Olsson that Quick was not guilty of the murder and had no knowledge of it. Olsson did not believe there was anything in Quick’s statement to back up the suggestion that he was actually there when Levi was murdered, even though in the investigation he had come close to describing the actual events.

Olsson provided a plausible explanation for this:

I have taken note of Quick’s intense gaze, which is primarily fixed on the interrogation leader, and I am convinced that he has great sensitivity when it comes to interpreting the tone of voice, glances and mood of those around him.

Christer van der Kwast read the letter, filed it and never replied to Jan Olsson.

Despite setbacks which consistently argued against prosecuting Thomas Quick, van der Kwast was determined to bring the investigation to a guilty verdict.

THE LEVI TRIAL

THE TREATMENT REGIME
offered to Thomas Quick was the same as always – high levels of benzodiazepine and therapeutic conversations with Birgitta Ståhle three times a week. Quick’s patient notes from this period are so alarming that it seems unbelievable that no one should have intervened to help him deal with his terrible dependence on narcotics.

On 19 November 1996 staff found Quick in the music room, where he had tried to hang himself from a belt fixed to a radiator. He was naked and drenched in sweat and switching between different personalities. Next to him, he had left a note: ‘I don’t want to be Nana because I am Simon.’ In the end, care assistants managed to give him more Xanax and Diazepam suppositories.

A week later, Quick woke in the middle of the night with a powerful feeling of anxiety, was ‘slipping in and out of different personalities (Ellington among others). Spoke English and all sorts of dialects. After about two hours Thomas came back to reality however, with the help of staff and medication.’

Of this period Birgitta Ståhle wrote:

Despite this difficult and very heavy existential condition, the psychotherapeutic work is progressing. Hopefully a decision will be made on prosecution concerning Rörshyttan [Levi] before Christmas so that Thomas can enjoy a period of well-earned rest.

But the prosecution was taking its time and Quick’s condition deteriorated further after the New Year. Notes in the file constantly speak of severe anxiety, suicidal thoughts and deep lethargy. All afflictions were treated with still more benzodiazepines. One note in the file from 28 January 1997 gives a typical impression of Quick’s condition:

Thomas regressed during the therapy session in the morning with severe anxiety attacks and cramps. Nursing staff had to hold him down and give him two 10 mg Diazepam suppositories. After an hour somewhat better. He was often checked up on. Slept about an hour after lunch. At 14.00 he got up, quickly deteriorated with marked despair and anxiety. Was given Xanax, 1 mg, 2 tablets, a little improvement after about 45 minutes, although exhausted and listless. At about 19.00 Dr Erik Kall prescribed Heminevrin, 300 mg, 3 tablets for the night and supervision as Thomas was having active suicidal thoughts. In the evening he was under the influence of medication but he was capable of controlling himself and listening to music and having normal conversations with the nursing staff. However, at about 18.00 he had another breakdown with heavy weeping and despair. He was given more Xanax, 1 mg, 2 tablets, and with support from the nursing staff he was brought back to his senses. He took 3 capsules of Heminevrin, 300 mg, at 20.50. Slept until 01.00 at night. Woke with a headache. Took 2 paracetamol tablets, supplemented with Voltaren, 50 mg, and 1 Xanax, 1 mg, after about an hour. Goes back to sleep at about 03.00 and woke at 07.00. This morning after therapy he had difficulties walking and moving. His body is not doing what he tells it to do. He was given 2 Xanax, 1 mg. After about an hour he felt better again, he lay on the bed resting. During the doctor’s rounds the decision was made to maintain suicide watch until further notice.

At the beginning of April 1997 Christer van der Kwast brought legal proceedings for the murder of Yenon Levi and Quick’s condition deteriorated further. The medication was increased even more – he
was now being injected with benzodiazepines. On 13 April the chief physician, Jon Gunnlaugsson, ordered an injection of Diazepam, 20 mg, and Quick was ‘placed on capsule Heminevrin, 300 mg, 2 x 4, and tablet Rohypnol, 1 mg, 2, for the night’. Despite this heavy medication Quick slept only an hour and a half that night. A care assistant wrote in the file: ‘Now in the morning he is more or less catatonic. He trembles, sweats and has difficulties talking.’

At 08.45 a doctor came to give Quick an injection of Diazepam, 20 mg, ‘which had no marked effect’. At 10.30 he came back to administer another injection. ‘After about half an hour the enormous tension was released.’ The doctor prescribed an increase in Quick’s intake of the very strong drug Heminevrin to 3 x 4 capsules, as well as another injection at night.

Just before the trial Thomas Quick received a number of death threats. Hedemora District Court therefore decided that the main proceedings would take place in the police station in Falun.

On the first day, 5 May 1997, several family members of Quick’s victims were among the spectators in the courtroom. Johan Asplund’s parents doubted Quick and wanted to see for themselves how his trials were conducted. Olle Högbom’s father, Ruben, was there for the same reason.

‘He says that he is driven to confess out of a sense of moral obligation to the families. If that’s the case he should tell us where Johan is, give us some evidence. Instead he just plants new seeds of doubt,’ Björn Asplund commented to
Expressen
the following day.

Also in attendance was Detective Inspector Lennart Jarlheim, helping van der Kwast keep order among all the maps, the photographs, the murder weapon and other evidence. Jarlheim had put together the preliminary investigation report himself and knew it inside out. Jarlheim was surprised that a prosecution had been brought at all. In his opinion there was not enough evidence to establish guilt.

Because of a lack of technical evidence to connect Quick to the crime, the evidence comprised statements he had made during the investigation, as well as his confession. Quick’s different identities also played a part in the trial. When questioned about his ability to
communicate with Yenon Levi in his poor English, Quick came up with an unexpected answer: ‘I turned into Cliff and he speaks excellent English.’

In his testimony, Seppo Penttinen described how the investigation had been run: ‘Thomas Quick changed his story as the investigation proceeded. These changes have come about without any coercion. In other words Thomas Quick cannot have become aware of “errors” by investigators persistently repeating the same question or asking whether he was really sure about his version of events.’ The district court placed great emphasis on Penttinen’s positive evaluation of the quality of his own interviews.

But when I actually read the interviews, an entirely different picture emerged.

In their first interview sessions, Quick had claimed that he met Yenon Levi in Uppsala and that Levi wanted to accompany him to Falun. However, Penttinen knew that Levi had gone missing in Stockholm. How Quick’s erroneous statement was corrected is a blatant example of how Penttinen was constantly interpreting and commenting upon Quick’s psychological signals. This psychological reasoning could not hide the fact that in reality Penttinen was telling Quick that his answers were wrong.

A few pages later in the interview Quick changed his mind and said that he had met Levi in Stockholm. In this laborious way the investigation was dragged forward, one detail after another modified so that Quick’s story didn’t depart too much from known facts.

Christer van der Kwast also couldn’t resist giving Quick a helping hand. In the first two interviews Quick had stated that Levi’s bag was left on the scene. Yet in the third interview Quick was again asked what had happened to the bag. He answered that it had been left by the body. This answer was not accepted and van der Kwast came back to the question a little later: