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Missing 4-year-old was murdered: police

The autopsy of a 4-year-old boy who was found dead Sunday night in a wooded area near his home in south central Sweden has led police to conclude he was murdered, prompting a formal criminal investigation.

Published: 17 October 2011 19:27 CEST
Missing 4-year-old was murdered: police

During a Monday afternoon press conference, Kronoberg County police spokesperson Robert Loeffel refused to go into specifics about the nature of police suspicions.

Nor did he release any details about how the boy died.

“Our investigators have worked on the scene all night, after which the boy was transported to Lund where an autopsy was carried out. There forensic experts could conclude that the boy’s death was caused by a crime,” Loeffel told reporters, according to the Dagens Nyhter (DN) newspaper.

“We don’t know what caused the boy’s death or who did it, but we consider the incident to be a murder.”

So far, no one has been contacted about being a suspect in the case.

The boy went missing on Sunday afternoon after having an argument with a sibling at a playground in a residential area of Ljungby near which his body was found.

The boy has a total of five siblings.

A photographer with the Scanpix photo agency described the atmosphere in Ljungby, with few people out on the streets.

“People are terrified here and many don’t dare let their kids leave school,” the photographer told the TT news agency.

Police continue to examine a roughly 300 square-metre area around where the 4-year-old’s body was found.

Police were first notified about the boy’s disappearance about 7.30pm on Sunday night.

Local resident Gun-Maj Lydén described how she was awakened on Sunday night by a large amount of police activity near her home, just a stone’s throw from where the 4-year-old’s body was found.

“We saw how they found something. It was really unpleasant. It was just a small child,” she told TT.

The boy had been missing for five hours when his body was found by a volunteer who had joined police in their search.

Police continue to knock on doors in the area in hopes of getting more information and tips from the public.

“We would obviously like to have more tips from the public,” said Loeffel.

During the press conference it was also revealed that the family had been the target of an investigation by social services following a complaint filed in late August of this year.

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NORWAY

Body found in Oslo flat nine years after death

A man lay dead in his flat for nine years before being discovered in December, police in Oslo have said.

Published: 9 April 2021 11:20 CEST
Body found in Oslo flat nine years after death
Photo by pichet wong from Pexels

The man, who was in his sixties, had been married more than once and also had children, national broadcaster NRK reports.

His name has been kept anonymous. According to neighbours he liked to keep to himself and when they didn’t see him, they thought he had moved or been taken to assisted living.

“Based on the details we have, it is obviously a person who has chosen to have little contact with others,” Grethe Lien Metild, chief of Oslo Police District, told NRK.

His body was discovered when a caretaker for the building he was living in requested police open the apartment so he could carry out his work.

“We have thought it about a lot, my colleagues and people who have worked with this for many years. This is a special case, and it makes us ask questions about how it could happen,” Metild said.

Police believe the man died in April 2011, based on a carton of milk and a letter that were found in his apartment. An autopsy has shown he died of natural causes.

READ ALSO: Immigrants in Norway more likely to be affected by loneliness

His pension was suspended in 2018 when the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) could not get in touch with him, but his bills were still paid out of his bank account and suspended pension fund.

Arne Krokan, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said the man’s death would have unlikely gone unnoticed for so long if he had died 30 years ago.

“In a way, it is the price we have paid to get digital services,” he said to NRK.

Last year 27 people were found in Oslo, Asker or Bærum seven days or more after dying. The year before the number was 32 people. Of these, one was dead for almost seven months before being discovered.

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