At least he doesn’t seem angry, I thought. I had said what I had to say. I could not take it back and I had nothing to add.
‘But . . .’ said Sture and then went silent again.
He spoke slowly and with emotion: ‘. . . if it is true that I haven’t committed any of these murders . . .’
Again he sat in silence, staring down at the floor. Then he leaned towards me, threw out his hands and whispered, ‘. . . if it is true – then what can I do?’
I met Sture’s despairing gaze. He looked utterly devastated.
Again and again I tried to say something, but I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t make a sound. Finally I heard myself say, ‘If it’s true that you haven’t committed any of these murders, you have the chance of a lifetime now.’
By now, the atmosphere in the little visiting room was so tense that it was physically tangible. We both knew what was about to happen. Sture was very close to telling me that he had lied during all those years when he was Thomas Quick. In principle he had already admitted it.
‘The chance of a lifetime,’ I repeated.
‘I live in a ward where everyone is convinced that I’m guilty,’ said Sture quietly.
I nodded.
‘My lawyer is convinced that I’m guilty,’ he continued.
‘I know,’ I said.
‘Six courts have convicted me of eight murders.’
‘I know. But if you’re innocent and prepared to tell the truth, none of that matters.’
‘I think we should leave it there,’ said Sture. ‘This is a bit too much for me to swallow in one go.’
‘Can I come back?’
‘You’re welcome back,’ he said. ‘Any time.’
I have no memory of leaving the hospital, only that a few moments later I was standing in the car park, talking to my producer Johan Brånstad at SVT. Most likely I was incoherently telling him about my overwhelming meeting and its ramifications.
Rather than going back to Gothenburg, as planned, I went directly to Säter Stadshotell and booked a room for the night. Restlessly I paced back and forth inside, trying to concentrate on my work.
I had been given strict orders never to call Sture after six o’clock in the evening. It was two minutes to six. I called the patient line at Ward 36. Someone went to fetch Sture.
‘I just wanted to know how you’re feeling after our meeting,’ I said.
‘Oh, thanks,’ he answered. ‘It actually feels good. I’m feeling it’s good, what’s happening now.’
Sture sounded happy, and this emboldened me to ask the question.
‘I’m still in Säter,’ I admitted. ‘Can I come and see you tomorrow?’
His reply was immediate, without the slightest pause for reflection: ‘You’re welcome!’
THE TURNING
‘I HAVEN’T COMMITTED any of the murders I’ve been convicted of and none of the murders I’ve confessed to either. That’s the way it is.’
Sture had tears in his eyes and his voice no longer carried. He looked at me, as if trying to work out whether or not I believed him.
All I knew was that he had lied. But was he lying to me now? Or when he confessed? Or on both occasions? I couldn’t be certain, but the prospects of finding out had just dramatically improved.
I asked Sture to try and explain right from the beginning, so I could understand better.
‘When I came to Säter in 1991 I had certain hopes that my time here would move things along for me, I’d gain insights into myself and learn to understand myself better,’ he began hesitantly.
His life was ruined and his self-esteem about as low as it could get. He was looking for a reason to exist, he wanted to be someone, and to belong.
‘I’d been passionate about psychotherapy for a while, especially psychoanalysis, and so I was hoping to improve my understanding of myself in that way,’ he explained.
A doctor on the ward named Kjell Persson, who was not a psychotherapist, had taken pity on him, but Sture soon realised that he wasn’t a very interesting patient. When Kjell Persson asked him to talk about his childhood he answered that he didn’t have any particular memories, he did not feel that anything was worth talking about.
‘I realised soon enough that the important thing was to start making up some memories from childhood, traumatic memories about dramatic events. And what a response I got as soon as I started talking about things like that. An incredible response!
‘More and more it was about sexual molestation and abuse and how I myself became an abuser. The story was built up in therapy and the things I said about it were helped along by benzo.’
Sture was already addicted to benzodiazepines when he got to Säter in April 1991 and gradually the range of drugs on offer and their dosages increased – mainly, he claimed, because of developments in the therapy room.
‘The more I told them, the more benzo I got. In the end I practically had free access to medicines, to narcotics.’
Sture maintained that in all the years of the murder investigations he was constantly drugged with benzodiazepines.
‘I wasn’t straight for a moment. Not one moment!’
Benzodiazepines are highly addictive and soon Sture could not live without the medicines. He ‘reactivated repressed memories’ in therapy, confessed to murder after murder and participated in a string of police investigations. In return he gained the attention of therapists, doctors, journalists, police and prosecutors. And he had unlimited access to narcotics.
I thought about all the people around Quick in the years of the police investigations – lawyers, prosecutors and police. Had they been aware that he was drugged? I asked.
‘They must have been! They knew I was taking my Xanax, and you could see by my behaviour that I was drugged. How could anyone not see that? It would have been impossible!’
The truth of this last comment was something I had been able to confirm for myself from the video footage taken in Norway. There was no mistaking that he was so heavily drugged at times that he was unable to walk or talk. And the medication was administered quite openly.
‘Was your use of medications ever discussed between you and your lawyer?’
‘No! Never.’
‘No one questioned your intake of medication?’
‘At no time! I never heard that question being asked.’
According to Sture, the doctors, therapists and carers had ensured that
