Iceland, 1974.
THE VICTIMS
Gudmundur Einarsson, an 18 year old labourer, disappeared on a cold, dark night on the 26th of January. He was reportedly seen coming back from a nightclub in Hafnarfjordur, South of Reykjavik. There was a blizzard, snow was piling on the side of the streets, and the drunken young man was seeking a ride home, which was 10km away from the nightclub. That was the last time Gudmundur was seen.
Gudmundur’s disappearance wasn’t reported to the Icelandic authorities until a few days later, but the snow had piled up until half a meter deep that after a week of scouring through the lava fields of where Gudmundur was last seen, the search for his body was called off.
Disappearances weren’t uncommon in Iceland. In the last 50 years, dozens of disappearances have occurred with no explanation or closure. Gudmundur Einarsson’s disappearance would only be another number in the statistics.
However, on the night of 19 November, just 10 months after Gudmundur’s disappearance, a man with the name of Geirfinnur Einarsson vanished after shortly leaving his home. Geirfinnur Einarsson was a 32 year old man living in Keflavik, 50km away from Iceland’s capital. He was reportedly last seen leaving his vehicle that was parked in the Keflavik harbour cafe at night, after receiving a phone call in his house and leaving his two daughters at home. He left his keys still in the ignition, but never returned.
Despite having the same last name, Gudmundur and Geirfinnur were strangers. The case of their disappearances had almost little to no evidence.
There were no forensic evidence, no bodies, no witnesses. So what made the Icelandic police turn these disappearances into a double homicide investigation?
Was it because of the media scrutiny on the police force? The fact that disappearances are common in Iceland and there has been no explanation?
Whatever the reason, it became a drive for the police as a means to solve the case under any circumstances.
THE SUSPECTS
In December 1975, Icelandic authorities decided to take a chance by asking a couple, who was under suspicion of an unrelated fraud case, about the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur case. Police showed young Erla Bolladottir a picture of Gudmundur, and she admitted to recognizing him. She claimed they had talked at a party once, and on the night he went missing, Erla had a nightmare about her boyfriend and his three friends talking.
Somehow, Erla’s nightmare convinced the police that she, in fact, didn’t have a nightmare, and that it was instead an experience so traumatic her brain disguised it as a one. Erla was interrogated for endless hours, separated from her newborn. She said the police threatened her that if she didn’t provide a confession, she wouldn’t be able to leave and see her daughter.
That night, Erla didn’t come home to her newborn. She spent her first night in solitary confinement and questioned herself; did she really witness a murder and couldn’t remember?
Erla Bolladottir was held in solitary confinement for 242 days, with 105 police interrogations.
One interrogation lasted for over 10 hours, the police were determined to ‘unlock her memory’. In Erla’s desperation to go back to her child, the police prepared a statement for her, stating that she did in fact see her boyfriend, Saevar Ciesielski, and three of his friends having a conversation over a covered dead body, the dead body of Gudmundur Einarsson. Erla signed the confession, finally coming home to her newborn and while thinking that nobody would believe it. But she was wrong. When Saevar Ciesielski was confronted with the confession Erla had supposedly written, he admitted his involvement in the crime and started confessing.
Saevar Ciesielski was a young rebel, intelligent, and charismatic young man. He would be the perfect image of a small coup leader with his friends, Albert Skaftason, Kristjan Vidarsson, and Tryggvi Leifsson as his henchmen. After Saevar’s confession of his involvement in the case, his friends’ confessions followed after a long interrogation with the police, and a number of threats.
Saevar and his friends’ have all been in and out of prison before; Kristjan and Tryggvi had both been in prison before for smaller crimes, and the police had threatened them that if they didn't cooperate, they would be in solitary confinement for a long, long time. They soon confessed that they murdered Gudmundur while fighting over the cost of a few bottles of alcohol. Albert also faced a similar situation as his friends, and admitted his part of the crime. He claimed he was the one who drove them to a lava field so that they could hide Gudmundur’s body.
THE INVESTIGATION
Because of the confessions, Gudmundur’s case was considered partially solved, all they needed to find now was the body. This led the investigators to question if Saevar also had anything to do with Geirfinnur’s disappearance.
Investigators asked Erla if she knew anything about Geirfinnur’s case. Erla’s curt response of a ‘maybe’ was considered a ‘yes’ and by the next day, police were in front of her house asking more questions.
“We have reason to believe that you’ve experienced something traumatic concerning Geirfinnur’s disappearance - we are going to help you remember.” Erla’s recollection of what a police officer said to her.
It was Gudmundur’s case all over again. The police figured if it had worked the first time, it’s going to work the second. They knew that going to Erla was the only way they could get to Saevar. What they didn’t expect was Erla confessing to killing Geirfinnur herself with a shotgun.
When Saevar and his friends were asked about Geirfinnur’s disappearance, the story didn’t line up with Erla’s - none of theirs did. The story kept changing, one time Saevar said he had killed Geirfinnur, then the next time he said Geirfinnur had fallen from the boat. The police figured that it would take a long time until they could make the story align. The only detail that Kristjan and Saevar kept mentioning was the involvement of a 'foreigner'.
By the summer of 1976, the police had made no progress in Geirfinnur’s case. The suspects had been in confinement for over 6 months, and the police force continued to face strong media scrutiny. This resulted in them hiring Germany’s ‘super-cop’ Karl Schutz, who was said to be an expert in criminal cases.
With Schutz’s help, they were able to find this foreigner that Kristjan and Saevar mentioned. The ‘foreigner’ was Gudjon Skarphedinsson, a 32 year old man who was Saevar’s former teacher. He was nicknamed the ‘foreigner’ because of his not-so-stereotypical look that stood out from other Icelandics. They believed that Saevar had called his former teacher to kill Geirfinnur in Keflavik.
Gudjon wasn’t like the other suspects who police seemed to find un-cooperative, hated the police, or was disrespectful. Gudjon respected the force and wanted to solve the case for the good of the nation. A police officer said to him that he was the only one who could clear everything. But somehow, Gudjon’s memory wasn’t on his side. He couldn’t remember what he was doing on the night Geirfinnur disappeared.
This was the job for Karl Schutz. Schutz saw interrogations as a way to harmonize contradicting stories. And as Gudjon said, Schutz was acting like a priest and psychologist during interrogation. He remembered him saying, “You should confess because you will feel better afterwards. There’s a burden taken off your shoulder if you confess. Tell us the truth and you will feel better forever. And God will look upon you with a blessing.”
Karl Schutz believed that all 6 suspects were guilty, all he needed was the same story of what had happened from them. And he got it.
THE VERDICT
By February 1977, Schutz publicly announced that the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur case was closed. The murderers had been found, and will be severely punished. He said in a conference that Saevar’s small group was only a bunch of low-class criminals who would do anything to get money, and that the double homicide case was clearly an open-shut case… despite the lack of any physical evidence, witnesses, and concrete memories.
One crucial piece of evidence that was not even considered in the trial was Gudjon Skarphedinsson’s lie detector test a month prior. In the test, Gudjon started questioning whether he was innocent after all, this was after he stopped taking medication given to him by the police to help him relax. Some other suspects also began questioning and withdrawing their confessions, saying that they were pressured to confess into something they knew they didn’t do.
Investigators and the court denied this piece of evidence, because the head investigator claimed he knew better.
In December 1977, sentences were served. Saevar Ciesielski had the worst punishment among them, he was sentenced for life for both murders while the other 5 were given prison sentences ranging from 12 to 3 years.
THE AFTERMATH
Saevar Ciesielski died in 2011 in Copenhagen, homeless, while fighting for his innocence. His death shed light into the closed case to a TV journalist, Helga Arnardottir. Helga researched the case and found Kristin Tryggvadottir, daughter of Tryggvi Leifsson, who had her father’s secret diaries that revealed his innocence.
Helga brought the diaries to a forensic psychologist, Gisli Gudjonnson, who immediately went on TV and demanded the case to be reopened. In March 2013, reports of the reopened case revealed numerous acts of incompetence and abuse from the police in the investigation.
Erla Bolladottir was kept in solitary confinement for 242 days. She was 20 and with a newborn when she was arrested. She was interrogated 105 times, totaling 120 hours. She was threatened multiple times that she wouldn’t be able to see her daughter if she didn’t cooperate. Today, she longs for Iceland to recognise her innocence so that her future generations wouldn’t have to suffer.
Saevar Ciesielski was kept in solitary confinement for 615 days. He was 20 and had a newborn with Erla when he was arrested. He was interrogated 180 times, totaling 340 hours. He was immediately accused by the police of being a leader in a gang of ‘thugs’ due to his oppositional nature to authority. He passed away in 2011 fighting for his innocence.
Kristjan Vidarsson was kept in solitary confinement for 503 days. He was 20 when arrested. He was interrogated 160 times, totaling 215 hours. Today, he lives a private life in Reykjavik and never spoke about this case.
Albert Skaftason was kept in solitary confinement for 87 days. He was 20 when arrested. He was interviewed 26 times, totaling 17 hours. He claimed to have driven Gudmundur's body and hid it, but his car couldn't have carried such a heavy load during a blizzard, further investigations revealed. Today, he still can’t trust his own mind to remember any events.
Tryggvi Leifsson was held in solitary confinement for 655 days. He was 24 when arrested. He was interrogated 95 times, totaling 124 hours. He retracted his confession and accused the police of coercion. He passed away in 2009 due to cancer.
Gudjon Skarphedinsson was held in solitary confinement for 412 days. He was 32 when arrested. He was interrogated 75 times, totaling 160 hours. He was told he was the key to solving the crime - his confession was used to convict others. He wrote a diary during his prison time and smuggled it out through a priest, his diary is a perfect example of Memory Distrust Syndrome. Today, he is a retired Lutheran priest in Reykjavik.
All of the suspects' confessions were compromised by police abuse of power. There were no evidence, no witnesses, no proven motives or alibis other than the fight over the cost of a few bottles of alcohol.
Barry George, the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, said that this case was a perfect example of Memory Distrust Syndrome, a condition where an individual’s memories are influenced by others and they begin to distrust what they know and what actually happened. This syndrome normally presents itself during intense emotional situations.
The Reykjavik Confessions case is, according to the former Minister of the Interior Ogmundur Jonasson, a black mark on Iceland’s collective conscience until justice is served, but the victims of police abuse have suffered enough from the experience. Whether or not the 6 people actually committed the crime is still a question for some.
READ MORE ABOUT MDS (Memory Distrust Syndrome)
Memory Distrust Syndrome, Confabulation and False Confession - Gisli Gudjonssons
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