Anders Eklund was convicted of two murders committed eight years apart in the county of Dalarna in central Sweden. Pernilla, 31, was killed in the town of Falun in the early hours of June 4, 2000. Engla, 10, was killed in April 2008 in the village of Stjärnsund. The first case had stayed unsolved through an inquiry that TV4 later described as one of the largest in Sweden. The second was solved within days, and the arrest for it solved the first.
Eklund was a long-distance truck driver in his early forties, with earlier convictions for sexual offenses against women. Swedish police later acknowledged that they had received a tip about him in November 2007 and had not followed it up. On October 6, 2008, Falu District Court sentenced him to life imprisonment. Since then the court record has been mostly one of refused applications: to have the life term converted to a fixed term, to be moved to another prison, to be allowed leave. The latest refusal reported was dated June 8, 2026.
The reports describe a man who worked as a truck driver and who had a record of offenses against women reaching back to the mid 1990s. SVT reported in 2014 that he had been convicted in 1995 of attempted rape and assault and received one year and ten months, and that in 1998 he was convicted of sexual coercion and received four months. His record also included indecent exposure, assault and supplying alcohol to a minor. The Local, quoting TT, wrote in April 2008 that he had served prison time in 1995.
Years later, when the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine assessed him for the court, its report described a pattern over many years of repeated serious violent crimes or attempts against women. A court ruling in 2019 cited the same assessment. That judgment, delivered long after the 2008 trial, is the closest the record comes to an explanation of the pattern. It does not describe his upbringing or family, and his date of birth has not been reported.
Pernilla Hellgren was 31, according to the Swedish news agency TT, TV4 and The Local. SVT, in its reports from 2018 onward, gives her age as 30, and one Local report in July 2008 gave 26. Most accounts give 31.
She was killed in Falun on the morning of June 4, 2000, The Local reported in 2006. The reports of the trial say little about her life. Her father attended the first morning of the trial in July 2008, which was devoted to her case.
TV4's 2017 account of the case says police were at first optimistic, it wrote, and arrested a 46-year-old man soon after the killing. His DNA did not match the evidence in the case and he was released. The inquiry grew into one of the largest Sweden had seen, but it suffered, TV4 reported, from budget cuts and a shortage of resources, and valuable tips were left unattended. Investigators searched in the Netherlands and Germany.
In November 2006 the main line of inquiry was a long-distance truck driver in Germany who reportedly admitted to killing five young women on his trips around Europe. Dalarna police had been working on the Falun case for six years without a result, The Local reported at the time, and a police officer said they would ask through Interpol for a comparison of the German driver's DNA with traces from the Falun case. The article does not report the outcome, and nothing in the later record connects the German driver to the Falun case.
According to TV4, a tip had come in naming a truck driver from Torsåker, a village about 50 kilometers from Falun. It was left unexamined. When the same name came in again a year later, a request to question him was made but no action followed. The Local reported in April 2008 that the later tip arrived in November 2007, after the television crime program Efterlyst on TV3 featured the case. A Dalarna police spokesman told a local paper: "That's something we'll be held responsible for."
Engla Juncosa Höglund was ten years old and lived in Stjärnsund, a village in Dalarna near Hedemora. Her mother and her father both took part in the court proceedings. Her mother became, over the years, a public figure in her own right, as a litigant against the Swedish state in 2012 and as a critic of how the case has been treated by television in 2025.
Engla was killed in early April 2008, and the court found that the killing was murder, with other charges. Parts of the hearing about her were held behind closed doors, and the public record of that day is limited to what the courts decided.
Eklund was arrested on April 7, 2008, two days after the killing, SVT reported. The Local wrote that he was arrested at a roadside pub on the Hallandsås ridge in southwest Sweden, on suspicion of kidnapping. The Local added that two chance photographs, taken within about a minute of each other by a man who was trying out a new digital camera, helped lead police to him. A few days later Dalarna police acknowledged that a traffic officer had, without meaning to, alerted him that police were interested in his car, The Local reported.
He first denied involvement. According to The Local, on Sunday, April 13, he admitted killing Pernilla in Falun in 2000, and he then told investigators that he had also killed Engla. Six days after his arrest, the news agency wrote, he had admitted to both killings. When police put DNA evidence from the Falun case to him in questioning, he confessed, The Local wrote in the report of the verdict; TV4 gave the same account in 2022. His lawyer at that stage, Jan Kyrö, said that the meeting with the girl had been a coincidence and the outcome unplanned, "an accident." On April 14 he also admitted an attempted rape in Sandviken in 2006.
Within days of the confession, the Dalarna police filed a complaint against themselves. The Local reported on April 14, 2008, that police admitted they should have followed up the tip received in November. The matter was referred to the National Police Related Crimes Unit in Gothenburg, which would decide whether it amounted to breach of duty. The police chief said he was proud of the work done, while acknowledging the need for self-critical questions.
By the time of the verdict, in October 2008, prosecutors were still investigating whether officers in Dalarna had committed a punishable offense, and police were also examining whether Engla's killing could have been prevented, The Local reported. The outcome of those inquiries has not been reported.
In February 2012 Engla's mother announced that she would sue the Swedish state in Stockholm District Court. Her reasoning, The Local wrote, was that police had information about Eklund from the 2000 case and did not act on the tips, and that acting on them could have prevented her daughter's death. She said she wanted to stop the same thing happening to others. The Local did not report how much she was seeking or how the case ended.
On Friday, April 18, 2008, Falun District Court remanded him in custody on probable cause for suspicion of both murders. He appeared in a green T-shirt and tracksuit pants, The Local reported, and the proceedings went on behind closed doors. His defense lawyer, Leif Silbersky, said the case was at an early stage and that it might turn out to be manslaughter rather than murder.
Police compared his crimes with unsolved cases in Sweden and abroad, and his DNA profile was to be entered in Interpol's database. A national criminal investigation spokesman said investigators were looking at "all relevant unsolved murders."
The indictment reached Falu District Court on Friday, July 18, 2008. It charged murder of Engla and of Pernilla, aggravated rape of Pernilla, other charges in connection with Engla's killing, an attempted rape in Sandviken in 2006 and child pornography offenses.
A forensic psychiatric examination was ordered, and Eklund was assessed at Huddinge hospital, The Local reported in June 2008. At the beginning of July the National Board of Forensic Medicine concluded that he had not been mentally ill when the crimes were committed, that his condition had not deteriorated, and that he did not need psychiatric care. That finding made a prison sentence possible. Silbersky said at the time that "the only alternatives now are a long fixed jail term or life imprisonment." He nevertheless asked Falu District Court on July 9 for a review by the legal committee of the National Board of Health and Welfare, arguing that Eklund should be placed in a secure psychiatric hospital instead of prison, and that other experts could reach a different conclusion.
The review came back in early September. The Local wrote that the legal committee found "minor mental illness at the time of both attacks," not serious enough to justify psychiatric care in place of prison. A second report on the same point appeared in The Local's coverage of the closing hearing: the experts found Eklund mentally ill but not sufficiently ill to receive psychiatric care in place of a prison sentence. The reports describe two psychiatric examinations that found mental problems but not a condition that barred a prison term, and the defense accepted a prison term while asking for psychiatric care in prison.
The trial opened on Monday, July 21, 2008, in a secure courtroom at Stockholm District Court, because of threats made against Eklund. It was expected to last four days. The first day concerned Pernilla. Eklund admitted the charges relating to her, and he said, according to The Local, "She was not supposed to die," before he broke down in tears. Her father was in court. Silbersky argued that the other offenses in her case should be absorbed in the murder conviction.
The second day, July 22, concerned Engla. Her mother, who cried as the hearing resumed, was present with her partner. Silbersky told the court: "Anders Eklund confesses to the charges presented by the prosecutor." Part of the day was held behind closed doors.
The case was not concluded in July. At the closing hearing on Thursday, September 25, 2008, prosecutor Patrik Säflund asked for life imprisonment for each of the two killings: "The sentence is life in prison for each one of the acts committed against Engla Juncosa Höglund and Pernilla Hellgren." Silbersky argued that his client needed care rather than prison and acknowledged afterward that it was "a bit of an uphill battle." Engla's father asked for 100,000 kronor in damages for pain and suffering.
Falu District Court delivered its judgment on Monday, October 6, 2008. It sentenced Eklund to life imprisonment for the murders of Engla and Pernilla. The Local reported that he was also convicted of aggravated rape, attempted rape and child pornography offenses, with other charges relating to Engla. The court rejected Silbersky's argument that the other offenses should be absorbed in the murder convictions, ruling that they were separate from the deadly violence, so that he could be sentenced for both.
The court ordered Eklund to pay 850,000 kronor in compensation to the plaintiffs, less than had been requested. Each victim's relatives were to receive 75,000 kronor, and in some cases 50,000 kronor. According to the court, current practice did not allow a higher award.
The reports do not say whether Eklund or the prosecution appealed. The later rulings on his applications, beginning in 2018, treat the life sentence as being in force and give 2008 as its date.
Eklund was first held at Norrtälje prison. In 2014 two fellow inmates seriously assaulted him there, and he was moved to Tidaholm, SVT reported in 2018. He was held there in a unit for inmates who are hard to place, and staff told investigators that he found it difficult to socialize with other prisoners.
A Swedish life sentence can be converted into a fixed term after a period in custody, on application to a district court. In December 2018 the National Board of Forensic Medicine submitted its assessment to Örebro District Court after a team of a social investigator, a psychologist and two forensic psychiatrists had spent about 30 hours testing and interviewing him. It rated his risk of serious reoffending as high, said that he showed no remorse, empathy or guilt, and found that he lacked insight into his own problems. He had debts and no support outside prison, and said that if released he would move to a new place and change his name. SVT headlines at the time said that he sought a term of 18 years.
On May 6, 2019, Örebro District Court rejected the application. He had been deprived of liberty for ten years the previous year, which gave him the right to apply. The court acknowledged that he had contributed to his own reintegration and behaved well in prison, but found a concrete and considerable risk that he would commit serious crime again, which was sufficient reason to refuse.
He applied again, and in January 2023 the district court again said no, on the same ground. Engla's mother attended the hearing. She said the result was expected, that she was not worried, and that repeated applications wasted money that could be spent on more important things. SVT placed him in a list of life prisoners refused fixed terms, among them John Ausonius, Jackie Arklöv and Tommy Alexandersson.
He also asked to be moved. In March 2021, TV4 reported that the prison service had refused to transfer him to another prison, after he said that he feared for his safety and was dissatisfied with his arrangements. In August 2024 TV4, citing the newspaper Falu-Kuriren, reported that the service had refused him leave and had refused a transfer to a prison with a lower security class, that he was taking the refusals to court, and that he had applied twice that year for a fixed term and been refused both times.
On June 8, 2026, SVT reported another ruling by Örebro District Court. He had asked for his life sentence to be converted into a fixed term, and the court declined, finding on an overall assessment a very concrete and considerable risk of serious reoffending and an absolute bar to fixing a term for the life sentence. He had been in custody since April 7, 2008, and had served 18 years. The report did not say whether the ruling could be appealed.
In September 2014 Eklund was named in a third case. Police in Jönköping County said he was reasonably suspected ("skäligen misstänkt") of murder or, alternatively, kidnapping, in connection with an unsolved case from 1997 in Sävsjö. His lawyer said that after a two-and-a-half-hour interview nothing incriminating had emerged. Eklund said he had nothing to do with it. The police said they had carried out about 800 interviews over the years and believed the girl had been the victim of a crime.
A police group leader said there was evidence that Eklund had been in Sävsjö at the time, but also that, contrary to reports in several media outlets, there was no DNA evidence tying him to it. The prosecutor lifted the arrest within days, saying he could not obstruct the investigation and that the interviews had not progressed far enough to draw conclusions. TV4 wrote that he remained a suspect. No charge or later decision has been reported.
The 1997 Sävsjö case is unresolved. Eklund has denied involvement, was held for a short period, and was released without charge. He has not been convicted of it and it is not counted among his killings.
In 2022 the criminologist Leif GW Persson said on TV4 that Eklund had committed more killings than the two for which he was convicted, and that he was almost certain of one of them but that police were not pursuing it. He did not name a case in the report, and the police have not made any such charge.
The reports also differ on the tips. TV4 wrote that a truck driver's name reached police twice, a year apart, while The Local places the tip that was not followed in November 2007. Neither report gives the date of the first tip.
The police failure became part of the public understanding of the case, and Engla's mother's 2012 suit against the state was its legal expression. In September 2025 TV4 reported that she objected to a documentary being prepared by the streaming service Viaplay for its series Svenska fall. She said that the program had used leaked material from the first police interviews, that she had blocked the road when she learned that filming would take place at the site, and that she wanted a wider debate on ethics in true crime. Viaplay's press chief said the company understood the criticism, had contacted relatives and offered them a place in the program, and that if relatives declined it might tell the story from other perspectives, such as that of investigators.
1995: convicted of attempted rape and assault; sentenced to one year and ten months.
1998: convicted of sexual coercion; sentenced to four months.
June 4, 2000: Pernilla, 31, is killed in Falun. The inquiry runs for years without a result.
November 2006: police look at a German truck driver as a possible suspect and ask for a DNA comparison.
2006: attempted rape of a woman in Sandviken (later admitted and convicted).
November 2007: a tip naming Eklund reaches Dalarna police after a television appeal; it is not followed up.
April 2008: Engla, 10, is killed in Stjärnsund.
April 7, 2008: Eklund is arrested at a roadside pub in southwest Sweden.
April 13, 2008: he confesses, first to the Falun killing and then to Engla's.
April 18, 2008: Falu District Court remands him in custody on suspicion of both murders.
July 1, 2008: the National Board of Forensic Medicine finds he was not mentally ill at the time.
July 9, 2008: his lawyer asks for a review of that finding.
July 18, 2008: the indictment is filed.
July 21 and 22, 2008: trial hearings in a secure courtroom at Stockholm District Court.
Early September 2008: the legal committee of the National Board of Health and Welfare finds minor mental illness, not enough to bar prison.
September 25, 2008: closing hearing; the prosecutor seeks life imprisonment.
October 6, 2008: Falu District Court sentences him to life imprisonment.
2012: Engla's mother announces a suit against the Swedish state.
2014: two inmates assault him at Norrtälje; he is moved to Tidaholm.
September 2014: held briefly on suspicion in the 1997 Sävsjö case; the arrest is lifted.
December 2018: forensic medicine assessment rates his risk of reoffending as high.
May 6, 2019: Örebro District Court refuses to convert the life sentence.
March 2021: a request to be transferred is refused.
January 2023: a second application for a fixed term is refused.
August 2024: leave and transfer to a lower-security prison refused; two further fixed-term applications refused that year.
September 2025: Engla's mother objects to a streaming documentary.
June 8, 2026: Örebro District Court again refuses to fix a term for the life sentence.