Tore Hedin was a young police constable in the Swedish province of Skåne who was never arrested, charged or tried. In the early hours of August 22, 1952 he died by suicide, and a farewell letter he left behind admitted two sets of killings: that of a man in the village of Tjörnarp (Tjornarp) on November 28, 1951, and those of his parents, his former fiancée and others on the night of August 21 to 22, 1952, in Kvärlöv (Kvarlov) and at the home for the elderly in Hurva. Because he died before any proceedings, the case against him rests on the police investigation of the time and on his own letter. No court ever made a finding about them.
The two events were separated by nearly nine months. The first remained unsolved while Hedin himself took part in the inquiry. The second is remembered in Skåne as the Hurva murders (Hurvamorden).
Hedin was a police officer in Skåne, in the south of Sweden, a fjärdingsman, or rural constable in the countryside police. He was remembered as quiet and shy. His parents lived in Kvärlöv, in the Saxtorp district, and he was engaged to a young woman, Ulla Östberg (Ostberg).
The engagement ended: his temper and unwelcome attentions led her to break it off. An incident between the two at the Hurva home in August 1952 led to a complaint, and Hedin lost his police post just before the killings, though the reasons given for his dismissal differ. A young constable in the district, Gunnar Ferm, then 24, suspected Hedin after that incident and connected him in his own mind with the unsolved Tjörnarp killing, but did not take the suspicion to the state criminal police because he feared ridicule. Looking back in 2017, Ferm said the difficulty was that nobody wanted to suspect a fellow officer.
On the night of November 28, 1951, a man named Nilsson was killed in Tjörnarp, a village in mid-Skåne. The police investigated with help from the state police in Malmö. Hedin, as a local constable, took part in the inquiry. Despite many interviews, the case was not solved. The investigation had been hampered by Hedin's own involvement, which became known only afterward.
Nobody was charged at the time. The attribution to Hedin comes from his letter of August 1952.
On the night of August 21 to 22, Hedin killed his parents in Kvärlöv. At Hurva he killed Ulla Östberg and a second woman, Agnes Lundin (also spelled Lundén). Four elderly residents of the home died that night, and a fifth died a few days later. Two died in Kvärlöv and seven in Hurva: nine in all.
The press of the day reported the toll as nine. With the man killed at Tjörnarp in 1951, the case cost ten lives.
Hedin died by suicide in the early hours of August 22, 1952. The farewell letter was dated August 22, 1952, at 04:00, and the Swedish newspapers that covered the case published it in full.
In it he admitted the killing at Tjörnarp on November 28, 1951 and the killings at Kvärlöv and Hurva. He also listed earlier offenses, among them one dating to 1943 and another to the autumn of 1946. He named the break with his former fiancée, which he described as a betrayal, as the trigger for the events of August. He regretted not having become a detective and made provision for his property to two friends. He wrote that he had killed his parents so that they would not have to live with what he had done.
One date in the letter cannot be right: it places the killing of his parents on August 27, though it is signed on August 22; the killing took place on the night of August 21.
No trial could follow, and there was no later court review. The police handling of the complaint made shortly before the killings was questioned in the press; whether any officer was disciplined is not on record.
Hedin was also linked in the press to an older unsolved case at Broakulla; whether that suspicion was dropped or left open is not settled. His letter did not mention it.
All attributions to Hedin rest on his own letter and the police work that followed it. The reasons given for the loss of his police post differ. The toll is given as nine for August 1952, with ten when the 1951 victim is added, while one later account counts only two deaths at Hurva. The spelling of the second woman's surname differs, and so does the given name of the 1951 victim.
November 28, 1951: a man named Nilsson is killed in Tjörnarp; Hedin takes part in the police inquiry; the case is not solved.
Mid-August 1952: Hedin loses his police post; an incident with his former fiancée at the Hurva home leads to a complaint.
Night of August 21 to 22, 1952: his parents are killed in Kvärlöv; his former fiancée and a second woman are killed in Hurva; four residents of the home for the elderly die that night and a fifth a few days later.
August 22, 1952, 04:00: Hedin signs a farewell letter admitting the 1951 and 1952 killings; he dies by suicide.
August 22, 1952: the Swedish press reports the toll as nine; the letter is later published in full.