The question is, what happens when Helge Fossmo is out of the picture?
Who's leading this congregation while Helge is in custody?
Let's try to work this out. We've got Kim Wincent.
He's been a principal since 1982. Emma Gembäck was a pastor for a while.
She's married to Peter Gembäck.
He's very present in the media for a while.
That's three pastors and one more, Johan Grimborg.
And there's Urban Fält.
He takes on a greater role now that Helge is gone.
- And there's Patrik. - He's not a pastor.
But he's married to Asa, known as the Bride of Christ.
- Everyone says Patrik is important. - That's right.
But Asa Waldau, the Bride of Christ, is the one in charge.
These are the people who are important now.
Thanks.
Why did you agree to be interviewed, Peter?
Because I believe that we learn from history.
I think it's important that we open this up
and try to understand what happened.
I'm doing this because it might help someone.
To try to explain what Knutby was like.
You have a choice, either to walk away or take part.
An honest and open attempt to give an explanation, so we can move on.
I was part of an environment that had secrets.
Why did we choose to lie? Did we think that we were lying?
To quote Jesus Himself, "The truth will set you free."
- Emergency 112. How may I help you? - I don't know.
I just came in here. There's blood everywhere.
In Knutby.
Shock and despair spread throughout the little town of Knutby.
The murder of a young woman and attempted murder of her neighbor
is in stark contrast to this quiet, peaceful community.
This is one of the most bizarre criminal cases in Sweden in modern time.
A web of religion, sex and cruel, callous murder
unprecedented in the judicial history of Sweden.
Who was the driving force behind this?
It's an important piece of evidence that has been manipulated.
It creates doubt for the public.
Is this actually what happened?
This is a difficult time, but we believe in God.
We're not giving up.
Helge and Alexandra were going to start a Bible School in Hong Kong.
I was going to drive them to Arlanda Airport.
I called to pick them up that morning. I went inside and I met Alexandra.
And she... Well, it's hard to explain.
I noticed something was wrong.
And then Helge came in.
And he says, "Something happened. We need to talk."
I was woken up in the night by the telephone.
I realize something's wrong
because she never usually calls me in the middle of the night.
She sounds terrified
and she says she's been attacked.
That Sara hit her with a hammer.
Alexandra went to bed.
And... hours passed.
I lay on the couch where I usually slept.
I had received a text message, "There is a time for killing.
There is a time to heal."
After that it said,
"Everything has its time, even this. Take this time that you've been given."
And I thought, "Does this have to happen? It's the last thing I want.
But if it has to happen then it should probably happen now."
And then... I do it.
I convince myself that this is right. This is what I must do.
If I do this, I have proved that I want to belong to God.
And I hit her.
She says ow and then she wakes up.
And then... I hit her a few more times.
She leaps up and says, "Sara, what are you doing?"
Helge doesn't say Sara tries to murder her.
He says that Sara went off the rails and attacked her with a hammer.
I can see that Alexandra has been crying,
but I didn't notice that she had any facial injuries at that stage.
As for what Sara did, it was concluded that she went off the rails.
I don't know exactly what was said, but...
If I remember correctly, I think that Sara was sent away.
So she... was put on a bus.
Sara was sent to live with her dad in Smaland.
We told her that this was not okay. Alexandra wanted to go to Hong Kong.
That's how we dealt with it.
We thought it was better not to involve the police
because what would happen then?
Those of us who have read it know the Bible is full of people
who have been persecuted for their beliefs.
"Kim Wincent talks about the incident in November
when Sara hit Alexandra with a hammer.
This happens just hours before Helge, Kim, Alexandra
and another congregation member were leaving for Hong Kong.
Alexandra was fit to travel even after the attack.
Kim Wincent says everyone agreed not to report Sara to the police.
They wanted to protect her, somehow."
So what you're saying is, if they hadn't taken the law into their own hands
and had reported this to the police, Sara would've been charged with assault.
And arrested.
Mm... and the Knutby saga could have ended there.
Yes.
It was on January 10th this year
that the pastor's 23-year-old wife was murdered
and a 30-year-old man was shot and injured in Knutby.
A 26-year-old woman, formerly the children's nanny,
was arrested and detained.
She admitted to the police that she committed both crimes.
She lived in the victim's home
and is suspected of attacking her with a hammer last year.
The 26-year old nanny confessed and was taken into custody,
along with a pastor, who is the murdered woman's husband.
He's suspected of murder and conspiracy to murder.
A woman from Smaland phones and asks
if we're interested in some phone numbers that she has.
She said that in late September 2003
she had tried calling Sara on that number,
but the person who answered was a pastor in the congregation,
who said he had taken the phone from Sara.
That's when the penny dropped. Helge had that phone.
Should I start with my little...?
I have decided that... I can no longer avoid
this issue with this prepaid phone
and I know that you know that I've had it since Sara left.
And I would like to explain...
why I didn't admit to this earlier.
What happened was,
after Sara had attacked Alexandra with a hammer,
Patrick and Urban came by and it was decided that Sara should leave Knutby.
And she did.
She understood that she would not be shown mercy.
She was, frankly, going to hell.
I found this rather difficult.
I knew that they would not like me keeping in contact with her.
I told her, "I don't know if I can have contact with you
when I come home, because they probably won't allow it."
Then she told me that her prepaid mobile phone
was still in the house. We could use it to stay in touch.
I told Patrik and Urban that I would do as they asked.
I agreed not to contact Sara, but I found that very hard.
She had lived with us for over two years.
And we loved her. We didn't want...
I didn't want her to fall apart and that's why we stayed in contact.
Then this murder and attempted murder happened
and I was in contact with Sara even that very morning.
That is to say, when she was carrying out her crimes, from what I know.
And this terrified me, naturally.
Because I realized then that I might be implicated in some way...
Excuse me.
I realized then that I would be implicated in this murder.
I was terrified that I would end up in the situation that I'm in now.
So I decided that I would say that I had no contact with Sara.
If I told anyone I would be in trouble.
And also...
this may sound a little odd,
but any contact with Sara would lead to a worse reaction in Knutby
than my affair with Anette.
Because Sara was looked upon as someone
who was doing the devil's work.
And in that case I was...
Well, I had joined with evil forces.
We talked to him about taking over your old SIM card.
Did you and Helge have any plans to stay in contact, despite all of this?
Did you discuss this before you left?
No, we hadn't decided anything.
But Helge knew more about the situation.
Even though he was surprised he could see
that I didn't have any obvious personal motives.
He was very perplexed by all of this
and he felt bad for Alexandra.
At the same time he could see how distressed I was.
During this time did you continue to receive anonymous text messages?
Yes, I did. I received a text message from Helge that said,
"You got an anonymous text message.
I'll forward it to you."
That's how I received the text messages.
The first text message that I received a few days after this happened said,
"It could have been over in 12 hours.
But it's still not too late for you.
You can still do what you have to do."
Was this a text message that Helge forwarded to you?
- Yes, it was. - While he was in Hong Kong?
- Yes. - Mm.
- But this was one perpetrator's version. - How do you mean?
Her statements regarding the text messages...
it's possible that they existed, but we didn't have them.
Sara says that you received anonymous text messages
that you forwarded to Sara's phone.
Yes, I've sent text messages to Sara's phone,
but I neither received nor sent anonymous text messages.
- And you're sticking to that? - Yes, I am.
So the messages that she received on her phone from your phone
- are messages that you sent to her. - Yes.
"The interrogator asks Sara why she deletes all of these messages.
Sara says she was worried when police came to her home."
Exactly, and in a later interrogation she says that Helge told her
to delete the text messages. So she changed her story.
We mustn't forget that at this time
it wasn't possible to recover deleted text messages.
If we are to believe Sara, then Helge knows these messages don't exist.
He saw her delete them.
Yet when he's interrogated, he hears the exact words.
The police tell him, "This is what Sara said."
Helge must have thought that they found his mobile phone.
I have another question. Where is this prepaid phone now?
- Don't you have it? - No.
- Really? - I'm asking you where it is.
But the police don't have this prepaid mobile phone.
- But they have the telephone traffic. - Yes, a crazy amount of traffic.
In less than two months they exchanged over 2,200 text messages and calls,
an average of 44 per day.
They even had contact on the night of the murder.
We know that Alexandra was shot in her bed by three gunshots.
We also know that Helge is not woken up by this.
- You didn't wake up? - No.
Because he's sleeping in the next room.
But we know that Helge is woken up
by a text message from Sara because he replies to it.
The ringtone volume can be set to gradually increase.
It gets louder and louder and then vibrates.
That's indisputable. Furthermore, we know
that Sara and Helge spoke to each other minutes before Daniel was shot.
She asks, "Can I call you?" And I answer yes.
- You're in agreement. - Fantastic!
In total agreement.
But this doesn't prove he murdered his wife,
or was involved in the murder of his wife.
It's problematic for Helge that he was in contact with the person
who shot these two people, in between the acts.
She calls me up and seems quite... excited or upset.
Or very... confused, in any case.
She rambles on about doing what she was supposed to do.
She believed she had appeased God.
She asked me, "Didn't Jesus say...
These things you should do without neglecting the others"?
And I said, "Yes, that's right." And so on.
And she rambled on...
about the widow and the Book of Judges,
"Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find.
Knock and it will be opened to you." And so on.
Regarding this phone call, Sara says that she asked you
if she should knock on the door or the window.
And you advise her to knock on the door.
Yes, she's talking about a door, but it's not... Well...
I don't agree with you there.
And then the police become interested in another fact.
Helge has in fact lost a wife before.
His first wife, Heléne,
died in unclear circumstances. In the same house.
Four years prior to the Knutby case, Heléne Fossmo died in the same house.
This information came out in new interrogations.
How could one wife die and then the second, both in the same house?
If someone is convinced he was behind the murder of his second wife,
then he could be implicated in the murder of his first wife too.
And vice versa.
What could the motive be?
Well, for both cases, to get rid of a wife.
For a pastor in this congregation, divorce is not an option.
I'd like to talk about the events in 1999 regarding Heléne.
At what point did you realize that Heléne was dead?
I realized it as soon as I picked her up out of the bathtub.
It's difficult to explain, but I got no reaction.
She was gone. There was no...
There was no life in her body.
This happened in 1999, a few days before Christmas.
Helge says that he and Heléne have stomach flu
and that's why they stay in their bedroom all day.
Helge says that Heléne told him she was going to take a shower.
- And he went back to sleep. - That's right.
So Heléne goes to the bathroom here.
A congregation member, Samuel Frankner, comes by.
- That's right. - He heard they were sick and visits.
He goes straight into the bedroom.
- Helge wakes up. - That's right.
They hear running water and then the chaos begins.
Could you tell us in your own words
what happens when Samuel comes in?
Samuel comes... I wake up. He's in the room and talks to me.
He sat up quickly, got out of bed and went towards the bathroom.
I can see that he's concerned and I don't understand why,
but he started calling out her name and...
He rattles the door handle. I think I took the initiative
and ran downstairs where I knew that I would find some tools.
On my way back up, I heard him screaming.
When you're knocking on the door
and you can hear water running in there...
what are your thoughts on what has happened?
I'm afraid that she has drowned in the bath or something like that.
That she's hurt or... It doesn't appear that she's... She doesn't answer...
So maybe she's not...
conscious.
So I became scared.
Love divine, so great and wonderful
Deep and mighty, pure, sublime
Coming from the heart of Jesus
Just the same through tests of time
Welcome to the Kristinehamn Pentecostal Church.
I'd like to tell you about our congregation here.
We've been here for over 75 years and that's a long while.
We've continued growing during this time,
because people like you and me have come to believe in Jesus...
He was an energetic, funny and happy guy
who liked to joke around and have fun.
He liked to play pranks on people and stuff like that.
A young man they remember as funny and charming.
He also had a strong need to assert himself
and could have severe mood swings.
And we saw God's angels there
They said you mustn't be afraid
This is the place where Jesus lay
Helge has always been dominant.
We've talked to close friends who've experienced similar things
with that personality...
They say you can't always influence your children
no matter how much you want to. That's the way it is.
They came home and said that they were getting married.
They had already booked the church and everything.
We didn't know anything. We felt we had to go along with it.
We had no contact with her when she was living in Knutby.
When we visited her, there were always people there.
We were never alone with Heléne and the children.
There were always people around as if they were watching us.
We were constantly under observation.
We weren't allowed to come to their church services...
We weren't even told about the youngest child's baptism.
We weren't told about it.
Family occasions, for instance. We were never told anything.
They just happened.
But back then, did you ever discuss these worries with your daughter?
No, I never did, because it was far too sensitive.
There was never an opportunity. We were never left alone with her.
That's the way it was. We talked to her on the phone,
but all the kids were always running around at the same time.
So we never had the closeness that we wished we had. Sadly.
It feels like we lost Heléne twice...
First to Knutby and then when she lost her life there.
So...
That's the way it is.
We got a phone call from Helge.
He was screaming down the receiver, "Heléne is dead! Heléne is dead!"
I think it was the day after that happened...
Helge tells us all that he dreamt several nights in a row
that Heléne would die.
We were at Asa and Patrik's house.
Helge had told Asa earlier.
And Asa said, "You should share this with the others."
I was there with a few others at the time.
He was sitting on the floor and he told us about this dream.
I think that we believed that this was some kind of... nightmare at first.
And then when this happened, it was as if the dream confirmed...
Well, that the dream came from God, or...
I don't know how we reasoned, to be honest.
Perhaps God can speak through dreams.
Was God preparing us for something? Was he telling us this would happen?
- Like a kind of prophecy? - Yes, a prophecy.
Like some kind of omen, or whatever you might call it.
So it was quite frightening actually. What's going on?
Why is God allowing this to happen?
What I remember of the conversations at the time, was that he was seen
as a kind of martyr, a kind of Divine human being.
God is testing him with all these things.
He was so strong and he must go on.
No one should get in his way, and he would...
As far as I can remember, he was back on his feet quite quickly again.
We had a Christmas concert the day after this happened.
He was there, sitting in the first row.
He and Asa cleared out Heléne's wardrobe almost immediately.
They sent her clothes to a charity shop.
Their bedroom was redecorated soon after her death.
Asa had decided that.
Asa said, "If Helge is to survive this we need to make changes.
He can't sleep in the room where his wife just died."
I helped with the wallpaper.
It was a case of moving on, quickly.
That's my memory of his...
And I do remember that he cried too.
But that was just after her death.
Father, I love You. I thank You for being You.
We come to you now to remember Heléne.
You know all things. You know everything.
You know the circumstances.
It was like a light went out in a way.
So much more than Heléne died in that moment.
It was as if...
"Hang on, we're in paradise. What's happening?"
I remember the feeling that death had moved in to Knutby.
Yes, we talk about longing to come home and our homeland.
We believe in heaven. That's part of our Christian faith.
When Heléne died
it was almost as if what he had described had been fulfilled.
From what I remember, we talked about heaven being a much better place.
From 1999 to 2004, death seemed to permeate everything.
Are you so well prepared...
that in your heart you can call out, right here, right now
come and take me home?
And you would not fear it?
I'm not talking about the fear of God. That fear is good.
I'm not talking about saying something lightly.
Can you, in your heart, say, "Come and take me home now?
I would sincerely like to meet Him."
It wasn't, as people have suggested, that we had a death wish.
That was absolutely not the case.
But if someone died there was... something positive to it.
You left this earth and it was harder for those left behind.
Dying is not so bad. You go to heaven.
So I think that death became... nothing to fear.
The big question is, Helge, why all this contact with Sara?
1,200 text messages, 13 hours of phone calls,
in the month of December alone and only about...
Bible quotes and various issues regarding the Bible?
Her well-being, her future, what she's going to do...
Where she will apply for jobs. If she would live in Knutby again.
- If she would marry one day. - But Sara is very specific.
So I have to ask you, Helge,
were you ever aware that Sara was going to kill Alexandra?
No.
You're still receiving text messages telling you it's not too late.
You're told to finish what you didn't do the first time.
Do you still feel you must carry it out?
Yes.
And the strange thing is, I never talked to anyone-
and yet I'm still getting text messages that reflect exactly what I'm thinking.
Did you talk to Helge about these thoughts
when you were having these long conversations?
Yes, I did.
But still, as I see it...
You talk about what she says as if that is the truth
while what I'm saying is lies and you don't know that.
You just state things, "It was an anonymous text message."
"According to her", is what I say. You don't have to comment...
Coffee time.
You were present during interviews with Sara, weren't you?
I was there a lot in order to certify what Helge said,
to see if I could learn more.
When I was present in the interrogations with Sara
were very laid back.
They took place in the psychiatric hospital in Huddinge.
Why was it impossible for Sara to believe
that Helge was sending her those text messages?
Because she adored Helge.
Helge was as close as Sara had ever come to God.
She was in love with God's right-hand man.
I prayed... to God a lot for our leader Asa.
And so did Helge.
In the spring of 2001, it became more intense.
I think that Helge became more intense in his friendship with me.
He came round to mine and Jonatan's house, to see me.
I thought it had to do with... our prayer duties.
Everyone in the congregation prayed for Asa and the other leaders.
And at that time, I think that Helge and I...
were specially chosen to pray.
But I also noticed that Helge... was interested in me.
He looked at me in a way that he hadn't done before.
And when we talked he was very loving towards me.
SARA & JONATAN MARRIED IN 12 AUGUST 2000
It's been said that Sara and Jonatan were seen
as the perfect couple for a while, but why didn't it work out?
Sara and Jonatan were assigned to each another. Asa was involved in that.
I don't think they were happy. Sara at least wasn't.
And then Helge came along and took Sara for himself.
In the beginning, it was some kind of...
I'm quite sure he had clear intentions.
This is church lingo, but we had what we call prayer nights,
which meant that I was awake until early morning.
Where did Sara sleep during this time?
When she slept, she slept in the bedroom.
- Together with you? - Mm.
Alexandra slept in another bed.
After a while... maybe, we decided to make a pact
that was required.
It would be an act of obedience for God.
And we should have sexual intercourse.
And... I realized then that I was in love with Helge.
I didn't think this was fair to Jonatan.
I wondered what was going to happen.
And... After a while...
We realized...
It was actually Helge that...
He thought that we would get married in the future.
Helge and Sara become inseparable and almost untouchable.
They are on a spiritual level that we barely understand.
They talk about a quest for a higher love.
Did anyone suspect they were having an intimate relationship?
No. That would be out of the question.
We believed that they were close in their spiritual quest...
Helge said that he needed her there.
However, it appears that they did discuss the possibility
of a romantic relationship earlier.
He talked to me when
he wanted approval for his relationship with Sara.
We have some information here.
Patrik Waldau says that, in the summer of 2002, you told him
that God had said that Sara would be your wife.
Did you tell Patrik Waldau that God said that you and Sara would marry?
No, I don't think I said that God said.
I shared with him...
I sometimes wondered if it might happen.
It seemed to emerge
that Sara would be Helge's new woman.
And then it immediately stopped.
They told people about it, including me.
It was completely stopped in its tracks,
because there was no reason why they should have a relationship.
He's a pastor
and it's unfaithful to say that he was going to marry someone else.
When it came out, especially when Asa found out
it was met with a resounding no.
This won't work. It is totally wrong.
"Helge, go to Alexandra. Sara, go back to your husband.
This is not okay. We don't make any exceptions here."
What did Alexandra say about this? Did she know about it?
No.
You talked to Asa and Patrik and a few more people, but never Alexandra?
No, I didn't.
How did you think you were going to solve this one?
Did the feelings you had disappear as quickly as they came?
No, not suddenly, but they disappeared.
So Sara and Helge have a night-time sexual relationship.
They call it a spiritual quest for Asa's sake.
Alexandra has to move downstairs, out of the bedroom.
As I understand it, the congregation knows
that she spends nights in Helge's bedroom.
And they know that Alexandra is not sleeping there.
She's sleeping downstairs.
- Yes, in this bedroom. - That's actually Sara's bedroom,
here Helge's wife Alexandra sleeps more regularly.
Until Anette comes into the picture.
Mistress Anette, yes.
Okay, so you were living with Alexandra,
Sara and your three children.
But a problem arises, a new woman comes into the picture.
This creates a problem, obviously.
Well?
Yes.
What was going on in your head at that point?
How would you solve this situation?
These three women had slightly different...
I'll ignore that what I was doing was immoral.
I'll be quite frank. These three women meant different things to me.
Alexandra... was more like a good friend or sister
than a woman you share your life and bed with.
With Sara, I knew somehow that it was just a matter of time
before she would have to leave. This was something...
that everyone wanted to end because they didn't want her there.
Sara was, for the most part, a mistress...
just for sexual pleasure.
Anette was much more than that.
And this meant that...
Sara was no longer
as close in that way, or as important anymore.
I asked Helge, if Alexandra goes to heaven,
if her life on earth is over, I asked him if would remarry.
I asked him if he knew who he would marry.
And then he said that he'd had a dream.
He had a dream about gravestones.
One particular dream was about Alexandra's gravestone.
And he dreamt about another headstone.
And...
Then as Daniel would also go to heaven, according to this dream,
Anette Linde would become his next wife.
How did you feel when he started talking about two gravestones?
- This was something new to you? - Yes...
It felt... strange.
- Can we take a break? - Yes.
- Good. - We can take a break.
At 14:30.
On Friday we confiscated Sara's telephone again.
We gave it in to a company that can, with the help of technology,
restore text messages that have been deleted from the phone,
but are saved on the SIM card.
- The news fell like a bombshell today. - It's interesting.
I've never heard of deleted messages being recreated before.
The SIM card analysis gave us seven recovered text messages.
The fact she could describe the messages was one thing,
but now we had proof.
The text messages correspond almost exactly with the nanny's statements.
This could prove crucial for the nanny's credibility.
And this proves that Helge had access to that phone
when the text messages arrived.
However, it didn't prove he had necessarily written them.
December 5. Time, 04:59.38,
"You need to make a decision and stop wondering about it.
Find a secure solution.
You will prove your love by freeing him. He needs that."
December 17, 2003. Time, 01:06.18.
"The first is a must. Do the second out of love.
It has to happen somehow.
Your selflessness would be to your advantage before Him. You can.
Time is passing and you cannot put it off.
Don't think so much. Make your decision
and find a secure solution. Find your way to peace, like his.
You have to let him know.
Leave him out of it, but he has reached his limit
and he needs to be seen. Act before it's too late.
Romans 6:23: 'For the wages of sin is death
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.'"
New Year's Eve at 15.21.
"This is not your fault. There's still time.
For His sake, because He's pleading for you. It won't be too late.
You must take this to completion now." What should she take to completion?
Her faith, her conversion, her...
She has done nothing but believe since she was a child.
No, but she didn't believe that she could receive forgiveness.
You're reading this in a way that means you interpret it in one way.
- No, Helge. - Yes, you can't deny that, can you?
- I'm reading it. - You can't deny that!
I'm reading them the way Sara did in her statements.
- Yes, of course. - She recounted those messages
exactly as they were written.
- Yes. - That's what I'm saying.
But I have not told her to go and shoot two people.
She must have interpreted the messages in a way that she wasn't meant to.
Police in Uppsala are asking themselves if it's possible
that there were more people involved in the attacks,
or that others may have been aware of the murder plans.
Summer arrived and it's normal for most people to take holidays.
Both prosecutors took their summer holidays
and we had in fact had a long period of interrogations
that covered just about everything.
So there was nothing more to do.
What are the loose ends as you see them?
Well, the connection with Asa. Did Asa know anything?
- I love you all so much... - How do you mean?
I had to argue my case for quite some time to get an interview with Asa.
I wanted to conduct it simply because I knew the whole story.
But I wasn't allowed to conduct that interview.
It went to a then older colleague
who came out of his office after hours with Asa and he said,
"Oh, what a fantastic woman!"
And maybe she is. What do I know?
But that's not what I was interested in.
- What did you want to find out? - I wanted to know if she was involved.
Could this have happened beyond her sight?
Without her knowledge?
Is it possible that two members of the congregation get shot
without her knowing anything about it?
The person who knew everything about the congregation.