Linda, As in the Linda Murder

97

On Friday 24 October, Linda Wallin’s mother had been due to stand witness in the District Court in Växjö about her contact with the man who had murdered her daughter. The previous day she had spoken to Anna Sandberg over the phone, and they had agreed that Anna would collect her from her summer house the following morning. She was actually feeling better than she had for a long time, and was looking forward to putting this all behind her, so that she could start to deal with her grief at the loss of her daughter.

When Anna Sandberg arrived the next morning, the front door was wide open and blowing in the autumn wind. When she saw the gap in the neat row of polished rocks edging the raked gravel path she understood immediately what had happened. The divers found her that same day, four metres down. Before she jumped in the lake she had put on a winter coat with big pockets, and filled these with stones. Then she had tied a belt round her chest and upper arms, in case she changed her mind at the last minute.

In her top pocket she had a photograph taken at a midsummer party out at Linda’s father’s home some three years before. Linda in the middle, flanked by her mother and the perpetrator. Someone had circled the faces of Lotta Ericson and Bengt Månsson, and written the word Murderers above them. The envelope that the photograph had arrived in was on the kitchen floor, with no sender’s address, and had been postmarked in Växjö on Wednesday.

The coroner’s report into the death was finished long before the trial was over, and the conclusion had been clear from the moment the body was found. Linda’s mother had committed suicide. Her grief at her daughter’s death meant that she didn’t need much of a push, and the identity of the person who had sent the photograph was never discovered. Linda’s father had had no suggestions when the Växjö Police spoke to him about it, and he had already got over the loss of his former wife.

He was left to nurture the memory of his beloved only daughter.