Björn Eriksson: "Nice that justice had its way"

He remembers the day clearly and the murder case lived with him throughout his tenure at the governor's office until 2010.

- It was a terrible trauma in Östergötland, it affected the whole city because it had so many ingredients, that it was a child and a kind of cold-bloodedness. It was a murder that becomes such a bodybuilding that one talks about, says Eriksson, now chairman of the Swedish Sports Federation.

As governor, Eriksson had no direct connection to the murder investigation, but he was nevertheless affected in several ways.

- When you are governor you become a kind of representative for a collective grief work. It will be the obvious topic of conversation for a very long time.

- It came very close in, under my skin. My wife had a colleague who lived on the street where it happened.

Like many others, Björn Eriksson has over the years given up the hope that the murders would be solved.

- I think it was more than I felt for the first time when the new DNA variant appeared, says Eriksson.

Björn Eriksson himself was a champion for the police to use DNA technology in the 1990s when he was the national police chief. There were many opinions that it was wrong to use the technology. He now sees the solution of the double murder in Linköping as an extension of that fight.

- It is an expression of technology development and its importance. It is a small grumble, that you could go on with a technique you could not imagine when the crime was committed.

Eriksson is pretty sure that Linköping as a city also collectively feels the same feeling as he does today.

- "Finally," I think they feel. And that grief work makes sense if you can say so.