Branislav Tesanovic is 78 years old when he dies.
There are many indications that it may have happened on March 10, 2016, the day after his birthday, because the note in the wall calendar marking the date of March 11 has not been torn off.
The police discover this when they open the door - three years, eight months and eight days later.
The radio is still on in the apartment.
- They discovered him pretty soon, he was lying on his stomach in a corner of the apartment.
It is as if he has gotten up and then he has collapsed and remained there, says Mats Kemi, death investigator at the City Police in Stockholm.
“Unusual and tragic”
According to police, Branislav Tesanovic died of natural causes.
His bills continued to be paid by direct debit.
No one seems to have noticed that he disappeared from life until the neighbors, after almost four years, drew the attention of the landlord to it, who in turn contacted the police.
- It is extremely unusual and tragic.
Sad that someone can lie for so long, preferably in an apartment building.
He has still lived there for more than 40 years, says Mats Kemi.
Branislav Tesanovic's fate gets a lot of attention in the Swedish media - in a newspaper article he is called "Stockholm's loneliest man".
But the question of what his life looked like, and why he died without anyone noticing, remained unanswered.
Lena Dahlberg is a researcher and associate professor, and has mapped loneliness among older people in the Nordic countries.
- You can not say anything about loneliness based on that, because we do not know if this person experienced loneliness at all.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that he was socially isolated, otherwise someone should have found him much earlier.
"Told he had no one"
Assignment review has searched the archives and searched for people who knew or met Branislav Tesanovic.
The few who did it tell of a sympathetic, humble and withdrawn person.
Mufid Mihaljevic says he is one of the last to meet him before he died.
The two were sometimes seen at the restaurant that Mufid Mihaljevic owned with his brother.
- The one he wanted to talk to he could talk to, and open up like others.
But otherwise he was a little skeptical at times.
Did he tell you anything more about his life?
- He told me he had no one.
Branislav Tesanovic came to Sweden in 1966 and moved to Stockholm in the early 70s.
Among other things, he worked as a metal worker, lathe and driller - in the end he ended up at Siemens Elema where he worked for over 18 years before retiring.
- He did not seek contact, he was probably a little more of a thinker, says the former colleague Kurt Donnerståhl.
“Quite right to tell”
Before the corona pandemic, more than 300,000 people lived in social isolation with little contact with relatives, friends and acquaintances, according to Statistics Sweden.
Branislav Tesanovic's fate is not unique.
Mats Kemi, who works with cases where people are found alone in their homes, says that he has about one case a week - sometimes more.
Do you think it's right of us to tell this man's story?
- I think it's completely right to tell.
I think there are many who may be in the same situation as this man.
They may then open their eyes and make contact with neighbors or relatives with whom they have not had contact.
Finds the sister
In a handwritten letter he sent to the then Immigration Service in 1987, Branislav Tesanovic himself writes that he has not had contact with anyone in his home country for the last fifteen years.
When he was buried, in January 2020, Swedish authorities did not find any relatives.
But in his birth document it appears that there must be a sister.
In Belgrade, the Assignment Review Reporter finds the person the Swedish authorities failed to find before the funeral - Branojka Stevanović.
She decides that she wants to tell about her brother and why they lost contact.
- I do not know what he carried inside him.
And it feels very heavy.
See the meeting with the sister in the clip above - you can see the whole story about Branislav Tesanovic in the report "Stockholm's loneliest man?" on SVT Play.