HE HAD THAT GUN?
I don’t know now if it was. Perhaps he didn’t have it, but the point is that at that time I believed he did. Also he had his stun-gun. I thought, okay, he’s gonna have that, and I chased him and then suddenly he was running out and he started to scream, “Heeelllp!” and rang the doorbells of his neighbors. That pissed me off—such cowardice. And I knew that he was going to kill me; I can kill him now or I can kill him later—because someday he would try, and perhaps succeed. So why wait? So I killed him.
Also I’d been told about this plan he had, to shoot me with his stun-gun, tie me up, and torture me to death.
YOU HAD HEARD THIS?
In detail, in detail! That pissed me off, obviously! A normal person, they would run away, right? They would be afraid. But I did not react that way. I went straight to his place. I had also gotten a letter and in the letter he was so kind and so positive, and I thought, “What is this?” Also he talked with another guy about “getting rid” of me, at the same time I got this sweet, pink, cozy letter from him. All the other reasons [people theorize for the murder] are just bullshit.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE OTHER EXPLANATIONS PEOPLE HAVE SPECULATED?
The newspapers wanted it to be some kind of struggle between rivals, but that’s just bullshit. That’s how they want it to be, so they can make it seem like a big danger. Like Christianity depends on Satan. Without Satan, what the hell do you need Christianity for? So they had to portray us as Satanists, to get more followers for themselves. That’s the problem.
YOU HAD NO PLAN THAT THIS WOULD HAPPEN WHEN YOU WENT TO ØYSTEIN’S?
No. They claimed I made the car very clean. I never washed the car. It was so dirty when my mother got it back, there were layers of shit and mud in the car. I never cleaned, there was no point to do so. But they claimed I cleaned my car very, very carefully. That’s absolute bullshit.
THE “OFFICIAL” STORY IS THAT YOU PLANNED THE KILLING—CREATING AN ALIBI BY RENTING A VIDEO YOU SUPPOSEDLY WATCHED THAT NIGHT IN BERGEN, PLANNING FOR A FRIEND TO MAKE AN ATM WITHDRAWAL WITH YOUR CARD WHILE YOU WERE IN OSLO, AND SO FORTH, SO THAT IT LOOKED LIKE YOU NEVER LEFT BERGEN AT ALL.
Well, I have never had a card. The card belonged to the other guy and I had nothing to do with any of this. The point is that it doesn’t matter if we planned it at all or not, because what happened is that he attacked me out of fear, and that makes it not first degree, because he attacked me. The conviction is wrong. I had military shooting gloves in my pocket—if this was a first-degree murder wouldn’t I have worn the gloves? Of course! I came into the building with gloves halfway out of my pocket and he attacked. If I was going to kill him I would have put on the gloves and then attacked. That would have been first degree.
WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN YOU GOT TO HIS BUILDING?
I rang his doorbell. He was on the fourth floor. I was talking into the intercom. “Hello, who is it?”
“It’s Varg, let me in.”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to you.”
And he let me in! I walked up to the fourth floor; the other guy was standing outside smoking. I knocked on the door upstairs. He was still in his underwear. I walked up four flights of stairs and he was still in his underwear!
I was out of breath when I got up there and he was standing there. The neighbors said they heard everything. They told the police they heard a woman screaming! I was laughing when I read about it. He ran away, pressing the doorbells and calling “Help!” They said there were twenty-three or twenty-four stab wounds, but that’s not true. I was running after him, stabbing, and it was four or five stabs. The first stab was in the chest. The whole time he was trying to run away, so I had to stab him in the back.
He was running down the stairwell, barefoot. I’d just been sleeping during an eight-hour drive and was wearing heavy army boots. I had to run like hell to catch up with him, and at the same time I was stabbing and he was running as fast as he could. There were a couple of stabs in the back.
He broke a lamp in the stairwell in the chase and fell down on his back into the glass fragments, which of course makes a lot of wounds, which they said were knife cuts. He also had the glass fragments under his feet because he fell and got up afterwards. The autopsy was bullshit. They said he died of blood loss. The real point is that he died from one stab to the head. He died momentarily. Bam! he was dead. Through his skull. I actually had to knock the knife out. It was stuck in his skull and I had to pry it out, he was hanging on it—and then he fell down the stairs. I hit him directly into his skull and his eyes went boing! and he was dead.
Also I read an autopsy report and there was a wound through his chest which came out in the back! Which means of course I was angry and hit him hard. It was a very sharp knife. If you cut someone with a sharp knife you get a nice cut, if you use a blunt knife you rip his fucking flesh up. The autopsy report was wrong, because he died momentarily. They even managed to get that wrong.
WHERE DID HE DIE?
That was on the first floor. I chased him and he fell down in the glass fragments, and I ran past him. I turned around to face him again. He was standing and the other guy came running up. I didn’t know whether he was going to attack me too; he was Øystein’s best friend. He was with me accidentally. I thought he might attack me because he was Øystein’s best friend, I was waiting for it. Øystein got up and the other guy just ran past. Then everything was clear to me. Øystein came against me and I attacked him, quite simply. I got his chest and then I pounded his skull. He just sat down, dying momentarily.
NONE OF THE NEIGHBORS OPENED THEIR DOORS?
They didn’t dare. They thought it was some drunken fight. It’s the worst neighborhood in Oslo—60% colored people.
ONCE IT STARTED THERE WAS NO TURNING BACK?
No, no mercy. You don’t give mercy to someone who would never give it to you. That’s the moral. I will treat a person honorably who I expect will treat me honorably, but I knew he was going to tie me up, and shoot me with an electro stun-pistol. Where’s the honor in that? He was just some scum who deserved no honor, no mercy, no nothing. That’s why I didn’t treat him right.
ANATOMY OF A SLAYING
According to testimony that would later be given at Vikernes’s trial, the killing of Aarseth was a premeditated act. Varg had the help of two accomplices, 21-year-old Snorre Westvold Ruch aka “Blackthorn” (who was also a member of Bård Eithun’s band Thorns), and another friend in Bergen. Ruch accompanied Vikernes on the long seven-hour drive to Oslo that night; the third accomplice remained in Varg’s apartment in Bergen.
It would be alleged in court that a video had been rented that day which was played in the apartment while Vikernes and Ruch were gone. It was a film both had already seen; this was allegedly so they could describe the details of the movie if ever questioned on what they did that night. An ATM card was also left with the friend in Bergen, who was to withdraw money from Varg’s account late at night; this would be further evidence that Vikernes never left town. However, in the haste of their departure, the wrong card was left and the ATM withdrawal couldn’t be carried out.
AARSETH’S APARTMENT BUILDING DOOR
Vikernes also brought along a contract for the release of Burzum material on Aarseth’s DSP label with him to Oslo that night. The contracts had already been signed and sent to him by Øystein who, despite their disputes, still hoped to keep Burzum on his label. Vikernes dated the contracts on the 9th, which he would later say was in error. Snorre Ruch claims the documents were brought along as another part of the subterfuge; they would make it seem as if Varg and Øystein had met on friendly terms shortly before the latter’s death. Vikernes has written his own explanation:
Before I left for Oslo I burned a picture of [Øystein] on which a friend—who didn’t like him either—had written “death to the red rat” with a special magic script. I burned it because I wanted nothing to do with him, I wouldn’t even have this picture of him, and I went to Oslo to
deliver a contract to him to avoid having any contact with him at all. I had arranged it so that I got money from the record label right above him, and in that way I wouldn’t even have to receive checks from him. To give him the contract would mean that he would never write or call me anymore.13
SNORRE RUCH
WHAT WAS YOUR PERSONAL SITUATION BEFORE THE MURDER?
I lived in Trondheim from Christmas ’92 to summer ’93. In the summer of ’93 I had a few psychiatric problems and was almost committed to an institution. But instead of being committed, I ran off to Bergen. And then what happened, happened.
WHO FIRST PUT FORTH THE IDEA?
It was the Count. It was he who wanted it; I was neither for nor against it. I didn’t give a shit about Øystein, I had nothing to do with him.
BUT YOU JOINED IN ON IT?
Not at the beginning. I didn’t really want to go. The original idea was that I should drive the car for the Count. It was then that we got a third man. I wanted the Count to take him along instead of me. I put forth the suggestion, but the Count put pressure on me to get me to come.
WHAT KIND OF PRESSURE?
He is very authoritarian. He gets people to go along with him.
WHAT HAPPENED?
We settled on the idea that he would go alone. But a few hours before he left, he decided that he was so well-known, so famous, that people would recognize him when he drove through Oslo or Bergen. Therefore, he wanted me to drive. So he talked me into coming with him. He lay in the back of his Volkswagen Golf under a lot of T-shirts.
It wasn’t intended that I should come with Vikernes into the apartment either. I asked him, before we left the car, if he wanted me to come with him as “moral support” and so it meant me coming with him. I never went with him into the apartment, because I loitered in the stairway. I walked to the top of the stairs, and as I stood in front of Øystein’s door I shuddered. When I stood outside Øystein’s door I heard noise inside and Øystein came out, with the Count on his heels, covered in blood, rushing down the stairway.
I realized that this was going to hell. We had intended this to happen in the apartment, and fast—no big, dramatic thing with a hundred knife-stabs or something. So I ran down the stairs, past them, and into the square outside the building. I started walking towards the car and the Count came right after me.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO THE BUILDING?
Øystein didn’t know I was there. The Count rang the bell [and spoke through the intercom] that only he was coming. Øystein didn’t want to let the Count in. He had gone to bed, and seemed nervous. I was standing right next to the Count so I could hear this. Øystein said it was late, that he had gone to bed and that the Count should come back another day. The Count then said he had brought the contract with him, and that Øystein should let him in.
I took the last draws from my cigarette, crushed it and put it back in its packet, and turned the door handle. Then I had to polish it to remove the fingerprints. I had to walk up the stairs without touching the railing. The Count had gloves, but he forgot to wear them. That’s why he left fingerprints in the blood after the fighting. He also forgot the contracts, and left them in the apartment. They are dated August 9th, ’93, and signed by Varg Vikernes.
Øystein had written the contract and signed it, then sent it off to the Count for him to sign and send back. It was to be used as an excuse for the visit. On the way to the car I asked him if he’d remembered the contract, because I could see that it wasn’t in his hand. He said he had it with him.
DID YOU DO ANYTHING ON THE DRIVE HOME?
On our way to Oslo we had seen that there was a big traffic control of cars going out. At one point on our way back we stopped at a small place near Nittedal [about 25 km from Oslo] to call the person in [Varg’s] apartment.
At that time we were not sure whether Øystein was dead or not. The Count said he stabbed him many times, and that he was sure that Øystein was dead. I asked, what if he was alive and someone had heard what happened? What if Øystein told them that the Count has been there? Then the police would go to his apartment in Bergen and wait for him. So we were going to call the guy in the apartment to ask him to go home.
We stopped by a phone booth, but that didn’t work. Right then a uniformed police car drove by. It turned around, probably thinking that we looked rather suspicious. We drove off with the police on our heels. It became a car chase, and we outran the police.
BUT THIS WAS NEVER REPORTED?
It was never connected to the case.
THE POLICE DIDN’T TAKE YOUR LICENSE NUMBER?
No, probably not. But the story was later checked and it was correct. We were afraid they were looking for us so we were quite nervous. When we came to Bergen we imagined we saw plainclothes policemen everywhere, looking for us.
SO YOU STOPPED SOMEWHERE AND GOT RID OF THE MURDER WEAPON?
SNORRE RUCH IN PRISON, 1995
Yes, a small pond in Nittedal. I slept on the way back and he slept on the way to Oslo. I was sick with fever, by the way. So we drove with the heat on maximum and Dead Can Dance on the stereo real loud. It was quite atmospheric. We drove back to Bergen, and drove right out to run an errand at the printers the morning after. And we returned the video too, to get as tight an alibi as possible.
WHAT OCCURRED WHEN YOU WERE TAKEN IN FOR QUESTIONING?
After a while, the story we made up began to spring leaks. When three people are going to tell the same story to the police, in interrogations lasting seven hours, it will go to hell. In addition, I was sure that they knew, and I was just waiting for them to get to us. In the end I didn’t bother to keep up any more.
BUT THE COUNT CLAIMS THAT IF YOU HADN’T CONFESSED YOU WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN CAUGHT?
That is not correct. He left behind fingerprints in the blood, and the contract. His excuse about the contract was going to be that he wrote the wrong date. He claimed in the media to have difficulty knowing what day it was.
VARG VIKERNES: The first thing that happened is that I was arrested after a guy snitched on me, Snorre. He’s a nobody, a loser. A sick, feeble guy. I was arrested and in prison with no contact with anything and they said in the newspapers that I had killed him.
Of course the moment a guy dies, then everybody says they were friends with him. Nobody knew Dead, nobody has even heard of him, but once he’s dead he’s cool. That’s typical.
So they started to arrest others, because one stupid bitch from Rumania, a so-called Swede named Ilsa, she confessed that Bård had killed a guy, exactly what he’d told her. He was arrested. Of course they didn’t have any proof at all, but he admitted everything. They didn’t have any clues, except for this stupid 16-year-old Gypsy girl—what court would believe her? But he admitted everything. Then it went on to the next guy, and to the next guy, until everything was revealed. It’s typical, these unimportant people could be important this way, by ratting each other off. So they did. Of course I was the big bad guy.
SNORRE RUCH
HOW DO YOU REACT TO VARG’S VERSION OF THE EVENTS?
I don’t understand what he wants with his story. He got me into this mess. But I don’t blame him as long as he doesn’t put the blame on me.
WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS VIKERNES’S REASON TO KILL ∅YSTEIN?
One thing was that he was envious of Bård, because Bård had killed a man. Varg hadn’t done that. Varg was saying that what Bård had done was uncool, but inside the scene Bård’s actions commanded respect. “Bård has just killed a stupid homo, it’s nothing to brag about at all,” Vikernes thought. Bragging about killing someone is a pretty extreme thing to do. The Count said it was no big deal to kill someone.
THAT WAS THE WHOLE REASON?
And it was that he didn’t care much for Øystein. But the rumors about it being because he was a communist or homosexual have nothing to do with it.
DO YOU REGRET WHAT HAPPENED?
I don’t have a bad conscience. Maybe I would feel that if I met his parents. But I haven�
��t met them, so I don’t think about it. I don’t have any sleepless nights or anything. I regret coming here [to jail] a bit, though.
ØYSTEIN SEEMED TO DIE IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS IDEALS...
Yes, it’s not as if a little girl was run over in the road or something.
Lords of Chaos Page 16