The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator

by Joakim Palmkvist

  Göran was, at the time, in the process of writing a new will, which he had mentioned to both his daughters. His intention now was to divide the family assets equally between them when he died, they had been told.

  Göran had already taken other steps to consolidate his fortune. Plainly put: he planned to repatriate as much of his capital as possible and collect it in one place. It was time to simplify his affairs.

  The apartment building in Mälarhöjden, where Göran had first met Sara’s mother, had already been transferred to a limited company by deed of gift, which is a maneuver designed to avoid paying capital gains tax. The profit, totaling several million kronor, was put into the limited company that administers the Stigtomta properties.

  It would appear that the Swiss money was being brought home as well. As early as April 2012, 237,400 Swiss francs were paid into Göran Lundblad’s Swedish private account. Based on the exchange rate at that time, it was the equivalent of two million Swedish kronor, two hundred thousand euros, or two hundred fifty thousand dollars.

  And for the first time in a long time, Göran did something unexpected, something his father would likely have frowned upon. In June of that year, he bought a dazzlingly white sporty Mercedes convertible with bright-red leather seats from a dealership in Kalmar. Paid in full in cash.

  Price tag: 1,304,600 kronor, or over 160,000 dollars. Top speed: 150 miles per hour.

  Tenant farmer Mats Råberg commented to Göran at the time that it was an expensive gift to give oneself. “He replied: ‘Who the heck am I saving my money for?’” said Mats. “He was a little angry with Sara, to put it mildly.”

  When Göran and his two daughters sat down at the desk a few floors up in the building on Paradeplatz 8, it was with some relief that Sara realized their advisor spoke Swedish. It would make it much easier to understand how the investment portfolio was put together and to comprehend the different investment alternatives the advisor presented.

  Perhaps Göran should lower the risk by reducing the amount allocated to shares. Maybe he should buy gold or sell off some of his investments to have liquid means available if the need should arise back in Sweden?

  One solution could be to sell off everything and fully repatriate the money. The wealth tax was, after all, abolished in 2007. But after discussing it for a while, Göran decided to keep the portfolio as it was. It had been performing well, generating returns of several hundred thousand kronor a year. And the investments were low-risk, in real estate companies, among other things.

  Late one evening, there were electronic basslines thumping out of the Rogsta Farm kitchen. Göran Lundblad was dancing. Someone in the group was filming with an unsteady hand—the grainy cell-phone videos show that the withdrawn, almost timid man with the reserved manner could, in fact, cut loose.

  Sometimes, when he visited his friend Rodney in Södertälje when he had business in the Stockholm area, the two of them would go for a pint or two and, on occasion, Göran could turn boastful and lavish. Not with money—he would never buy rounds for people or be generally wasteful—but in his manner of speaking and acting. He would curse in English with an Irish accent, talking about how rich he was and what he could do with all that money if he wanted to.

  The same thing happened occasionally when he attended parties thrown by his tenants in Stigtomta.

  “He was a lightweight,” said tenant Mats Söberg. “Drinking made him stupid sometimes. All his inhibitions went out the window. At one party we threw, he got wasted and took us all to task. He thought we were worthless and told us he didn’t like any of us. The next day he was racked with guilt.”

  Göran rarely lowered his guard. It only occurred when he felt completely safe and content, which was rare given all the things he had to worry about. The forest and fields. Maintenance on the Stigtomta properties. The pipe manufacturing. All the money, the taxes, the Swiss bank accounts. The problems with Sara.

  But on that summer night in his childhood village, at Rogsta, where his family’s roots went back a hundred years, Göran Lundblad danced, dressed in suit pants and a white shirt, a big smile on his face. One hand pumped back and forth through the air. His hips swayed as he laughed along with the other people in the kitchen. After a lot of food and drink had been consumed, his troubles seemed to melt away.

  Later, after the music stopped, his feelings bubbled up and he spoke of the problems at home, of his concern that Martin was only after his money. That Martin was using his daughter, and that Sara was refusing to understand.

  “He expressed anger at Sara, saying she had found herself a pile of shit. It was unusual for him to express himself that way,” said Linda Björkman, a tenant in Stigtomta when the relationship between Martin and Sara began.

  Nevertheless, in August 2012, it did seem that Göran Lundblad had finally listened to his daughter, at least as far as the forestry equipment was concerned. He ordered a backhoe loader that was to be kept in Stigtomta and used for work there. It was an investment of over a quarter million kronor (thirty thousand dollars).

  Later that month, Göran and Sara were in Stigtomta to work on the properties, but they also had time to attend a summer crayfish party thrown by one of their tenants on August 18.

  “Göran was happy and in high spirits, as usual,” said Henry Nydahl.

  He held on to those high spirits even when he received a notification regarding Norra Förlösa from his security provider, Securitas. Someone had tried to break in, but the intruder must have taken off before the security officer arrived.

  The alarm did sometimes go off for no discernible reason, but among those at the party, the question arose of how many people knew that Göran was rich and preferred to deal only in cash. What might a burglar be willing to do to get their hands on that kind of money?

  As August drew to a close, Göran kept working in Stigtomta along with, among others, Sara, and they continued to quarrel. Sara’s stepmother’s, Irina’s, brother witnessed one clash and reacted to the tone of it.

  “Sara was so angry, her eyes flashed. It was true hate,” he said.

  Her father was no less agitated.

  “You take care of all of it, then. You’ll see how fucking easy it is!” he roared.

  A day or two later, Sara made her own way back to Norra Förlösa; Göran stayed another day or two, then he traveled down to his local bank in Kalmar on August 29 to pay a bill of almost two hundred seventy thousand kronor (thirty-two thousand dollars) for the backhoe loader.

  That expensive yellow vehicle, with a big bucket in the front and a backhoe in the back, is of particular interest because the delivery was scheduled for mid-September, a date Göran specifically approved in his agreement with the supplier so that he could be there to accept the delivery in person.

  The conflict between father and daughter was reignited once he arrived back home, Sara said. But it was never to be resolved. That night, Sara left her father on the couch in front of the TV at Ställe Farm and walked out. She slammed the front door and headed over to the Törnblad farm. It would be the last time she ever saw him.

  Around nine that same evening, Göran talked to his younger daughter, Maria, on the phone. She was stressed, as she was in the middle of booking train tickets. She was headed to a concert the next day; Lady Gaga was playing the Stockholm Globe Arena as part of her Born This Way Ball tour.

  Even so, they talked for thirty minutes. Nothing memorable or dramatic, just a conversation about everyday things, work, something about the future, the same way they used to talk when Maria was still living at the farm and would sit in the kitchen when neither one of them could sleep. Perhaps they touched upon her upcoming birthday. Maria can’t recall her father mentioning a fight with Sara. They hung up at exactly 9:44 p.m.

  This was Göran Lundblad’s last known conversation.

  When he put his phone down for the night, he didn’t know there was a hole in the ground ready and waiting for him, not far from Ställe Farm. It was freshly dug, at that point proba
bly no older than six hours.

  9

  BLOOD

  When a shotgun bullet penetrates a body, the pellets spread through the musculature along different trajectories. The effect of the cumulative force from tens of pellets is like a powerful blow from a fist. Smaller animals, such as deer, hares, or foxes, are knocked over.

  A human normally can withstand the impact better, especially if hit in the arm or leg rather than at center mass, the torso. One would stand an even better chance if the gun were fired from a greater distance.

  If, instead, the shotgun is fired at close range and aimed at more sensitive parts of the body, the effect is devastating.

  The shotgun blast that kills Göran early in the morning of August 30, 2012, hits him from a distance of about five feet. It is likely fired from a long-barrel hunting shotgun. The shot, each pellet with a diameter of between one and two millimeters, is aimed directly at his head.

  Göran is lying on his left shoulder when the gun is fired, his head turned toward his right shoulder, as though he had been roused by some kind of noise and had turned to look. The shot enters his skull from the right side of his chin, traveling in the direction of his brain.

  The pressure from the impact is stopped by the skull, which fractures in several places along the left side of his face. The cranium loses its structural integrity, but human skin is tougher than you would think. The skin covering Göran’s skull remains intact. Consequently, the force of the impact has nowhere to go in the closed space of the skull. The path of least resistance is through the eye sockets.

  One of Göran’s eyeballs is forced out of his head, pushing the eyelid to one side and making it look as if the eye had swollen to three times its normal size. It is a sight that would haunt anyone for the rest of their days.

  Death is instantaneous, though Göran has time enough to draw one last breath. Both soot and blood are pulled into the lungs. The control center of the living organism, the brain, is knocked out forever.

  The rest of Göran’s body shuts down with only a few seconds’ delay. His heart beats a couple more times before stopping. But Göran continues to bleed thanks to the pressure of the circulatory system. Approximately two to four pints of blood seep out of his body.

  When a bullet or bird shot rams into the center of the nervous system, right into the core of the brain, the effect is instantaneous. It also gives rise to reflex movements—muscle contractions and jerking. The twitching body expels urine and feces. A sharp smell spreads through the room where Göran Lundblad spends his last living moments.

  That death is so quick is also a mitigating circumstance. The victim’s experiences before death—suffering, pain, fear—are often the subject of debate during trials. Is the prosecutor able to substantiate a claim that the murdered person experienced strong fear during their final seconds? Is it possible to prove that the murderer caused “unnecessary suffering,” by, for example, torturing the victim before the murder, physically or psychologically? Or by keeping the victim locked up for some time before the killing took place?

  In such cases, a court is more likely to hand down the harshest punishment Swedish law allows—lifetime imprisonment. And the more serious the crime, the greater the sum awarded to the victim’s loved ones. Depending, of course, on what part they played in events.

  The shotgun is fired at such close range that the plastic cartridge wad ends up in Göran Lundblad’s head and a few fragments lodge in the corner of his mouth. His skin is sprayed with gunpowder residue. Göran’s mouth is likely open when he is shot, as though he is about to say something or call out. Whether it is in surprise, anger, or terror, it is impossible to say.

  The shot hits his cheek just below the right corner of his mouth, breaking off several teeth, which end up inside his brain.

  The impact sends microscopic droplets of blood flying. They quickly dry in the air and land on the floor. Spatter of this kind can spray across an entire room. It is easy to find if you know what you are looking for and have the right equipment—special solutions and goggles as well as ultraviolet lamps.

  The blood spatter that makes it to the ceiling is visible only under a magnifying glass. In a perfect world, from the murderer’s perspective, the room should be covered in plastic beforehand, to minimize the risk of being discovered. But it all depends on how much time you have to clean up afterward and how long it will be before anyone comes snooping around.

  Blood also spatters across the wallpaper. The room is filled with traces a cadaver dog would pick up in seconds if it came anywhere near. Dogs can smell individual molecules if need be. But it is always hard to know where to start searching in a house of this size. That is, if anyone even thinks at all to look for signs of foul play.

  To make things even harder, the house itself has a bloody history. A tenant farmer had blown his brains out with a shotgun there in the early seventies. Barrel in the mouth, thumb around the trigger, and then: bang! Several neighbors had to help clean it up.

  A shot to the head and the subsequent exsanguination of several pints of blood from a human body is a messy business, especially if the corpse lies undiscovered for some time.

  The man who killed himself in the seventies was a depressed drunkard, abandoned by loved ones who had had enough. Coincidentally, his name had also been Göran. The house had been cleaned and scrubbed and the wallpaper changed several times since then, and yet cadaver dogs can pick up the scent of death decades after the fact. Consequently, any corpse smell on the ground floor could be explained, if necessary.

  What happens after the shot that kills Göran Lundblad is fired at Ställe Farm involves at least two people. One fetches a tarpaulin to heave the dead body onto. A standard green tarpaulin you can buy at any gas station or home improvement store, the kind people use to cover their boats in winter or to protect stacks of firewood from the rain.

  The murderers bundle up the body using equally unremarkable blue nylon rope, like a tow line, slightly thicker than a thumb. They thread the rope through the tarp grommets and then wrap it tightly around the corpse. Half-inch grooves cut into the body, which will have time to go through rigor mortis and soften again before the package is eventually opened.

  It requires both strength and planning to move a dead body through Ställe Farm’s many rooms, especially one that is wrapped in a tarp slick with blood. A dead body will continue to ooze blood during transportation.

  The body would have been about 175 pounds to lift and carry down through the basement to the waiting car. One person would not be able to do it without great difficulty and certainly not without leaving drag marks of blood and bodily fluids. Even a strong farmer or forest worker could hardly do it on their own.

  The murderers drag and haul the wrapped body down the stairs and turn left into the garage, where they pause for a bit before heaving it into the flatbed of a pickup truck. During that pause, blood leaks out onto the floor. Not a big deal; the floor can always be hosed down, or you could pour gasoline over it to erase any traces of blood. Then it will all disappear down the drain. But you always run the risk of blood ending up somewhere you can’t see it.

  The murderer with the long-barrel shotgun must have been intimately familiar with both Göran Lundblad’s habits and the layout of his house, or must have had the help of someone who was. The murderer must have known that they would have to tread carefully in the hallway to avoid creaky floorboards. They would also need to know exactly where the victim would be on this particular morning: the room through the door on the right after the short corridor if coming from the front door, but only if he hadn’t fallen asleep on the couch in front of the TV the night before.

  The shooter must have also known that the intended victim would still be in bed around seven o’clock in the morning. Göran was a fitful sleeper and had been for a while. In fact, he hadn’t slept well since about three years earlier, to be precise, ever since he’d found out Sara and Martin had become a couple.

  Given how poo
rly Göran slept and how often he rose early, the murderers would seem to be lucky their plan works as well as it does.

  Because this is clearly not a spur-of-the-moment attack, conceived in a flash of abruptly flaring anger. Because beyond the forest, on the other side of Skyttelund Farm, in a triangular field with poor drainage, that hole has already been dug. It is only a hole, for now. It needs a body to make it a grave.

  The hole is approximately eight and a half feet wide, about the width of the bucket of a wheel loader, which is a common piece of equipment in these parts. It would take only two or three scoops for the machine to dig fairly deeply into the ground—the hole is almost six and a half feet deep—through topsoil and hardpan.

  To a lot of people, suddenly digging a big hole in the middle of a field would seem odd. A wheel loader is loud. You can hear it driving both there and back through the forest. Also, there would be big piles of soil and loam around the hole. Those kinds of things should draw attention.

  But not here. In this area, there are a lot of farmers, and during the summer months all kinds of heavy machines are running at all hours of the day. A farmer who can’t find the time to maintain his road or move his dung hill during the day, because the calves need tending to or the forest needs thinning, has to go out at night if the task needs doing. And digging in your own fields is common—to enlarge them by removing rocks and tree stumps or to grade them to improve the drainage.

  The choice of location is significant. Buried drainage pipes crisscross the field to improve growing conditions. They run the length of the field. Whoever dug the grave knew exactly where it was safe to dig without breaking anything.

  A person’s routines and habits can be identified by spending some time in the area, simply observing their movements. In Norra Förlösa, everyone notices everyone. Who drives what, to where, when, and how. But who, other than a local resident, would be able to map out Göran Lundblad’s life? A stranger spying on the village in preparation for a raid would have been discovered immediately. Stopped, challenged, at least seen.