The Reykjavik Confessions Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Dramatis Personae

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Author’s note

  Introduction

  Part 1

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  Part 2

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  Part 3

  18

  19

  Epilogue

  Final Thoughts

  Copyright

  About the Book

  A true story of false memories.

  ‘Over decades and decades in Iceland people have gone missing without anyone finding anything out. They just sort of disappear…’

  In 1974, 18-year-old Gudmundur disappears after a boozy night in a fishing town near Reykjavik. Eleven months later Geirfinnur, a quiet family man, goes missing from Keflavik harbour in the southwest of Iceland after being summoned by a mysterious phone call from home. Both men are eventually presumed dead, but their bodies are never found.

  This quiet island is in an uproar – two disappearances with no forensics, no leads, no clue what has happened. Soon, the vanishings set in motion an almost surreal series of events, a remarkable tale of corruption, forced confession, false memory and madness that stretches over 40 years.

  Based on author Simon Cox’s celebrated BBC News investigation, The Reykjavik Confessions is a chilling journey of discovery into a dark corner of Icelandic history, and a riveting true-crime thriller that will have you gripped until the very last page.

  About the Author

  Simon Cox is the chief investigative reporter at BBC radio current affairs, writing and presenting for a range of Radio 4 programmes. He has reported from over 30 countries covering stories ranging from Ebola in DR Congo to the Oklahoma Bombing in the USA. His original investigation into The Reykjavik Confessions was read by over a million people on the BBC News website, and he is consultant on an upcoming dramatization of the story. This is his first book.

  Dramatis Personae

  The victims

  Gudmundur Einarsson. The 18-year-old went missing in January 1974 after leaving a nightclub in Hafnarfjordur. He was assumed to have been killed. His body has never been found.

  Geirfinnur Einarsson. The 32-year-old disappeared after going to a meeting at a café in Keflavik in November 1974. He was assumed to have been killed. His body has never been found.

  The suspects

  Saevar Marino Cieselski. The first suspect to be arrested and supposed ringleader of the gang. He spent 741 days in solitary confinement and was questioned at least 180 times. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison for the murders of Gudmundur Einarsson and Geirfinnur Einarsson. He died in 2011.

  Erla Bolladottir. Saevar’s girlfriend. She spent 241 days in solitary confinement and was questioned at least 105 times. She was sentenced to 3 years in prison for making false accusations and obstructing the investigation.

  Kristjan Vidar Vidarsson. Childhood friend of Saevar’s. He was questioned over 160 times and spent 682 days in solitary confinement. He was found guilty of the murders of Gudmundur and Geirfinnur Einarsson and jailed for 16 years.

  Gudjon Skarphedinsson. Saevar’s former teacher who tried to import drugs into Iceland with him. He spent 412 days in solitary confinement and was questioned at least 75 times. He was jailed for 10 years for the murder of Geirfinnur Einarsson.

  Tryggvi Runar Leifsson. Teenage friend of Kristjan and Saevar. He spent 627 days in solitary confinement and was questioned at least 95 times. He was jailed for 13 years for the murder of Gudmundur Einarsson. He died in 2009.

  Albert Klahn Skaftason. Childhood friend of Saevar. He was in solitary confinement for 88 days and questioned 26 times. He was convicted of obstructing the investigation into Gudmundur Einarsson and jailed for 12 months.

  Magnus Leopoldsson. Manager of Klubburin. Arrested in January 1976 over the murder of Geirfinnur Einarsson and held for 105 days in solitary confinement before being released without charge.

  Einar Bollason. Erla’s half brother. Arrested in January 1976 over the murder of Geirfinnur Einarsson and held for 105 days in solitary confinement before being released without charge.

  Valdimar Olsen. Friend of Erla’s half brother Einar. Arrested in January 1976 over the murder of Geirfinnur Einarsson and held for 105 days before being released without charge.

  Sigurbjorn Eriksson. Owner of Klubburin. Arrested in February 1976 over the murder of Geirfinnur Einarsson and held for 90 days before being released without charge.

  The investigators

  Njordur Snaeholm. Veteran detective who investigated the disappearance of Gudmundur Einarsson in Hafnarfjordur in January 1974.

  Valtyr Sigurdsson. A magistrate who investigated the disappearance of Geirfinnur Einarsson from November 1974 until June 1975.

  Haukur Gudmundsson. A detective who investigated the disappearance of Geirfinnur Einarsson from November 1974 until June 1975.

  Orn Hoskuldsson. The Reykjavik magistrate who investigated the murders of Gudmundur and Geirfinnur Einarsson in 1975 until 1977.

  Karl Schutz. A German detective hired by the Icelandic government in July 1976 until January 1977 to help solve the murder of Geirfinnur Einarsson.

  Sigurbjorn Eggertsson. Detective who investigated the murders of Gudmundur and Geirfinnur Einarsson.

  Eggert Bjarnasson. Detective who investigated the murders of Gudmundur and Geirfinnur Einarsson.

  Gretar Saemundsson. Detective who investigated the murders of Gudmundur and Geirfinnur Einarsson.

  Gisli Gudmundsson. Detective who investigated the murders of Gudmundur and Geirfinnur Einarsson.

  Hallvardur Einvardsson. Deputy prosecutor who prepared the cases to bring to court.

  Gunnlaugur Briem. Judge who investigated and passed judgement on the cases in 1977.

  Gisli Gudjonsson. Former detective who became renowned forensic psychologist.

  At the prison

  Gunnar Gudmundsson. Chief prison warden at Sidumuli jail.

  Hlynur Thor Magnussson. Warden who worked at Sidumuli jail and befriended Erla Bolladottir.

  Gudmundur Gudbjarnarson. Warden who worked at Sidumuli jail.

  Rev Jon Bjarman. Prison chaplain who regularly visited the suspects in Sidumuli jail.

  For Jo, Luli and Biba

  Author’s note

  From the moment I came across this case, it struck me as one of the highest public interest, exposing as it does the many failings of the Icelandic justice system. In order to write this book I interviewed many people, including some of the key players in the story. I also contacted all of the main investigators who were involved in the case and conducted extensive research on the material that had been revealed through the two official enquiries into the case. These enquiries and the interview testimonies showed repeated mistreatment of the suspects during their time in Sidumuli. Despite repeated attempts to speak to the investigators involved in the case, they did not want to talk generally about the case, nor did they answer specific allegations that had emerged from the official reports and interview testimonies about how the suspects had been treated while they were held in Sidumuli prison.

  Introduction

  October 1976

  A dark Arctic wind howled along Skolavordustigur, funnelling the icy cold of the Atlantic in an unrelenting wave, until at the Hegningarhusid – Reykjavik’s old prison – it met an immovable force. The squat, black
basalt building had withstood the buffeting of Iceland’s harsh tundra climate for over a century. The jail normally housed a mixture of drunkards and petty thieves but in one part, isolated from the others, was a special prisoner: Iceland’s most notorious female inmate.

  Erla Bolladottir didn’t look scary or dangerous. She was a 20-year-old elfin figure, her big rimmed glasses framing her deep brown eyes and hair, which was burnt orange in colour. Erla sat in the interrogation room at the back of the jail. Occasionally voices would float up from the prisoners below, having a smoke and stretching their legs in the tiny black asphalt yard, but there was little to distract her in the stark and functional white room, with its few hard chairs and barred window. The room was dominated by the big wooden desk, its fine grain stained black with smoke and grime and the occasional light circle left by a scalding cup. Erla had created many of these rings, with the coffee and cigarettes she had been living on during her time in isolation.

  Sitting across from her was the detective she thought of as a friend, Sigurbjorn Eggertsson – a young inexperienced cop, he had been assigned to befriend Erla and extract information from her. He was part of the biggest police task force Iceland had ever assembled, charged with cracking a complex murder case that the country’s small, fledgling force was struggling to solve.

  Erla had been arrested in May as the summer was approaching, a time of long white nights when the azure blue skies only dim. That was months ago, and she had lost count of the number of times she had been brought in for interviews – again and again, for hours on end, facing the same set of interrogators. Time started to become fuzzy, blurred around the edges, which was not helped when the perpetual nighttime of Iceland’s winter began to descend. She hadn’t been charged with any crime but every 30 days, the big, imposing investigating magistrate, Orn Hoskuldsson, would extend her detention by another month. For five months she had been held in solitary confinement, alone in a tiny cell with a bed, a desk and a stool bolted to the floor. Hazy light came in through the windows at the top of the cell.

  Erla was not allowed any communication with family and friends; the detectives and prison wardens were her only human contact. Their incessant and interminable interviews became her sole connection with the outside world. For Erla, ‘These were the only people I ever spoke to. A lot of the time they were very friendly and I was in such a desperate need for human contact they were never the monsters – just guys I knew well.’

  On this particular day, as Erla sat in the stale smoke-filled air, Sigurbjorn sat forward, a smile softening his features. ‘We are close to finishing the case and you will soon be released,’ he told her. This was what she had been waiting to hear; finally she could be reunited with her baby daughter, Julia, who she had not seen for months. There were just a few things to clear up first. All he needed was for Erla to tell him how she had helped dispose of the body.

  The police believed that on a freezing November night, when the temperature dipped down to minus 7 degrees, Erla had driven this body out of Reykjavik to the Raudholar, the red lava landscape the colour of dried blood. Formed five thousand years ago, the area was a network of red volcanic hills and deep craters filled with dark, icy water. The police thought Erla had watched her accomplices put the body in a shallow grave, pour petrol on it and burn it.

  Sigurbjorn leaned back in his chair, watching this sink in and gauging Erla’s reaction. Erla felt trapped, she couldn’t understand how a man she thought understood her could actually believe that she was capable of such a callous act. She knew from her previous encounters with the detective running the investigation, Karl Schutz, that he couldn’t decide if she was ‘an innocent country girl or a hardened and devious criminal’. Her denials were of no use; the statement had been prepared for her. Erla was told if she signed it, ‘your testimony is complete. Then there is nothing to keep you here’. She would be free to return to her baby.

  Erla did as she was told but the police didn’t keep their promise, she wasn’t to be released. She flew into a rage, lashing out, throwing ashtrays, coffee cups, anything, until the police officers held her down.

  Erla was returned to her tiny cell. She realised that no matter what she said, she would never be released. She tried to search back through her mind – but reality and fantasy had merged so she was no longer certain which of her memories were real. She needed to piece together how she had ended up here, in this hell that would never end.

  PART 1

  1

  27 January 1974

  In the early hours of the morning, 18-year-old Gudmundur Einarsson stumbled out of the one nightclub in Hafnarfjordur into a taut, flinty gale that drove fat snowflakes onto his long, wavy, dark hair. The weather was so bad even the town’s taxi drivers had decided to call it a night, convinced they wouldn’t get very far on the roads.

  The club wasn’t much to talk about – ‘a crummy hillbilly place’ was the glowing description from one regular – but nightlife was in short supply in Iceland. Party goers would drive long distances, sometimes hundreds of kilometres from Reykjavik, to a dance in the countryside, just to have a different experience.

  The night had started out well for Gudmundur. First it was a party in the Reykjavik suburbs with his friend Gretar Haraldsson, who had known Gudmundur since they were seven years old. He remembered, ‘He liked to fish, play football; he liked the Beatles and he liked to go bowling.’ Gudmundur also liked mischief, stealing copper with his friends to melt it down, using the money to buy booze. Gudmundur and his friends would head into Reykjavik to watch bands or try and pick up girls at one of the nightclubs. When they were in town, Gretar said his friend would never be pushed around: ‘He was a good fighter, he was strong, he would stand up for himself.’

  On this night, Gudmundur was going further afield to Hafnarfjordur, a fishing town six miles outside of Reykjavik. The club was on the main street, across from the harbour, where the hulking fishing boats prepared to venture out into the turbulent Atlantic to harvest the cod and haddock that were the lifeblood of the town.

  Gudmundur had a bottle of brandy to get through with his friends before hitting the club’s sweaty mosh pit, filled with other drunken teenagers. One of the barmaids, Kristrun Steindorsdottir, had noticed how Gudmundur stood out. In his drunken haze, Gudmundur had been separated from his buddies, who were off chasing girls, but it didn’t matter, he picked up another companion. The barmaid remembered later how Gudmundur’s tall frame had to be supported by a shorter, older friend.

  When the club closed, Gudmundur faced a three hour walk back to his home in Blesugrof, on the outskirts of Reykjavik. The safest way was along the long and winding Reykjavikvegur, while the more perilous route was across the lava fields of the Reykjanes peninsula. Only a crazy person or a young drunk one would dare to think of this. In the daytime you could spot the potential dangers in this sullen, blasted landscape of charcoal, grey and brown, but the snow had turned the lava fields into a soft cotton-wool pixie land, a place of beauty but also menace. Lurking beneath the snow were gaping fissures, big enough to swallow a man whole. Gudmundur and his companion thought they would chance their luck and thumb a lift home to escape the gnawing, raw wind that bit into their chafed hands.

  Elinborg Rafnsdottir was driving through Hafnarfjordur with her friend Sigridur when she spotted Gudmundur. Sigridur had a crush on the boy with deep set eyes and long dark hair, so Elinborg slowed down to offer him a lift. As she stopped, Gudmundur’s companion threw himself onto the bonnet of her car. ‘We got scared when we saw how drunk he was,’ Elinborg later recalled, and so they decided to let the drunken boys find another way home. She drove on, leaving Gudmundur with his angry friend.

  Several hours later, Gudmundur was seen again, this time alone, walking out of Hafnarfjordur on the main road to Reykjavik. He wasn’t very steady on his feet and almost fell in front of a car, but once the driver saw he hadn’t hurt the swaying young man, he left him on the road, dismissing him as another foolish drunk. As t
he snow fell thick and fast, turning the brightly painted roofs a soft white, silence fell on the town.

  By Monday morning, Gudmundur hadn’t returned home from his weekend revelry. His friends assumed he had hooked up with a girl but his father, Einar, knew something was wrong, so he reported his son missing. The case was assigned to Njordur Snaeholm, a veteran detective, and on 29 January the police and rescue organisation, the Life Saving Association mobilised an extensive search for the young man. His friends gathered at his family’s house, one of a group on a stretch by the river, and Gudmundur’s brother, Baldur organised 200 people into teams to scour the lava fields around Hafnarfjordur, while overhead a coast guard helicopter looked for any trace. Gudmundur’s disappearance had become front-page news in the island’s main newspaper, Morgunbladid.

  Iceland’s treacherous winter was doing the search teams no favours: 60cm of snow had fallen in the area in a few days and Arctic gusts had blown it into drifts, so in some places volunteers had to wade waist deep through the snow. The police thought Gudmundur may have tried to make it to a friend’s house, so they asked for the teams to search in sheds and outhouses where he might have taken shelter. There were appeals for people to keep an eye out for the handsome teenager in a polka dot jacket, green pants and brown shoes.

  For several days, his parents and three brothers waited anxiously for any news, but less than a week after he went missing, on 3 February, the search was wound down. His disappearance drew a phlegmatic response from Icelanders. In this volcanic, muscular land, people disappear all the time. Some are consumed by the dark, thrashing waves of the Atlantic while others perish falling from cliffs or, like Gudmundur, it was thought, are hidden somewhere deep in the lava.

  There were no tearful, emotional appeals from his dad Einar or brother Baldur, indeed there was no public comment from his family at all. They were left to grieve in peace. It wasn’t the practice of Icelandic journalists to intrude upon families who had suffered such a tragedy.