Examining the murky investigation and prime suspects behind the assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. Ad-free episodes & bonus content: redwebpod.com On one of Stockholm’s busiest streets, Sweden’s Prime Minister was gunned down after a night at the movies. What followed was one of the largest investigations in Europe’s history involving conspiracy theories of spies, political enemies, and foreign governments. Today, we uncover the assassination of Olof Palme. Our sponsors: Aura Frames - Go to http://auraframes.com and use code REDWEB to get $35-off plus free shipping on their best-selling Carver Mat frame. HelloFresh - Go to http://hellofresh.com/redweb10fm to get 10 free meals with a free item for life. Huel - Go to https://huel.com/redweb and use code redweb to get 15% off and a free gift for new customers (Minimum $75 purchase). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened to Olof Palme?
On one of Stockholm's busiest streets, Sweden's prime minister was gunned down after a night at the movies. What followed was one of the largest investigations in Europe's history involving conspiracy theories of spies, political enemies, and foreign governments. Today, we uncover the assassination of Olof Palme. This is Red Web.
Welcome back, Task Force, to another episode of Red Web, the podcast all about unsolved mysteries, true crime, and the paranormal. I am your resident mystery enthusiast, Trevor Collins, and joining me hearing this case for the very first time, Alfredo Diaz.
Sounds political, so it's going to be a rabbit hole of just, I don't know, spy thriller stuff in my head.
I've Mr. Miyagi'd you well over these four and a half years. Yep. Yes, indeed. You prepared me. A lot of rabbit holes, a lot of conspiracies, a lot of things to uncover. It's a huge case. I want to jump the gun on this one to kind of really... I mean, it's a prime minister of Sweden, so you imagine it's going to be...
But fun fact, like it's worth mentioning, this case was so large, investigators interrogated over 10,000 people. And Fredo, you know this one. We had 134 confessions out of the woodwork over the years. So who knows what comes out of this?
Still blows my mind that people are like, I did it. It was me.
Put my name on it. I'm out here. I did it.
I was nowhere near, but I did it.
But yes, this is going to be a twisty turny one. We're going to go into the political background to give you all the information necessary to get that context and that groundwork laid. We'll talk about the scene of the crime, what few witnesses were there, but people did see some stuff. And then, of course, we're going to follow up with some of the key suspects.
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Chapter 2: Who were the main suspects in Palme's assassination?
And this was because she was attempting to help Olaf. He had collapsed. She bent over to kind of see what was wrong to help him out. And that, fortunately, I would say maybe caused the bullet to just graze along her back. Oh, wow. So this is the background, the crime. Anything stand out to you so far before we head into the investigation of this particular case?
I mean, just going into a public street, you know what I mean? Like, what are you going to do? Not continue the rest of your life, but you just never know when something's going to happen. Right. I would think that like if there were, I don't know, you're a political figure. I'm sure there's always someone pissed off at you. But like if there is any heightened arguments or emotions as of late.
Right. Maybe take it, maybe take it easy, take precaution. But again, like years and years, you just kind of get comfortable and then You know, it's just like you're riding a bike, you know? Yeah. I'm sure every once in a while you're like, maybe I just don't wear a helmet today. You know what I mean? I just want to go. I'll go slow. Be careful. Feel the breeze.
And it's like, that could be the one time, right?
Sure. I mean, especially since... This is years after him being in parliament. He had already served one year or one term as the prime minister. Many years go by. This is his second term now. And so, yeah, I can imagine a sense of security, even in a heightened political environment.
One doesn't assume an assassination is around every corner, nor do you want to live in a world where you have to think that way. I digress. So this is what happened. This is the backdrop of this crime. And as luck would have it, according to the Investigation Committee report, about 12 people directly witnessed this assassination that night.
However, only two of them saw the crime in its entirety, meaning that they happened to be looking at this couple as they were walking down the street. Maybe they knew them. Maybe they recognized them or not. So they saw the moments leading up to and after the shots. So only two people saw everything. Of course, once the shots were fired, about 10 other people drew their attention. Right.
What is that? What's happening? So witnesses claimed that the perpetrator was between 30 and 50 years old, roughly 180 to 185 centimeters tall and wore a dark coat. So I'll convert it for you guys here in America. That's about 5'11 to 6'1, a pretty succinct height. As far as 30 to 50 years, it's a pretty widespread. It was a dark evening.
And this lack of, as you can imagine, reliable description just casts an extremely wide net for suspects. And as I always like to say, it lays that foundation for people to want to fill in the gaps. We don't know much. So let's just kind of like, it could be this. It could be that. It could be a lot.
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Chapter 3: What were the key details of the crime scene?
Malmvillnadsgatan. Malmvillnadsgatan. I'm gonna leave it all in. Something like that.
One syllable at a time. Like you can expect the effort. You can't expect us to nail it.
That's a tough one.
That's a tough one.
I think Gatan at the end, and I'm putting a French twang on it. I think that means street. So it's, you know, we got this. But basically whoever did this, the perpetrator escaped towards street A and then ran up the stairs towards yet another street. And so this is what the scene is laid out as. In addition to the previous witnesses, another dozen suspects saw events surrounding the crime.
So the before and the after. And so this is stuff that the investigators can kind of piece together. Okay, you're saying this, this is where that red web is drawn on the conspiracy board, right? So, apparently, the Svea Court of Appeal found that the lighting of the scene, frustratingly, in particular the lighting from the store that they were nearby, created a backlight effect, right?
So if I had a light behind me instead of in front of me, it would create that, you know, anonymous silhouetting. And so it made it nearly impossible, I don't know if it was planned, for anyone to see the killer's face or any of those details, which is why we don't have them.
Damn. I don't think that was planned, but like... Yeah. Look, the killer just happened to stumble upon a very cinematic, I guess, kind of like backdrop for themselves during this moment. Mm-hmm. That happened to benefit them in so many different ways.
A little cheat code. I mean, it's already nighttime, you know?
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Chapter 4: How many confessions were made regarding the assassination?
It's not. But revolvers are...
reliable just factually speaking less and least likely to jam now that is something that's common but right it's not a magnum or a clip or what have you that you know scrolls the bullets up it is instead you know what you see dirty harry do or anybody playing the that that whatever the game's called where you spin the barrel you click it there it is
But again, yes, so maybe more reliable, but also this type of gun does not leave behind a cartridge, so police could not use that to track down the weapon itself.
That's true.
From here, the police searched for revolvers that had been reported as stolen. That's a brilliant move when you don't have much else to go on. Try to find a similar weapon that is suddenly MIA. One of these guns actually led to a drug dealer who claimed that he lent the gun to a man named Krister Pedersen, two months before the assassination.
So Pedersen had a long record, including manslaughter, and so it's looking pretty, hey, maybe we got this guy. Police then accused him of the murder and Lisbeth Palme actually picked him out of a lineup. So when several suspects were in front of her, this is the man that she pointed to. Now, eventually Pedersen confessed to the crime and was sentenced to life in prison in 1988.
So, boom, open closed case, it seems like we got him. However, here we go.
You know there's a lot of confessions in play. There it is. OpenShotKids, you're going to tell me all these confessions rolling through, man. Stop it. Just stop it. Stop confessing to crimes you did not commit. For heaven's sake. My God. It's wild that that's a thing that needs to be said.
I can't fully understand it. Like, listen, I understand if you didn't like him politically speaking. But get yourself out of the investigation, clogging up the pipes with your hairy mess of a, I did it. I did it. My buddy, John, he did it. Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What was the aftermath of the investigation?
So this was another one of those early theories, and it involved the Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK, and it said that basically they were responsible for this assassination. So the PKK, to give more context to the previous theory, are a militant political organization, and at this time were fighting with Turkey for a Kurdish state and against forced assimilation.
A lot of political nuance, I have to admit my ignorance on the matter, but I'm kind of simplifying something very complex. And ultimately, how does this involve Palme? Well, his administration was among the first to label the PKK as a terrorist group, and many other countries followed in labeling the PKK as terrorists in later decades.
In 1971, kind of going back in time a little bit here, multiple Kurds living in Sweden were extradited for supposed connections to the PKK. And then in 2001, even decades after this crime, Swedish police interviewed a PKK leader, Abdullah Ercalan, from prison, and he suggested himself that a Kurdish rebel could have killed Palme on that night.
Sendin Sakik was another leader of the PKK, and he claimed that Öcalan had ordered the assassination himself. That lends some credence to the idea that there's some involvement here. But again, despite what feels like very tangible, very close clues that might lead to something, Swedish investigators never found any concrete evidence to confirm this theory.
Suffice to say, we have a situation where there's yet another international group that Palme issues a dissenting opinion on, and so that is the exciting moment where people are going, ah, this must be the group then too, because he clearly had no love for this group and they had shown that they may be capable of it, but nothing materialized.
This is where things start to get a little more interesting. We move away from the international landscape into more specific individuals. There was an individual that was investigated by police simply known at the time as the 33 year old. And this is how the news outlets reported on this person, the 33 year old. And the name of this person was later revealed to be Victor Gunnarsson.
So Gunnarsson was a right wing activist connected to some extremist groups. The day after the assassination, there was actually a witness that contacted police about a man that she met in a coffee shop just a few blocks away from this crime. who seemed to be making open yet violent comments about Palme. So we have reports now coming in from the area. Hey, there's somebody I'm overhearing.
The way they're talking, I don't have any quotes, but it sounds like violent comments about this now victim. Other witnesses claimed that he said, quote, blood will flow, end quote, because of Olaf, according to Swedish news outlet SVT.
So there's not much else to say about this individual except for what people are reporting that he's saying and the fact that politically speaking, he's on the other side and he's quite active in that regard. In fact, he's with some of the extremist groups. But early on, he was arrested and then released.
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Chapter 6: How did political tensions contribute to Palme's assassination?
Absolutely. I mean, we feel like we get close, but honestly, not even at all. I heard him say something... Great. Great. We can't just arrest a person because they're saying some things and also happen to be on the other side, even if it's an extremist group. You got it. It's a violent crime. We need something more substantial.
And again, out of all the many conspiracies and theories, this is the last major one we're going to discuss. And this is the idea of the Scandia Man. So, in 2018, an article from Swedish magazine Filter by Thomas Pedersen theorized that a graphic designer named Stig Engström was the sole assassin for this crime.
Engström openly disliked Palme, so bad start here, but the day after the murder he told police and the media that he was the first witness to arrive at the scene of the crime. News outlets then nicknamed Engstrom the Scandia Man, and he was very vocal to them about his supposed involvement in the case.
Engstrom had left his job at the Scandia Insurance Agency where he got his nickname, of course, and it turns out that it was very close to the murder scene. He claimed that he happened to bond the body when he exited the gate of his building. And one question comes to mind. I don't know the hours of Scandia Insurance Agency, but you're leaving work at 1121 p.m.?
Yeah, that's pretty late.
That doesn't seem to connect the right dots, right?
Time-wise, why would you leave? You've got to be closed by then. I would think so.
And, you know... Maybe you're burning the midnight oil, crossing some T's, dotting some I's, but... I doubt it's the one in a million that loves, you know, insurance.
You know, he's real passionate about saving you money on your car insurance. That's what I'm saying. I doubt it's the one dude. Geico's scared of him. State Farm, Jakey's coming for you.
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Chapter 7: What theories have emerged about the motive behind the murder?
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Here's the thing, as with many of the other suspects, police could not find any evidence to continue investigating him. So this is where things get a little wibbly wobbly, timey wimey. So early on, he's brought in kind of as a suspect. He's later released on the fact that they don't have much evidence to go off of.
And then in 2018, he's brought back onto the table as a suspect after Thomas Peterson's article in the Swedish magazine Filter. So that's where I started. Because like, as we are sitting here in 2025, like he's on the table. But at the time, he was kind of released of that. They're like, I'm not seeing anything
But anyway, in 1992, actually, Engstrom visited the home of journalist Jan Arvidson to talk about his supposed experience. So he told Arvidson that he believed this was a crime of opportunity. He's kind of agreeing with the police here. And that if he were the killer, ooh, this is an interesting hypothetical for a suspect to take. If I was the killer.
Oh, here we go. If I was, why would you say that? You know what I'm saying? If I was the killer, actually, this is how I would go about it.
Right. In our little novel or a little book hand guide, we have a whole chapter on why you shouldn't say if I hypothetically speaking was the killer. Exactly. So here's what he said. Quote, I personally would have used a more versatile weapon, a smaller caliber. End quote. Doesn't really expand on that. And maybe he thinks again, let's presume guilt for a second.
Maybe he thinks this will make me look innocent, even though I'm a suspect, because I would have used something else. I my mind would have been elsewhere. Presuming innocence, that's a strange thing to be saying. That's how that works. Yeah, yeah.
Interestingly, there were no other witnesses that could definitively remember him, of all these people seen at the crime, him being at the scene, let alone in the manner that he described, right? Again, he's the first to arrive at the crime scene itself. He's trying to help Olaf. Yes, it's dark.
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