Sonja Hökberg and Eva Persson’s joint involvement in the case

The attack and shared confession

The first account placed the two girls together from the evening out through the taxi attack. They had been drinking beer, although Persson was only fourteen and should not have been served. At some point they changed seats in the restaurant. They later ordered a taxi to Rydsgård, attacked Johan Lundberg, took his money, and went to their separate homes. When the police took them in, they admitted the killing and divided the blame between them, presenting money as their motive.

That joint confession made their association look straightforward, but it did not explain how the attack began or whether it had been planned. Ann-Britt Höglund proposed that the girls might have recognized Johan Lundberg only after he arrived as their driver: if so, the killing could have been an impulsive decision rather than a prearranged one. The possibility mattered because the girls were armed with a hammer and a knife. Kurt Wallander accepted that the idea could not be dismissed and asked that investigators establish whether either girl had had earlier contact with the driver. The hypothesis remained a line of inquiry, not a proved account of what happened.

A changing account

After Hökberg escaped from the police station and was found burned to death at the power substation, Persson withdrew her original confession. In her revised version she was innocent of Lundberg’s murder and had confessed because she was afraid of Hökberg. She maintained that Hökberg had used both the knife and the hammer. Her account thus changed the girls’ apparent roles: what had been shared responsibility became an accusation of coercion and sole responsibility on Hökberg’s part.

Höglund found Persson controlled and difficult to unsettle. Persson spoke slowly when questions surprised her, but more quickly when she appeared prepared; across two hours of questioning, Höglund detected no contradiction in the lies she believed Persson was telling. Persson said Hökberg could be very tough on her, but would not explain the fear further. Höglund remained convinced that Persson had participated in Lundberg’s murder, while allowing that her account might be partly true about her limited knowledge of Hökberg’s other activities. The distinction is central: suspicion of Persson’s involvement did not establish the extent of her participation or make every element of the original confession reliable.

What Persson claimed to know

Persson said she had not seen the Asian man who sat at a nearby table in the restaurant, and had not noticed Hökberg in contact with anyone besides herself. She explained the seat change as a response to a draught from the window, a reason she continued to give under questioning. Wallander and Höglund suspected that her denial about the man was a lie, but they could not prove what she had seen. Wallander’s earlier inquiry had identified the name Fu Cheng on the card used by the restaurant customer; American Express reported that the account was fictitious. The discovery introduced a possible connection without demonstrating that Persson knew the man or understood his purpose.

When asked whether she had heard of Tynnes Falk, Persson said she had not. Höglund noticed a slight hesitation but could not determine what it meant. Persson also denied receiving calls from Hökberg or anyone else after Hökberg’s escape. She claimed that news of Hökberg’s death had shocked her and offered no explanation for why Hökberg had gone to the substation or who might have taken her there. Höglund thought Persson seemed cold and prepared, and suspected that she was not surprised by the death; nevertheless, she did not think Persson feared that the same thing would happen to her. These judgments remain impressions from an interrogation, not independent proof of the relationship’s hidden terms.

Complicity and uncertainty

The investigation repeatedly tests whether the girls’ closeness was simply a partnership in the taxi robbery and killing or whether Hökberg had drawn Persson into a wider chain of events. The restaurant encounter, the false Fu Cheng account, and the connection investigators later identified between Hökberg and Falk raised that broader possibility. Persson’s denial of contact with the Asian customer and unfamiliarity with Falk could fit limited knowledge, concealment, or both; the evidence available at this stage does not decide among them. Wallander’s working view was that she had a hand in Lundberg’s murder but might not have understood what else Hökberg was involved in.

Their accounts also leave the question of coercion unresolved. Persson attributed her original confession to fear of Hökberg, yet her first statement had shared the blame, and Höglund believed she was still concealing her role. Hökberg, meanwhile, could not answer for herself after her death. The girls’ relationship therefore survives in the investigation as a conflict between a common act and incompatible explanations: a confession that bound them together, followed by a retraction that placed responsibility on one and fear on the other. That uncertainty keeps their association at the center of the case without turning suspicion into certainty.