Sonja Hökberg's hammer

Sonja Hökberg's hammer was both a weapon in the fatal attack on taxi driver Johan Lundberg and a recovered piece of evidence that exposed the preparation behind it. Hökberg said she routinely carried it for self-defense, but the police found it hidden beneath her bed after the attack, uncleaned; its presence tied her account to the violence and supported the investigators’ conclusion that the assault was planned.

Claimed Everyday Use

During questioning, Hökberg described the hammer as something she always carried in her handbag, explaining that she wanted to be able to defend herself. She also said she had never used it before. That account sharply changed the object’s meaning: what she presented as a precaution had become the weapon she used against Lundberg.

The interview also established that the attack was not simply an opportunistic use of whatever happened to be at hand. Hökberg acknowledged that she and Eva Persson had planned to make the taxi stop and attack its driver, and that their choice of weapons formed part of that plan. Her account made the hammer’s ordinary, supposedly protective role difficult to separate from its deliberate use in the crime.

Use in the Attack

Hökberg admitted striking Lundberg with the hammer after he stopped the taxi. Her account did not give a reliable count: she said she had struck him a couple of times but had not counted, while Martinsson’s earlier notes described many blows. The differing descriptions agree on the central fact that the hammer was used repeatedly, rather than in a single isolated strike.

The hammer was one of two weapons in the attack. Hökberg used it while Persson used a knife; the girls later disposed of the knife, but Hökberg put the hammer beneath her bed. This contrast gave the objects different evidentiary paths: the hammer was found, while the police were still searching for the knife.

Recovery and Evidentiary Significance

Martinsson told Wallander that the hammer had been recovered under Hökberg’s bed and that she had not tried to wipe off the blood. At the morning case meeting, Wallander named the recovered hammer alongside Lundberg’s empty wallet and mobile phone as evidence in the case. Its location and condition connected the weapon to Hökberg’s account without requiring the investigators to rely on her words alone.

The hammer also helped Wallander resist treating the case as closed merely because the principal acts were admitted. Hökberg said that she and Persson needed money, but Wallander suspected that this explanation concealed a more particular purpose. The hammer established an important part of how the attack was carried out; it did not explain why the two girls had planned it.