Snorre Westvold Ruch

Snorre Westvold Ruch, known as Blackthorn, was a guitarist whose account of the killing of Øystein Aarseth places him close to the crime while casting his own part in it as hesitant and limited. A 21-year-old member of Thorns, he drove with Varg Vikernes from Bergen to Oslo on the night Aarseth died. Ruch said he had not cared about Aarseth and had been neither for nor against Vikernes’s proposal; the book sets that claim against his recent connection to Mayhem and the practical assistance he provided on the journey.

Identity and Background

Ruch described a period of instability before the killing. He said that he had lived in Trondheim from Christmas 1992 until the summer of 1993, when he experienced psychiatric problems and came close to being admitted to an institution. Instead, he left for Bergen. The account gives this change of place as personal context, not as an explanation that settles his later choices.

By the time of Aarseth’s death, Ruch was a member of Thorns and had shortly beforehand joined Mayhem as a second guitarist. That position matters to the book’s appraisal of his claim that Aarseth meant nothing to him: Aarseth was Mayhem’s founder, and Ruch had entered the band shortly before the killing. The text therefore treats his professed detachment as difficult to reconcile with his musical circumstances, without claiming to know precisely what he felt.

The Journey to Oslo

Ruch identified Vikernes as the person who first proposed the plan. He said that the initial arrangement was for Vikernes to travel alone, but that Vikernes changed course a few hours before departure because he believed people might recognize him in Oslo or Bergen. Ruch then agreed to drive. According to his account, Vikernes rode concealed beneath T-shirts in the back of a Volkswagen Golf during the seven-hour journey.

Ruch said he was not originally meant to enter Aarseth’s apartment. Before leaving the car, however, he asked whether Vikernes wanted him to accompany him for moral support. Ruch followed him into the building but remained in the stairwell rather than going inside. He recalled standing outside Aarseth’s door, hearing activity, and then seeing Aarseth come out with Vikernes close behind. The scene diverged from the plan as Ruch understood it: he said they had expected events to unfold quickly inside the apartment, not to become a prolonged, public confrontation. He ran down the stairs and toward the square outside; Vikernes followed him.

The journey had also been arranged around a false account of the pair’s whereabouts. Another friend remained in Bergen, where a rented film was played; the film had already been seen by Vikernes and Ruch, allowing them, according to the account, to describe it if questioned. The friend was also supposed to withdraw money from Vikernes’s account late that night, but the wrong ATM card had been left behind and the withdrawal failed. Ruch later said that the three men could not sustain the same story through police interrogations that lasted seven hours, and that he eventually stopped trying to maintain it.

Ruch’s Account and Its Limits

Ruch presented himself as an accessory who had gone along with Vikernes rather than as the originator of the plan. His account emphasizes the difference between driving to Oslo, remaining outside the apartment, and entering it: he described his presence in the building but denied accompanying Vikernes into Aarseth’s home. He also said that he had been ill with a fever. On the return drive, he slept while Vikernes had slept on the way to Oslo; they listened to Dead Can Dance, returned to Bergen, went to a printer the following morning, and returned the rented video. Those actions formed part of the effort to make their alibi convincing.

The book does not accept Ruch’s version as a complete explanation of his role. It notes that Ruch maintained in court the same basic account of ambivalence, while his recent entry into Mayhem makes his assertion of indifference hard to take at face value. The discrepancy does not establish a different motive, but it leaves a gap between the self-portrait and the circumstances surrounding him.

That gap is sharpened by the practical details of the journey and its aftermath. Ruch was not merely a distant observer: he drove Vikernes to Oslo, went into the building, and participated in the return and alibi arrangements. At the same time, his account distinguishes his actions from the killing itself, placing him in the stairwell rather than the apartment. The narrative retains both facts, resisting an easy transformation of his own description into either proof of innocence or a definitive account of intent.

Relationships and Narrative Role

Ruch’s relationship to Aarseth is presented through competing measures of distance. In his interview, he insisted that he had nothing to do with Aarseth and did not care about him. The book counters that claim with Ruch’s recent Mayhem membership and Aarseth’s position as the group’s founder. The tension makes Ruch an important witness to the limits of self-exculpating testimony: his account supplies concrete detail about the journey and his place in the building, while its claims about his indifference remain open to scrutiny.

The book also records Ruch’s later assessment of Aarseth as a person who had failed to live up to the image he projected. Ruch said that he had liked Aarseth for what he was, but that Aarseth’s refusal to abandon his mask had changed what Ruch found sympathetic in him. This retrospective judgment complicates the earlier insistence that Aarseth had meant nothing to him. Ruch’s narrative role rests in that unresolved contradiction: he is at once a participant who describes limited involvement, a witness whose actions helped enable the journey and its cover story, and a source whose professed detachment the book tests against his place in the music scene.