Elias Skog's Bathtub Murder becomes a turning point in the investigation not simply because Skog is killed, but because the circumstances of his death appear to address the investigators directly. The slow, painful death suggests sadism; the killer's departure before it ends complicates that reading. Later disclosures show that Skog may have carried information connecting the earlier victims to Hävasshütte, giving his murder a possible investigative motive while leaving the killer's identity unconfirmed by the evidence presented here.

The Killing and Its Apparent Meaning

Harry Hole and Kaja Solness distinguish Skog's death from the earlier murders by the suffering inflicted on him. Kaja reads the prolonged death as evidence of a sadistic streak. Harry agrees that the sadism is now visible in a way it had not been before, while observing that the Leopoldsapfel, too, is a torture instrument. The difference is not simply in the method: to Harry, the killing also looks like a deliberate display of control, as if the murderer intends to show that the police cannot catch him.

That interpretation is unsettled by what happened after the attack began. Skog's landlady reported hearing knocking after the guest had left. Harry considers it strange that a genuinely sadistic killer would leave without witnessing the victim's suffering and death. The departure therefore jars with the apparent cruelty of the murder. Rather than treating the scene as straightforward evidence of the killer's character, Harry and Kaja consider whether the sadism itself could be a performance, intended to manipulate the profile they will construct and lead them onto a false trail.

Skog's Last Disclosures

A later tip gives Skog's murder a possible connection to the earlier cases. After seeing a report on Aftenposten's website that Harry was leading the investigation, an unidentified sender contacted him, claiming that Skog had talked before he was glued into his bathtub. The message contained a detail not known publicly: the bathtub and the glue. Harry recognizes that this specificity, together with the secrecy of his telephone number, distinguishes the sender from the usual callers offering unsupported theories. The message is not proof of who killed Skog, but it suggests access to information withheld from the public.

The sender, subsequently identified in the conversation as a police officer who had spoken with Skog's contacts, reports that Skog had discussed the murders with Stine Olberg on the evening he was killed. They met on a bus leaving the city. Skog told her that he had been at Hävasshütte with the murdered women, and that he was surprised nobody had yet discovered they had all been at the same cabin. He had considered going to the police, but hesitated because he did not want to become involved.

This account makes Skog more than an isolated victim in the investigation's emerging pattern: shortly before his death, he may have been weighing whether to disclose a connection between the women. It remains a report of what he told Stine, relayed through another person, rather than independent confirmation of every part of his account. Its importance lies in how it redirects attention toward the cabin and toward the information Skog may have possessed.

Tony Leike and the Unresolved Accusation

Skog's conversation with Stine also introduced Tony Leike. According to the report, Stine acted as though she knew nothing about the three murders. Skog then mentioned a man from the cabin whom she would certainly know; the man was described as a celebrity, or at least someone aspiring to celebrity. The account identified him as Tony Leike. That disclosure places Leike in the same setting Skog associated with the murdered women, but it does not by itself establish that Leike killed Skog or committed the earlier murders.

The distinction matters when Mikael Bellman later confronts Leike. Bellman says the police know that Leike called Skog from Oslo and was in Stavanger two days later, then asserts that Leike killed him and asks for his motive. The narration identifies this as the opening move of the traditional nine-stage FBI interrogation model: Bellman joins the established fact of the phone call to claims about Leike's presence in Stavanger and responsibility for the murder. The confrontation is therefore not presented as a neutral summary of settled proof. It is an interrogation tactic that uses one known detail to make additional accusations sound established.

Investigative Significance

The murder operates on two levels: it removes a potential witness and appears to plant an interpretation of the killer as sadistic and invulnerable. The possibility that this display was meant to distort the investigators' profiling turns the scene itself into a contested clue. What seems to reveal the killer's nature may instead have been chosen to shape the police response.

At the same time, the reported bus conversation supplies a concrete lead that is independent of that psychological interpretation: Skog said the murdered women had all been at Hävasshütte, and he had considered taking that information to the police. His death consequently sharpens the question of what he knew and why someone might have wanted to silence him. The available evidence supports suspicion and investigative direction, not a final identification of the killer. Bellman's accusation against Leike, the confidential message, and Skog's reported disclosure each contribute a different piece, while leaving their reliability and relation to one another open to examination.