Carl and Assad Reconstruct Alberte's Deliberate Collision

Carl Mørck and Assad’s reconstruction turns the road on Skørrebrovejen into evidence: its bends, distances, visibility, and the position of Alberte Goldschmid’s bicycle help them distinguish an unavoidable accident from a deliberate collision. By driving the likely route and reasoning through the direction of the impact, they conclude that the driver had time to see Alberte and accelerated only after the bend. Their final question is not merely what kind of vehicle struck her, but whether a removable attachment could explain both the force of the impact and why the vehicle was never found.

Retracing the route

On Friday, May 2, 2014, Carl asks Assad to locate the tree beside Skørrebrovejen on the map, near the highway and not far from Aakirkeby. Assad proposes taking the back road so they can follow the route taken by the driver. Carl corrects his choice of words, then watches as Assad traces the route with a finger. They judge it to be the most plausible way the vehicle could have come.

The map gives way to a test on the road. Approaching from the south, Carl accelerates toward the bend beside the farm where an elderly couple had lived. The farm is about six hundred metres from the bend; the tree farther along the fields lies another one and a half kilometres away. The open, isolated stretch makes speeding feel natural, a physical temptation that helps the investigators imagine the driver’s approach without mistaking that temptation for proof of what happened.

Carl takes the bend hard enough for the tires to screech. The sound matters because it could have been heard inside the farm. The drive therefore tests more than distance: it connects the road’s geometry to what people at the house might have perceived. A stretch that seems empty to a passing driver was not necessarily beyond the reach of witnesses’ ears.

Visibility and the moment of impact

Assad points out that the road is flat. If Alberte had been waiting with her bicycle at its end, she would have been visible to an approaching car for the last five to six hundred metres. The open sightline undermines the possibility that the driver simply failed to notice her. In their reconstruction, visibility becomes a central part of the case: the driver had room and time to see what lay ahead.

Carl also considers where Alberte and her bicycle must have been in relation to the tree. If she had stood on the other side, the direction in which she was thrown would not fit the observed scene. He places her on the side consistent with the impact, her bicycle behind her on its prop stand. This is a reconstruction from physical placement, not a witnessed account; the investigators present it as a way to make the trajectory and the position of the bicycle agree.

They imagine the vehicle reducing speed at the bend. Carl suggests that the driver and Alberte may have made eye contact there, and that she stepped forward, perhaps waving. In this version, she was happy and expectant rather than frightened. The contrast sharpens the violence of the next movement: only at the last moment, the vehicle accelerates and rams her, throwing her off the road and into the branches. Carl thinks the driver then straightened the vehicle but clipped the bicycle farther up the road, perhaps with its side, accounting for the bicycle’s position well to the right.

From collision to inference of murder

The speed change is decisive in the investigators’ reasoning. Carl argues that the vehicle did not need to brake throughout its approach; it may have eased off the accelerator, passed the farm at a more ordinary speed, and slowed at the bend before accelerating after the impact. That sequence makes the collision appear chosen rather than accidental. When Assad asks whether the reconstruction means Alberte was murdered, Carl agrees that it looks that way.

The scene they build is therefore not simply a description of a vehicle hitting a cyclist. It is an account of opportunity and timing: a long, flat approach; Alberte visible ahead; a bend where the vehicle slowed; and a sudden acceleration when she was close. The point at which the car’s speed changes supplies the link between the road test and their conclusion about intent. Their confidence remains that of investigators reconstructing a past event, but the route and the direction of the impact give the hypothesis a coherent physical basis.

The missing vehicle

The force of the impact creates a further problem. Assad asks what kind of car could have sent Alberte so far into the tree while moving slowly. Carl considers a snowplow, but rejects it as an answer: it was not winter, and he thinks Alberte would have moved out of the way if such a large vehicle had approached. He nevertheless agrees with Assad that the vehicle was specially adapted.

That possibility connects the collision to the failure of the earlier search. The investigators had searched across the island, and surveillance of ferry departures covered only the first two days after the incident. Assad reasons that a conspicuously large vehicle would have been noticed on a ferry. Carl identifies a possible way around that difficulty: whatever shoveled Alberte into the tree might have been removable and then disposed of. Assad raises the VW Kombi, and Carl confirms that it is the vehicle he has in mind. The exchange leaves the Kombi as a serious lead, not a demonstrated identification; what the reconstruction establishes is the need to explain both the unusual force and the missing vehicle.