Thomas Quick: The Making of a Serial Killer

Synopsis

In November 1980, 11-year-old Johan Asplund left his home in Sweden for the 300-metre walk to school and was never seen again. Thirteen years later, during a therapy session at the Säter clinic in northern Sweden, a patient named Thomas Quick told his therapist that he had kidnapped, raped and murdered Johan. From then on Thomas Quick confessed to one murder after another, claiming to have killed thirty men, women and children. He claimed to have raped some victims and eaten others. Sweden had a monster, a sadistic, deranged killer and Quick was fast becoming the most famous man in the country. He was jailed for life.

Quick was involved in daily therapy sessions and was given a cocktail of drugs including the mind-altering substance benzodiazepine. Thomas Quick was a gift to the therapists at Säter, their very own serial killer to study and write about.

In some of the cases of murder that Thomas Quick confessed to, he was taken to the exact location of the murder scene and asked to recreate what had happened, and police footage was recorded and used as evidence against him.

But in 2001, he suddenly stopped talking to the police and reverted to his real name of Sture Bergwall. Without further notice he declared to the press that his alter ego Thomas Quick was dead. Crucially it was at this time that he had stopped taking the drugs that he had been on every day for the last eight years.

After years of silence he began talking to a writer called Hannes Rastam, who painstakingly went through all of the relevant court papers, police and therapy notes and stumbled upon something most interesting. In every conviction, there was not a single piece of evidence to link Bergwall to the killings – apart from his own confessions. All they had to go on was the word of a man in a psychiatric hospital. And then, sensationally, in 2008 Sture Bergwall withdrew all of his confessions, claiming that he had made it all up. Since then all eight cases have been re-opened and overturned.

In this breathtaking film we’ll look not only at what happened, but why it happened – why would an innocent man confess to being a serial killer? How could a man be convicted of so many murders with so little evidence, leaving the real murderers to walk free? Did the therapists and police conspire to convict him? Did Sweden need to have its very own serial killer?

With full access to Thomas Quick, this gripping, feature-length documentary tells the remarkable story of the making of a modern serial killer.