Pray, Obey, Kill (2021) s01e06 Episode Script
The Evil God of Knutby
1
Sara, we have seen at times in
your witness statements
There are times
you don't speak the truth.
Like at the beginning when you confess,
you say you did it alone.
You talk about "a compelling feeling",
because you want to protect Helge.
In later interrogations you mention
"test shooting" your weapon.
The police asked if you had help
and you said no, then took a break.
Then you said you want say it
how it was and that others helped.
Then there's the map, of course,
and the shooting distance.
They don't fit either, we wonder
if you are protecting someone else.
- There were even more people?
- No.
I don't know if there are
more people involved in this.
That's outside of my
I don't know
if others are involved or not.
But I am not protecting anyone.
What are you thinking?
I never wanted, never ever
I never ever wanted to kill.
I didn't want to do it.
It was never
I really never wanted it.
But I was so forced.
I had no choice, to do anything else.
It was Helge who forced me.
He used the fear
that Åsa had sentenced me to hell.
And he said that I must do this
to get mercy from God.
- What kind of God?
- Åsa's other half, her betrothed.
Horribly evil God.
I call it the God of Knutby.
- Emergency 112. How may I help you?
- I don't know.
I just came in here.
There's blood everywhere.
In Knutby.
Shock and despair spread
throughout the little town of Knutby.
The murder of the woman
and the attempted murder of her neighbor
is in stark contrast
to this quiet, peaceful community.
This is one of the most bizarre criminal
cases in Sweden in modern time.
A web of religion, sex
and cruel, callous murder
unprecedented
in the judicial history of Sweden.
Who was the driving force behind this?
This an important piece
of evidence that's been manipulated.
It creates doubt among the public.
Is this what actually happened?
This is a difficult time,
but we believe in God.
We're not giving up.
PRAY OBEY KILL
EPISODE SIX
THE EVIL GOD OF KNUTBY
Helge denied everything up to 2006.
What happened then?
Helge was in Kumla Prison
and he got in touch.
FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 2006
KUMLA PRISON
Since I left Knutby
I've gone through quite a long process.
My whole persona that was distorted
by an unhealthy sect culture.
Now I'm slowly recovering
and I see things differently,
both my own role and the role of others.
I was living a lie.
I don't want to do that.
Were there other members
of the congregation involved?
Yes, that's what I intend
to tell the police.
After a while in prison, I knew that
what we were doing in Knutby was wrong,
but I was still very afraid
of betraying my leader.
She made me promise before God
that I would never disclose
that she was the one behind
the text messages.
And she added that
if I ever broke that promise
I would lose my daughter
like I had lost Heléne.
And in that world
I took that threat very seriously.
Even if I understood that she didn't
have any supernatural powers.
She's only human.
Even if I understood it intellectually,
this fear was deeply embedded
in my whole soul.
I understand that this is difficult for
the average person to take in, but
This was the reality
I had been living in.
So I didn't dare.
I've been accused
because of a murderer's theory.
And I've been deceived myself
and accused and left in fear.
Everything about the murder
was an absolutely isolated incident.
There was only one person behind it.
A colleague and I went down to Kumla
and what he wanted to confess was
that he ought to have known
what was about to happen.
INTERROGATION HELGE FOSSMO
IN CONNECTION WITH
THE EVENTS SURROUNDING
THE KNUTBY MURDER
THAT OCCURRED 10 JANUARY 2004
After two interrogations
Kenneth Ågren said,
"We'll re-open the case
and do it right this time."
He was convinced that there were
more people involved, as he put it.
Yes, there are things
I've seen in the investigation
that we haven't been able to follow up
on which gives us reason to suspect
that there's a person or persons
who know more about this.
I've read the interrogation notes from
2006 and he talks about checking out.
Alexandra's mobile phone
to see if there's anything there.
We went through what we had.
Our analysts looked into that
and we didn't come up with anything.
He also says there was phone contact
between him and Åsa Waldau.
We didn't find anything
to substantiate this either.
This is all the phone data
that the police requested in 2004.
That's quite a stack.
Helge has been claiming
since 2006 that in this pile
there's evidence proving
he is not the real instigator.
He says that Åsa sent him
the texts that he sent to Sara.
- But the police look into this in 2006.
- He suggests they did a bad job.
Of course he'd say that.
But didn't they find new evidence
in 2006, new text messages?
Yes. At Helge's request, they went
through Alexandra's phone data
and found text messages
between Åsa and her sister.
Åsa writes that she longs
to meet Alexandra in heaven.
But what that means
is very hard to know.
Well, it has to do with death
if they're to meet in heaven.
But we've heard people
talk like that before.
Plan is, make a complete spreadsheet
and see if we can find anything.
A digital spreadsheet would make it
easier to see. Let's do that.
What would the motive be?
Why would that person have a motive?
These two people are related.
I think you would need to understand
this sect's way of thinking.
First of all, death is not the worst
thing that can happen to a person.
It just means that you go home early.
Text messages on Alexandra's phone
have been restored
where Christ's Bride tells Alexandra
she wants her to come home with her.
OH YES! I WANT TO GO HOME!
IMAGINE HOW WONDERFUL IT WILL BE
TOGETHER IN OUR ETERNAL HOME!
IT WILL BE SO GOOD
WHEN WE ARE ALL HOME!
And this is so two-sided.
It's the best thing that could happen,
yet people were terrified.
"Is it my turn next?"
But in a world where people are valued
depending on what they can
contribute to the Bride of Jesus.
It's like role play in reality,
where certain characters can be removed
if they're of no use or troublesome.
And this is a very, very distorted view
of humankind,
but that's how distorted it became.
I'll start like this, "Hi, Åsa.
My name is Martin Johnson.
Berg and I have been investigating
the Knutby case for the past two years.
You've chosen not to give us
an interview,
so we don't know how this was for you."
Has she actually said no?
She didn't even respond.
You can't write that,
but write that we need to know.
"And you have a right to know
what people say about you."
Not forgetting Helge's accusations, that
she's the one behind the murder plans.
Precisely.
We know what she said
about that before. But we can
Write that we're now going through
further evidence, those text messages.
There are things
we need to talk to her about.
Helge now says that it was Åsa
who sent the text messages to him,
that he then forwarded to you.
I don't know if it was like that.
But
I know they fitted very well
with what Helge and I talked about.
I would get text messages
about those details straight after.
To me, Åsa is the Bride of Christ,
she sentenced me to hell.
I had no contact with her.
I don't know what she knows about me.
But it was me and Helge
who had the contact.
How much of this could
you talk about at trial?
I am happy that I could manage
to talk about Helge.
And then I said it like it was.
But then what I couldn't say fully
It was the immense power Åsa had.
Everything was about
Åsa's death sentence over my life.
Is Åsa's responsibility legal or moral?
I don't know if she has a legal
responsibility, I can't answer that.
But when you judge people so harshly
how you treat others
That's something you're responsible for.
I feel Åsa has a moral responsibility
for how she has treated others.
Because Jesus hadn't come
we lived in a state of anxiety.
And until she came to Him,
we lived in a kind of pretend world.
And of course, weeks became months,
and months became years.
Naturally, this was extremely
frustrating for her
since she held on to this belief.
Because that's what it was,
a belief about who she was.
Jesus didn't come to Åsa
because of something.
It was someone's fault, not hers.
People were hindering Jesus's return.
Many of us close to her
were told that it was our fault.
The wall protecting her was not secure.
Since she was who she was,
she knew best what Jesus wanted.
We used to joke about her not
liking white, white was not a color.
She wanted color and life,
that's what was best for all.
If she wanted to decorate my home
she was giving me her blessing,
because she knows what's best for me,
even if I might not see it.
No one would stand up to her and say,
"But I don't want this."
Or, "I don't think that this is right."
If you did, you would be questioning
the Queen of Heaven and that is wrong.
It started with her repainting
Helge's house afterwards.
It was as if she was painting over
the terrible things that had happened.
The first strokes of the paint brush
on the new house.
This continued and escalated.
She was redecorating every house
in the congregation.
It became an unspoken privilege
that she was helping us.
I was thinking of putting blue
around the window.
I used to imagine the congregation
as her doll's house,
where she would put the dolls
in the rooms she chose.
And she redecorated as she pleased
and dressed them as she wanted.
And played with us.
Saturday was her party day,
a time to celebrate.
Sometimes it was fun
and we had a good time,
but very often there were
many very negative conversations
about those who were wrong.
With a bit of luck it wasn't you,
but someone else.
She was often angry with me because
I was too uptight or too scared.
"You look scared" and stuff like that.
- That's not a video camera, is it?
- Yes, it's rolling.
If I was scared she must be nasty
and she wasn't, so I was at fault.
- I can smell burnt popcorn here.
- Sorry, it's my fault.
- Go into the light.
- I'll go into the light.
- Go under the sun.
- Under the sun.
She wrestled me to the ground
in the garden once
and sprayed me with the garden hose
to make me less uptight, to relax a bit.
- She wrestled you to the ground?
- Yes, it wasn't hard.
I wasn't resisting. She took hold of me
and pushed me to the ground
and then she took the hose
and sprayed me with water.
We had been engaging,
for many years, in a battle
in our belief of who Åsa was
and where she was going.
We were fed this for such long time.
So in the end, you just buy all of it.
"Okay, sure, yes."
Your inner compass is wiped out.
When she had sprayed me
and helped me up again
and said, "Everything's fine now."
She was relieved. It felt good.
She wasn't cross with me any longer.
It was worth it.
It was like that a lot.
You took your punishment
because things got easier after.
Saying this doesn't feel right
or I don't think that this is right,
you suppressed everything
that involved one's self,
because that was one's ego
and one's ego was wrong.
You had to get rid of that.
It would die from your life anyway.
In the end there was nothing
of one's old self left.
Daddy come! It is so much fun!
- Is it really fun?
- Yes!
Daddy, come!
Spending time with family was selfish.
Time should be dedicated to God's work.
If I wanted to spend a weekend at home
I had to express this in a certain way.
It wasn't enough to say I wanted
to stay home. She wanted you to say,
"I'd rather be with you but I think
I need to meet some people."
I needed an excuse
for not being with her.
Early on, my ex-wife became
wrong according to Åsa.
I loved her and I wanted it
to work with us being together.
So I struggled for quite some time
to get Åsa to understand
that there was nothing wrong with her
and then Åsa said to me,
"Either you follow your ex-wife
or you follow God
and following God is the same as
following me. Which will you choose?"
My whole life was built
on doing everything for God.
That's what I had been taught.
I didn't want to stop following God.
Our relationship became platonic,
if you could even call it that.
I was almost always away.
I was on The Hill all the time.
So it was terribly difficult for her
and for me too,
but nothing compared
to what she went through.
I was doing what I believed
then to be more important.
- Do you remember? Pizza.
- Pizza!
This is my pizza that I will eat.
It's huge!
- Kalle, do I love you?
- Yes.
How much? That much?
Do you love me?
This much.
- Do you?
- Yes. As much as you love me.
How then did your relationship
with your children change?
As I said, I was rarely at home.
There was a long period
when I couldn't sleep at home.
I stayed with different people
in Knutby, my brother, Peter and Patrik.
Because I was wrong and it was said
that I spoiled my children.
I cared too much about them.
So I was rarely at home.
I met them on Sundays,
after the meeting up until
I had to be back in Knutby by 6:00 pm,
so just a few hours.
- Hi, Daddy! Come a little closer.
- No.
But Oh, I can see your hair
really well, Daddy. I zoomed in.
So you could say that I was a coward
and chose, in a way, to let her go.
But my frame of mind then was,
my only chance is to do as Åsa says.
She was the one
who determined the future.
It wasn't just for me.
I would ruin things for her.
She told me that I was hindering
the return of Jesus.
"He can't come back
because you're causing trouble."
And she wasn't talking about just me,
but about all of mankind suddenly,
and it was my fault.
It sounds so crazy now.
This is what I believed.
I believed that I was the one
hindering the return of Jesus
and doing so by caring
too much about my family.
I look forward to a new tomorrow.
Urban expressed, "In this battle,
are you willing to go there?"
That's roughly how he began.
And in his house were people
who were more familiar
with what his battle entailed,
and were more involved in it.
That's where he approached me,
"You will become closer to me
in the battle for Åsa.
You have a more important role
in Åsa's meeting Jesus."
Jesus! Jesus!
Life! Happiness!
To cut a long story short,
I was given an ultimatum.
Or rather, there's only one way,
to end my relationship with Patrik
and have a relationship with Urban.
That's what's important
for the final battle and Åsa.
And with that battle, what do you do?
Well
- This is so difficult.
- I understand that.
But it
There's only one way of saying it.
In short, it was sex.
I can't say it another way.
When I realized that I was losing her,
I couldn't do anything about it,
because we weren't married.
There was no proof we were together.
I got a taste of what it was like
to be in a secret relationship.
So I was powerless as I watched
how she was taken from me.
That's how it was for me.
A few years into this,
my wife was considered wrong.
And I was taught a lesson.
Åsa demanded that I express
enormous hate towards my own wife
and scold and humiliate her
in front of Åsa.
I was to physically
throw Emma out of the house.
Peter came home only for short visits.
He was away all the time.
I had to look after the house and kids.
I was left alone.
There was no warmth, no love
It was just very cold.
I was thinking, "You must put God first
and everything else falls into place."
Unfortunately,
that was my way of thinking.
And this is so contradictory.
While I was feeling so bad in here
there was nothing for me out there.
There was nothing to go back to.
That was how I felt.
I had no friends left either.
I had been living with this anxiety
for so long, I couldn't take anymore.
The only way for me to get on the
right side of God was for Åsa to say,
"It's all right now."
But what if she never says that?
I felt she never would say that.
It will never be alright.
Urban will never say it's all right.
I went through a long period
of being constantly scolded.
I was told that I was worse than Helge.
I was filled with the spirit of
the Anti-Christ that goes against Jesus.
It wasn't okay to take your life.
That was worse than being wrong.
That would be irrevocable and you could
never do anything about it.
But sometimes I drove way too quickly.
I thought,
"If I have an accident and I die,
then I haven't taken my life.
It's just an accident."
It was on a Saturday,
if I remember correctly.
I went up to The Hill.
When I arrived,
something had already begun.
We stood in their kitchen
at the far end of the house
and they were all standing around me
and being really aggressive.
And there's shouting and roaring,
"Pull yourself together.
You need to shape up.
What's your problem anyway?
Why are you like this?"
From their point of view,
they're trying to get me to wake up.
And what Patrik says is,
"Johan, straighten up.
Focus on God. Seek God.
Raise your hands and praise God.
That's not too much to ask for.
It's simple.
But you have to choose to do it."
I knew how Urban
would behave in this situation.
I knew I'd be meeting him that night.
I knew that he would corner me.
"Why haven't you sorted this out?"
While these thoughts are going
through my head I become frustrated.
And I'm looking at Johan in the corner
and I can see how dejected he is.
I hear Patrik say, "These are
simple things. Raise your hands."
I tried to leave.
I just wanted to get away from there.
And that's when I go
crazy.
So
I go for Johan and start slapping
and punching him.
"Come on, get up!"
I run.
Then Peter runs after me. I get in
the car and start it. I'm leaving.
Some of us ran through the garden.
Four or five of us ran after him.
He drags me out of the car.
I push him in the chest, "Come on!"
I had long hair at the time so he forces
me to my knees and drags me in.
He crawls in and I grab hold
of this ponytail
and pull him,
or lead him like a dog on a leash.
"You will crawl to her.
You will humble yourself."
So I had to crawl to her from the car
and beg for mercy.
If Johan had managed to leave
he would have been lost forever.
I'm thinking that I did something good.
I just saved his life.
In one way, I convicted myself
when I went to the police.
Three people in
the well-known Knutby congregation
have been reported to the police,
reports TV4 News.
Behind me is the building
that the Knutby congregation uses.
This year, congregation numbers
have dropped drastically
from about 100 to just 15 people.
The Knutby community speak
of manipulation and violence,
where former pastor Åsa Waldau
the Bride of Christ, has a central role.
Her aggressive outbursts
and circle of submissive followers
provoked distaste
among congregation members.
Reports of beatings
and sexual exploitation
are reminiscent of the sex scandals
that Helge Fossmo was involved in.
The beginning of the end
was the conversation we have
with this 17-year-old girl.
It was very clear that this was serious.
After an hour Urban comes out
and he asks to talk to me.
He takes me aside and says,
"There's big trouble. Stand by me."
Urban sat right in front of me,
a half meter away, on the floor,
like a sad dog.
Then I explode. So angry with him,
"What do you think you're doing?"
You've exploited a 17-year-old girl.
Are you completely stupid?
This was the final straw.
This is Urban, a married man, a pastor
who has a sexual relationship with
an underage girl for a battle for Åsa.
She's just one of several women he has
sexual relationships within this battle.
And this is what leads to the collapse
of Knutby Philadelphia.
After 97 years the Philadelphia
congregation in Knutby is dissolved.
The decision was taken
by the few remaining members,
reports the newspaper, Dagen.
I have today begun legal proceedings
against three former pastors,
in the now defunct Knutby
Philadelphia congregation.
One is Pastor Åsa Waldau,
formerly known as the Bride of Christ,
who has been reported for assault.
There's been a culture of punishing
members who've lapsed in their belief.
According to the prosecutor,
the assaults had become so common
that the victims find it hard
to remember specific incidents.
Well, it's so obvious when I meet
former members and members now
that they weren't aware.
Sometimes one spouse didn't know
what the other was doing.
Not their neighbors or friends either.
They were wrapped up
in their own turmoil
with their own secret,
dependent on those who were superior.
Many on the outside believed after
Helge Fossmo and Sara Svensson
were convicted to prison
and psychiatric care respectively
that this was a normal congregation
and it wasn't.
The trial of three former Knutby pastors
began in Uppsala District Court today.
Åsa Waldau is charged with assaulting
several congregation members
of the now defunct congregation.
The investigation was initiated when
Pastor Peter Gembäck went to the police
and told them what
he and the others had done.
A third pastor is charged with
sexually exploiting a young girl
in the congregation
what he called "care for the soul."
Go ahead.
Urban Fält has sexually exploited
Plaintiff A who was 17 years old
and in a position
of dependency to him.
Peter Gembäck's crimes against
Johan Grimborg are as follows,
assault by slapping him across the face
several times and by punching his body.
Unlawful restraint by holding him down
and while grabbing his hair,
forcing him to crawl ten meters.
Åsa has in her home
in Gränsta, Uppsala
intentionally assaulted
Plaintiff B as follows.
Assault by biting her in the face.
Assault by kicking her in the stomach.
Assault by taking hold of her head and
banging it against the wall repeatedly.
Assault by hitting her on the head
with a hairbrush and pulling her hair.
Åsa has assaulted Plaintiff A
by knocking her to the ground
and stamping on her,
scratching her body and biting her neck,
pulling her hair,
causing pain and redness.
I knew that Plaintiff A was waiting
for me in Maria's bedroom
and I knew that I was thinking
about her age and all that,
but I told myself not to think
of her as too young,
or that she can't do what's expected
of her because she's young.
All I remember is that I
I have oral sex with her first
and then I pulled my trousers down,
half-way I think,
and start having intercourse.
We're sitting on our bed,
and this conversation goes on for hours.
I see the panic in her eyes,
"No, I mustn't talk about this."
And I say: "What is it?" It was like
she couldn't physically say it.
"I can't tell anyone this."
She told herself,
"I did it for Jesus.
I did this for Åsa." This mantra.
The moment she put it into words,
when I hear those words,
my whole world falls apart.
And then we talk about what to do next.
What do we do now?
Our firm belief
was that Åsa is the Bride of Christ.
Since Åsa is someone who loves
the truth more than anything,
we must tell her the truth.
So I run as fast as I can to Åsa
and when I enter the room
the first thing she says is,
"You've got to save Urban.
I'm going to lose Urban too."
Meaning how she had lost Helge.
It's like a déjà vu experience.
This is exactly the same
as it was with Helge and Sara.
Helge had done nothing wrong.
It was all Sara.
There isn't just one Sara now.
This 17 year old is to blame.
The other women are to blame.
- Ester, here. A letter for you.
- No.
Since you didn't want to be interviewed
I thought you might read this letter.
You say that A could be exposed
to murder. I don't understand that.
I explained that,
considering our history,
to lie or go behind someone's back,
this has resulted in a murder.
It's dangerous.
- Did you say that to A?
- We talked about it.
How did she react to this information?
- I don't remember.
- Have you no memory of it at all?
No, but this was something we talked
about every now and then,
since we talked often about
what had happened.
The murder in 2004 was like the basis
for everything we did
and everything we were protecting.
But that was a long time ago.
Why the need to discuss this with A?
We lived in the same context.
Our line of reasoning was the same.
We're on our way home, time is
running out. Jesus is coming soon.
It hasn't happened yet.
That was my line of thinking.
This was our theory.
The same explanation as we had then,
what we saw as a spiritual battle,
so it wasn't strange that we said this.
Our theory was that this was a battle.
Back in 2003 it was as if any minute,
of any day the world could end.
It does something to your mind.
To live in Åsa's world,
to be accepted by her
It is as if you have
your loved ones, your family
You have everything
that you want in life.
And to be wrong in Knutby
is like losing someone.
Completely irreversibly.
It is horrifically strong emotions.
You do anything to be good again.
And this feeling, "I'll do anything",
is placed on Åsa.
I think it was in the autumn
or winter of 2015.
She keeps hitting me. She's in a rage.
She's extremely angry.
I'm on my hands and knees.
My earrings come flying off.
And I panic
because she gave me those earrings.
So I'm lying on the floor.
It's dark so I use my phone for light.
I think Kajsa helped me look for them.
And I thought that this was awful also.
Because suddenly,
someone is kind enough
to help me search
and I didn't want Kajsa to help me,
because I was nasty and stupid,
terribly stupid.
Because Åsa had to go
to these extremes to chastise me.
And I didn't want Kajsa to have
to help me because I was wrong.
I wish I could adequately describe
the panic I felt when Åsa beat me.
In one way it was
It wasn't the beatings as such.
The worst part was hearing you
were wrong and nasty towards her,
refusing to relent, being rebellious.
She had at least five talks
with me every day
about how disgusting I am,
how awful I am.
I let her down
and I'm a really bad person.
I had the chance of a lifetime.
I was worthless.
I cry in my bed for a whole year.
I can't get out of my bed.
I'm not allowed to go to a doctor.
I'm not allowed to say I'm depressed
and that I'm not eating
and that I'm not sleeping.
I'm banished from the community.
And then Åsa takes my daughter.
I'm not allowed to keep her.
And she's not allowed to call me mum.
She's told that I'm a traitor,
"Your mother is on her way to hell.
She's a disgusting person. You're not
allowed to call your home, home."
And it's
There is a view that you can raise
your hand to others,
according to the Old Testament.
But there's a New Testament.
There's love and goodness
in Jesus and God too.
Why not use that method instead?
Why not get the message across verbally?
Why physical violence?
I don't know.
Have you difficulty
controlling your anger?
No.
Kristina tells us here
that you attack her.
The violence you subject her to
takes her completely by surprise.
She says that you hit her on the head,
and that you scratch her body,
bite her neck and pull her hair.
And she urinates on herself.
Are you saying that you didn't notice
how terrified she was
that she urinated on herself?
- I didn't notice that.
- Don't you remember it?
- I remember hitting her across the face.
- You've said that, yes.
I don't remember the rest.
I can't even relate to it.
When I was in the psychiatric ward,
if anyone said anything bad about Åsa
I would start crying and say stop!
Don't say that.
She hears it. She can hear it!
And I was terrified.
I thought she was beyond human.
Was there a moment you felt a release?
I remember
I was locked away in an isolation room.
I couldn't meet anyone.
I couldn't meet anyone, no news,
no reading newspapers, no TV.
When I was completely alone
in that tiny room,
it was as if it hit me then.
A nurse came in saying,
"I'm so sorry, Sara,
that you can't join
While the other patients
are celebrating midsummer out here."
But there and then I felt euphoric.
I just felt,
"Now, finally I'm free! I am free!"
In this room I am so free.
I can think what I want.
I can do what I want.
I can be who I want.
I am free.
In this room I own myself.
Tell me, what have you found?
I can see how Åsa, Helge and Sara
communicated with each other.
But if Helge wants to use this
as evidence
there should be a very clear link.
That just before he sends
a text message to Sara,
he should have received one from Åsa.
Yes, there should be a clear link
that he receives a message
just before he sends one to her.
- Does he?
- No, there's nothing.
- So he's lying then.
- The problem is, we can't know that.
Because Åsa had two mobile phones
and one of them was never analyzed.
Okay, but we have Helge's phones.
We can check his incoming text messages.
I thought that too.
But I've now discovered,
that 16 years ago, in 2004,
technology had its limitations.
To get a complete picture
of text message exchanges,
you need both the sender
and the receiver.
In order to find out
if Åsa texted Helge,
you would need the data
from Åsa's phone.
There could be more data on
Helge's phone than we can see here
- since we don't have Åsa's data.
- Yes.
- That's crazy.
- That's how it was back then.
We can request them. We have her number.
I did that. But the problem is,
it's no longer possible.
They've been deleted?
The police didn't
request the data back then.
I've even called the operators,
but to no avail.
Yes.
You've compiled a digital version of
this stack. You've been through it all.
We've gone further than anyone else
in following this lead,
yet we still can't say what happened.
No, that's right.
Even though Helge says the evidence
is there and we can't find it,
it still doesn't prove
that he's is lying.
Correct.
Crazy.
There must be records of text messages
from Åsa somewhere.
This happened with Alexandra's
mobile phone data that was restored.
There were texts from Åsa
that weren't in the lists.
For some reason,
her text messages weren't there.
We don't know how much data exists.
We just know
what we get from the police.
So we will never know
if we got all the data,
or if it is complete.
But based on what we have,
we cannot see any link in this data.
- No.
- You can't
We cannot say
that there's systematic evidence
that Helge receives texts from
an instigator that he then forwards.
We can't see that.
All the evil, the problems,
the misery, the abuse,
everything that Knutby was accused of
was because of me.
The interesting thing is,
it got seven times worse after I left.
You would imagine
when this kind of thing happens
that it would be an eye-opener.
That they would have done
some soul-searching,
"What went wrong?
What are we doing wrong?"
But by saying that Helge caused it all
and now he's gone,
they didn't have to change anything.
And if it was because of me then
it would not have continued like it did,
and escalated and gotten out of hand.
Nevertheless, it must be said
that people stopped dying when
after this, so
Seven times worse in one way,
but there were no further deaths.
Do you understand what I mean?
Yes, it would have been interesting
if there had been serial deaths
where people were dying annually
and this had ceased.
But that's not the reality of it.
In 2004, two people
in this congregation were sick.
That is, Sara and Helge.
The others were
in a completely different world.
But now a whole congregation is saying,
"We were a part of this sect.
It was not healthy. It was not good."
And I'm thinking too, looking back,
we criticize the police because
they don't address this sect issue.
But the question is,
what could they have said then
if the police had asked them?
Many of the sect members probably
wouldn't have been able to,
even if they tried, since they were sure
that it was the next life that mattered.
They were on their way there.
But the pressure chamber is open now
and this brain-washing is wearing off.
And now we have a group of people
that for the past 20 years
in certain cases
have violated themselves, crushed their
own egos and lost their sense of self.
And they have to find themselves again.
The question is, what will they find?
What will they discover?
What will be revealed?
The man charged with assault
and illegal threats
was given a suspended sentence
together with day fines.
The second man, for sexual exploitation
of a dependent person
to a suspended sentence
and 160 hours community service.
Two copies
of the Knutby verdict, please.
The District Court has convicted
the woman on eight counts of assault
and freed her on six counts of assault.
She was given a suspended sentence
and 120 hours community service.
You mentioned that
you don't have any contact with Åsa.
What would you say to her if you could?
I wish she could understand
how her words
have had consequences
in so many ways.
I'm one person who paid a high price
by being in Knutby and following her.
In relation to my family,
my old friends,
it has affected so many people,
and I'm just one of say, a hundred.
And each one of us has a story to tell.
What's that?
A letter from Åsa.
"Hi, you've been trying to contact me
in different ways.
I'm not interested in taking part.
It doesn't matter what I say anyway.
It will be edited to suit
the media's story and commenting on
or denying other people's statements
and experiences is meaningless.
It's impossible for me
to explain something
that I'm processing and grieving over.
It would also mean
exposing people I loved
and believed I was living
in unity with. I won't do that.
Furthermore, addressing defamation
and insults from Helge and Sara
is just too much. My family and I
find this too difficult.
Yours sincerely, Åsa."
Now we know
where she stands in any case.
Yes and we must respect that.
She's always said that Helge is lying.
I was completely prepared to
If I had received a message
saying shoot yourself
I would have done it.
- Do you mean that?
- Yes, I mean it.
I didn't exist.
I was a shell, a robot,
I was annihilated, so nullified.
A few years back, I thought about
This is so difficult to talk about
When I thought about
Alexandra's reaction
to the first shot
There was nothing. Nothing.
Because it hit the hip
and there was no reaction.
How can that be, I don't understand?
Now I can see and feel that
Then I thought it was on me,
but now, it's like
Wait a second. How could it be?
Why did she not move?
Wait, that she could have?
What do you mean Sara?
I don't know.
I don't know if she was alive or not.
Maybe she wasn't alive
when I got there. I don't know.
Åsa Waldau has declined
to participate in the series.
She has been informed
about the claims made against her
but did not want to reply
to comment further.
Urban Fält declined to participate
in the series
but has been informed about
the claims made against him.
His reply is that he
deeply regrets his actions,
believed strongly at the time
he was doing gods work,
but says that he was brainwashed
and is sorry for the harm he caused.
Sara, we have seen at times in
your witness statements
There are times
you don't speak the truth.
Like at the beginning when you confess,
you say you did it alone.
You talk about "a compelling feeling",
because you want to protect Helge.
In later interrogations you mention
"test shooting" your weapon.
The police asked if you had help
and you said no, then took a break.
Then you said you want say it
how it was and that others helped.
Then there's the map, of course,
and the shooting distance.
They don't fit either, we wonder
if you are protecting someone else.
- There were even more people?
- No.
I don't know if there are
more people involved in this.
That's outside of my
I don't know
if others are involved or not.
But I am not protecting anyone.
What are you thinking?
I never wanted, never ever
I never ever wanted to kill.
I didn't want to do it.
It was never
I really never wanted it.
But I was so forced.
I had no choice, to do anything else.
It was Helge who forced me.
He used the fear
that Åsa had sentenced me to hell.
And he said that I must do this
to get mercy from God.
- What kind of God?
- Åsa's other half, her betrothed.
Horribly evil God.
I call it the God of Knutby.
- Emergency 112. How may I help you?
- I don't know.
I just came in here.
There's blood everywhere.
In Knutby.
Shock and despair spread
throughout the little town of Knutby.
The murder of the woman
and the attempted murder of her neighbor
is in stark contrast
to this quiet, peaceful community.
This is one of the most bizarre criminal
cases in Sweden in modern time.
A web of religion, sex
and cruel, callous murder
unprecedented
in the judicial history of Sweden.
Who was the driving force behind this?
This an important piece
of evidence that's been manipulated.
It creates doubt among the public.
Is this what actually happened?
This is a difficult time,
but we believe in God.
We're not giving up.
PRAY OBEY KILL
EPISODE SIX
THE EVIL GOD OF KNUTBY
Helge denied everything up to 2006.
What happened then?
Helge was in Kumla Prison
and he got in touch.
FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 2006
KUMLA PRISON
Since I left Knutby
I've gone through quite a long process.
My whole persona that was distorted
by an unhealthy sect culture.
Now I'm slowly recovering
and I see things differently,
both my own role and the role of others.
I was living a lie.
I don't want to do that.
Were there other members
of the congregation involved?
Yes, that's what I intend
to tell the police.
After a while in prison, I knew that
what we were doing in Knutby was wrong,
but I was still very afraid
of betraying my leader.
She made me promise before God
that I would never disclose
that she was the one behind
the text messages.
And she added that
if I ever broke that promise
I would lose my daughter
like I had lost Heléne.
And in that world
I took that threat very seriously.
Even if I understood that she didn't
have any supernatural powers.
She's only human.
Even if I understood it intellectually,
this fear was deeply embedded
in my whole soul.
I understand that this is difficult for
the average person to take in, but
This was the reality
I had been living in.
So I didn't dare.
I've been accused
because of a murderer's theory.
And I've been deceived myself
and accused and left in fear.
Everything about the murder
was an absolutely isolated incident.
There was only one person behind it.
A colleague and I went down to Kumla
and what he wanted to confess was
that he ought to have known
what was about to happen.
INTERROGATION HELGE FOSSMO
IN CONNECTION WITH
THE EVENTS SURROUNDING
THE KNUTBY MURDER
THAT OCCURRED 10 JANUARY 2004
After two interrogations
Kenneth Ågren said,
"We'll re-open the case
and do it right this time."
He was convinced that there were
more people involved, as he put it.
Yes, there are things
I've seen in the investigation
that we haven't been able to follow up
on which gives us reason to suspect
that there's a person or persons
who know more about this.
I've read the interrogation notes from
2006 and he talks about checking out.
Alexandra's mobile phone
to see if there's anything there.
We went through what we had.
Our analysts looked into that
and we didn't come up with anything.
He also says there was phone contact
between him and Åsa Waldau.
We didn't find anything
to substantiate this either.
This is all the phone data
that the police requested in 2004.
That's quite a stack.
Helge has been claiming
since 2006 that in this pile
there's evidence proving
he is not the real instigator.
He says that Åsa sent him
the texts that he sent to Sara.
- But the police look into this in 2006.
- He suggests they did a bad job.
Of course he'd say that.
But didn't they find new evidence
in 2006, new text messages?
Yes. At Helge's request, they went
through Alexandra's phone data
and found text messages
between Åsa and her sister.
Åsa writes that she longs
to meet Alexandra in heaven.
But what that means
is very hard to know.
Well, it has to do with death
if they're to meet in heaven.
But we've heard people
talk like that before.
Plan is, make a complete spreadsheet
and see if we can find anything.
A digital spreadsheet would make it
easier to see. Let's do that.
What would the motive be?
Why would that person have a motive?
These two people are related.
I think you would need to understand
this sect's way of thinking.
First of all, death is not the worst
thing that can happen to a person.
It just means that you go home early.
Text messages on Alexandra's phone
have been restored
where Christ's Bride tells Alexandra
she wants her to come home with her.
OH YES! I WANT TO GO HOME!
IMAGINE HOW WONDERFUL IT WILL BE
TOGETHER IN OUR ETERNAL HOME!
IT WILL BE SO GOOD
WHEN WE ARE ALL HOME!
And this is so two-sided.
It's the best thing that could happen,
yet people were terrified.
"Is it my turn next?"
But in a world where people are valued
depending on what they can
contribute to the Bride of Jesus.
It's like role play in reality,
where certain characters can be removed
if they're of no use or troublesome.
And this is a very, very distorted view
of humankind,
but that's how distorted it became.
I'll start like this, "Hi, Åsa.
My name is Martin Johnson.
Berg and I have been investigating
the Knutby case for the past two years.
You've chosen not to give us
an interview,
so we don't know how this was for you."
Has she actually said no?
She didn't even respond.
You can't write that,
but write that we need to know.
"And you have a right to know
what people say about you."
Not forgetting Helge's accusations, that
she's the one behind the murder plans.
Precisely.
We know what she said
about that before. But we can
Write that we're now going through
further evidence, those text messages.
There are things
we need to talk to her about.
Helge now says that it was Åsa
who sent the text messages to him,
that he then forwarded to you.
I don't know if it was like that.
But
I know they fitted very well
with what Helge and I talked about.
I would get text messages
about those details straight after.
To me, Åsa is the Bride of Christ,
she sentenced me to hell.
I had no contact with her.
I don't know what she knows about me.
But it was me and Helge
who had the contact.
How much of this could
you talk about at trial?
I am happy that I could manage
to talk about Helge.
And then I said it like it was.
But then what I couldn't say fully
It was the immense power Åsa had.
Everything was about
Åsa's death sentence over my life.
Is Åsa's responsibility legal or moral?
I don't know if she has a legal
responsibility, I can't answer that.
But when you judge people so harshly
how you treat others
That's something you're responsible for.
I feel Åsa has a moral responsibility
for how she has treated others.
Because Jesus hadn't come
we lived in a state of anxiety.
And until she came to Him,
we lived in a kind of pretend world.
And of course, weeks became months,
and months became years.
Naturally, this was extremely
frustrating for her
since she held on to this belief.
Because that's what it was,
a belief about who she was.
Jesus didn't come to Åsa
because of something.
It was someone's fault, not hers.
People were hindering Jesus's return.
Many of us close to her
were told that it was our fault.
The wall protecting her was not secure.
Since she was who she was,
she knew best what Jesus wanted.
We used to joke about her not
liking white, white was not a color.
She wanted color and life,
that's what was best for all.
If she wanted to decorate my home
she was giving me her blessing,
because she knows what's best for me,
even if I might not see it.
No one would stand up to her and say,
"But I don't want this."
Or, "I don't think that this is right."
If you did, you would be questioning
the Queen of Heaven and that is wrong.
It started with her repainting
Helge's house afterwards.
It was as if she was painting over
the terrible things that had happened.
The first strokes of the paint brush
on the new house.
This continued and escalated.
She was redecorating every house
in the congregation.
It became an unspoken privilege
that she was helping us.
I was thinking of putting blue
around the window.
I used to imagine the congregation
as her doll's house,
where she would put the dolls
in the rooms she chose.
And she redecorated as she pleased
and dressed them as she wanted.
And played with us.
Saturday was her party day,
a time to celebrate.
Sometimes it was fun
and we had a good time,
but very often there were
many very negative conversations
about those who were wrong.
With a bit of luck it wasn't you,
but someone else.
She was often angry with me because
I was too uptight or too scared.
"You look scared" and stuff like that.
- That's not a video camera, is it?
- Yes, it's rolling.
If I was scared she must be nasty
and she wasn't, so I was at fault.
- I can smell burnt popcorn here.
- Sorry, it's my fault.
- Go into the light.
- I'll go into the light.
- Go under the sun.
- Under the sun.
She wrestled me to the ground
in the garden once
and sprayed me with the garden hose
to make me less uptight, to relax a bit.
- She wrestled you to the ground?
- Yes, it wasn't hard.
I wasn't resisting. She took hold of me
and pushed me to the ground
and then she took the hose
and sprayed me with water.
We had been engaging,
for many years, in a battle
in our belief of who Åsa was
and where she was going.
We were fed this for such long time.
So in the end, you just buy all of it.
"Okay, sure, yes."
Your inner compass is wiped out.
When she had sprayed me
and helped me up again
and said, "Everything's fine now."
She was relieved. It felt good.
She wasn't cross with me any longer.
It was worth it.
It was like that a lot.
You took your punishment
because things got easier after.
Saying this doesn't feel right
or I don't think that this is right,
you suppressed everything
that involved one's self,
because that was one's ego
and one's ego was wrong.
You had to get rid of that.
It would die from your life anyway.
In the end there was nothing
of one's old self left.
Daddy come! It is so much fun!
- Is it really fun?
- Yes!
Daddy, come!
Spending time with family was selfish.
Time should be dedicated to God's work.
If I wanted to spend a weekend at home
I had to express this in a certain way.
It wasn't enough to say I wanted
to stay home. She wanted you to say,
"I'd rather be with you but I think
I need to meet some people."
I needed an excuse
for not being with her.
Early on, my ex-wife became
wrong according to Åsa.
I loved her and I wanted it
to work with us being together.
So I struggled for quite some time
to get Åsa to understand
that there was nothing wrong with her
and then Åsa said to me,
"Either you follow your ex-wife
or you follow God
and following God is the same as
following me. Which will you choose?"
My whole life was built
on doing everything for God.
That's what I had been taught.
I didn't want to stop following God.
Our relationship became platonic,
if you could even call it that.
I was almost always away.
I was on The Hill all the time.
So it was terribly difficult for her
and for me too,
but nothing compared
to what she went through.
I was doing what I believed
then to be more important.
- Do you remember? Pizza.
- Pizza!
This is my pizza that I will eat.
It's huge!
- Kalle, do I love you?
- Yes.
How much? That much?
Do you love me?
This much.
- Do you?
- Yes. As much as you love me.
How then did your relationship
with your children change?
As I said, I was rarely at home.
There was a long period
when I couldn't sleep at home.
I stayed with different people
in Knutby, my brother, Peter and Patrik.
Because I was wrong and it was said
that I spoiled my children.
I cared too much about them.
So I was rarely at home.
I met them on Sundays,
after the meeting up until
I had to be back in Knutby by 6:00 pm,
so just a few hours.
- Hi, Daddy! Come a little closer.
- No.
But Oh, I can see your hair
really well, Daddy. I zoomed in.
So you could say that I was a coward
and chose, in a way, to let her go.
But my frame of mind then was,
my only chance is to do as Åsa says.
She was the one
who determined the future.
It wasn't just for me.
I would ruin things for her.
She told me that I was hindering
the return of Jesus.
"He can't come back
because you're causing trouble."
And she wasn't talking about just me,
but about all of mankind suddenly,
and it was my fault.
It sounds so crazy now.
This is what I believed.
I believed that I was the one
hindering the return of Jesus
and doing so by caring
too much about my family.
I look forward to a new tomorrow.
Urban expressed, "In this battle,
are you willing to go there?"
That's roughly how he began.
And in his house were people
who were more familiar
with what his battle entailed,
and were more involved in it.
That's where he approached me,
"You will become closer to me
in the battle for Åsa.
You have a more important role
in Åsa's meeting Jesus."
Jesus! Jesus!
Life! Happiness!
To cut a long story short,
I was given an ultimatum.
Or rather, there's only one way,
to end my relationship with Patrik
and have a relationship with Urban.
That's what's important
for the final battle and Åsa.
And with that battle, what do you do?
Well
- This is so difficult.
- I understand that.
But it
There's only one way of saying it.
In short, it was sex.
I can't say it another way.
When I realized that I was losing her,
I couldn't do anything about it,
because we weren't married.
There was no proof we were together.
I got a taste of what it was like
to be in a secret relationship.
So I was powerless as I watched
how she was taken from me.
That's how it was for me.
A few years into this,
my wife was considered wrong.
And I was taught a lesson.
Åsa demanded that I express
enormous hate towards my own wife
and scold and humiliate her
in front of Åsa.
I was to physically
throw Emma out of the house.
Peter came home only for short visits.
He was away all the time.
I had to look after the house and kids.
I was left alone.
There was no warmth, no love
It was just very cold.
I was thinking, "You must put God first
and everything else falls into place."
Unfortunately,
that was my way of thinking.
And this is so contradictory.
While I was feeling so bad in here
there was nothing for me out there.
There was nothing to go back to.
That was how I felt.
I had no friends left either.
I had been living with this anxiety
for so long, I couldn't take anymore.
The only way for me to get on the
right side of God was for Åsa to say,
"It's all right now."
But what if she never says that?
I felt she never would say that.
It will never be alright.
Urban will never say it's all right.
I went through a long period
of being constantly scolded.
I was told that I was worse than Helge.
I was filled with the spirit of
the Anti-Christ that goes against Jesus.
It wasn't okay to take your life.
That was worse than being wrong.
That would be irrevocable and you could
never do anything about it.
But sometimes I drove way too quickly.
I thought,
"If I have an accident and I die,
then I haven't taken my life.
It's just an accident."
It was on a Saturday,
if I remember correctly.
I went up to The Hill.
When I arrived,
something had already begun.
We stood in their kitchen
at the far end of the house
and they were all standing around me
and being really aggressive.
And there's shouting and roaring,
"Pull yourself together.
You need to shape up.
What's your problem anyway?
Why are you like this?"
From their point of view,
they're trying to get me to wake up.
And what Patrik says is,
"Johan, straighten up.
Focus on God. Seek God.
Raise your hands and praise God.
That's not too much to ask for.
It's simple.
But you have to choose to do it."
I knew how Urban
would behave in this situation.
I knew I'd be meeting him that night.
I knew that he would corner me.
"Why haven't you sorted this out?"
While these thoughts are going
through my head I become frustrated.
And I'm looking at Johan in the corner
and I can see how dejected he is.
I hear Patrik say, "These are
simple things. Raise your hands."
I tried to leave.
I just wanted to get away from there.
And that's when I go
crazy.
So
I go for Johan and start slapping
and punching him.
"Come on, get up!"
I run.
Then Peter runs after me. I get in
the car and start it. I'm leaving.
Some of us ran through the garden.
Four or five of us ran after him.
He drags me out of the car.
I push him in the chest, "Come on!"
I had long hair at the time so he forces
me to my knees and drags me in.
He crawls in and I grab hold
of this ponytail
and pull him,
or lead him like a dog on a leash.
"You will crawl to her.
You will humble yourself."
So I had to crawl to her from the car
and beg for mercy.
If Johan had managed to leave
he would have been lost forever.
I'm thinking that I did something good.
I just saved his life.
In one way, I convicted myself
when I went to the police.
Three people in
the well-known Knutby congregation
have been reported to the police,
reports TV4 News.
Behind me is the building
that the Knutby congregation uses.
This year, congregation numbers
have dropped drastically
from about 100 to just 15 people.
The Knutby community speak
of manipulation and violence,
where former pastor Åsa Waldau
the Bride of Christ, has a central role.
Her aggressive outbursts
and circle of submissive followers
provoked distaste
among congregation members.
Reports of beatings
and sexual exploitation
are reminiscent of the sex scandals
that Helge Fossmo was involved in.
The beginning of the end
was the conversation we have
with this 17-year-old girl.
It was very clear that this was serious.
After an hour Urban comes out
and he asks to talk to me.
He takes me aside and says,
"There's big trouble. Stand by me."
Urban sat right in front of me,
a half meter away, on the floor,
like a sad dog.
Then I explode. So angry with him,
"What do you think you're doing?"
You've exploited a 17-year-old girl.
Are you completely stupid?
This was the final straw.
This is Urban, a married man, a pastor
who has a sexual relationship with
an underage girl for a battle for Åsa.
She's just one of several women he has
sexual relationships within this battle.
And this is what leads to the collapse
of Knutby Philadelphia.
After 97 years the Philadelphia
congregation in Knutby is dissolved.
The decision was taken
by the few remaining members,
reports the newspaper, Dagen.
I have today begun legal proceedings
against three former pastors,
in the now defunct Knutby
Philadelphia congregation.
One is Pastor Åsa Waldau,
formerly known as the Bride of Christ,
who has been reported for assault.
There's been a culture of punishing
members who've lapsed in their belief.
According to the prosecutor,
the assaults had become so common
that the victims find it hard
to remember specific incidents.
Well, it's so obvious when I meet
former members and members now
that they weren't aware.
Sometimes one spouse didn't know
what the other was doing.
Not their neighbors or friends either.
They were wrapped up
in their own turmoil
with their own secret,
dependent on those who were superior.
Many on the outside believed after
Helge Fossmo and Sara Svensson
were convicted to prison
and psychiatric care respectively
that this was a normal congregation
and it wasn't.
The trial of three former Knutby pastors
began in Uppsala District Court today.
Åsa Waldau is charged with assaulting
several congregation members
of the now defunct congregation.
The investigation was initiated when
Pastor Peter Gembäck went to the police
and told them what
he and the others had done.
A third pastor is charged with
sexually exploiting a young girl
in the congregation
what he called "care for the soul."
Go ahead.
Urban Fält has sexually exploited
Plaintiff A who was 17 years old
and in a position
of dependency to him.
Peter Gembäck's crimes against
Johan Grimborg are as follows,
assault by slapping him across the face
several times and by punching his body.
Unlawful restraint by holding him down
and while grabbing his hair,
forcing him to crawl ten meters.
Åsa has in her home
in Gränsta, Uppsala
intentionally assaulted
Plaintiff B as follows.
Assault by biting her in the face.
Assault by kicking her in the stomach.
Assault by taking hold of her head and
banging it against the wall repeatedly.
Assault by hitting her on the head
with a hairbrush and pulling her hair.
Åsa has assaulted Plaintiff A
by knocking her to the ground
and stamping on her,
scratching her body and biting her neck,
pulling her hair,
causing pain and redness.
I knew that Plaintiff A was waiting
for me in Maria's bedroom
and I knew that I was thinking
about her age and all that,
but I told myself not to think
of her as too young,
or that she can't do what's expected
of her because she's young.
All I remember is that I
I have oral sex with her first
and then I pulled my trousers down,
half-way I think,
and start having intercourse.
We're sitting on our bed,
and this conversation goes on for hours.
I see the panic in her eyes,
"No, I mustn't talk about this."
And I say: "What is it?" It was like
she couldn't physically say it.
"I can't tell anyone this."
She told herself,
"I did it for Jesus.
I did this for Åsa." This mantra.
The moment she put it into words,
when I hear those words,
my whole world falls apart.
And then we talk about what to do next.
What do we do now?
Our firm belief
was that Åsa is the Bride of Christ.
Since Åsa is someone who loves
the truth more than anything,
we must tell her the truth.
So I run as fast as I can to Åsa
and when I enter the room
the first thing she says is,
"You've got to save Urban.
I'm going to lose Urban too."
Meaning how she had lost Helge.
It's like a déjà vu experience.
This is exactly the same
as it was with Helge and Sara.
Helge had done nothing wrong.
It was all Sara.
There isn't just one Sara now.
This 17 year old is to blame.
The other women are to blame.
- Ester, here. A letter for you.
- No.
Since you didn't want to be interviewed
I thought you might read this letter.
You say that A could be exposed
to murder. I don't understand that.
I explained that,
considering our history,
to lie or go behind someone's back,
this has resulted in a murder.
It's dangerous.
- Did you say that to A?
- We talked about it.
How did she react to this information?
- I don't remember.
- Have you no memory of it at all?
No, but this was something we talked
about every now and then,
since we talked often about
what had happened.
The murder in 2004 was like the basis
for everything we did
and everything we were protecting.
But that was a long time ago.
Why the need to discuss this with A?
We lived in the same context.
Our line of reasoning was the same.
We're on our way home, time is
running out. Jesus is coming soon.
It hasn't happened yet.
That was my line of thinking.
This was our theory.
The same explanation as we had then,
what we saw as a spiritual battle,
so it wasn't strange that we said this.
Our theory was that this was a battle.
Back in 2003 it was as if any minute,
of any day the world could end.
It does something to your mind.
To live in Åsa's world,
to be accepted by her
It is as if you have
your loved ones, your family
You have everything
that you want in life.
And to be wrong in Knutby
is like losing someone.
Completely irreversibly.
It is horrifically strong emotions.
You do anything to be good again.
And this feeling, "I'll do anything",
is placed on Åsa.
I think it was in the autumn
or winter of 2015.
She keeps hitting me. She's in a rage.
She's extremely angry.
I'm on my hands and knees.
My earrings come flying off.
And I panic
because she gave me those earrings.
So I'm lying on the floor.
It's dark so I use my phone for light.
I think Kajsa helped me look for them.
And I thought that this was awful also.
Because suddenly,
someone is kind enough
to help me search
and I didn't want Kajsa to help me,
because I was nasty and stupid,
terribly stupid.
Because Åsa had to go
to these extremes to chastise me.
And I didn't want Kajsa to have
to help me because I was wrong.
I wish I could adequately describe
the panic I felt when Åsa beat me.
In one way it was
It wasn't the beatings as such.
The worst part was hearing you
were wrong and nasty towards her,
refusing to relent, being rebellious.
She had at least five talks
with me every day
about how disgusting I am,
how awful I am.
I let her down
and I'm a really bad person.
I had the chance of a lifetime.
I was worthless.
I cry in my bed for a whole year.
I can't get out of my bed.
I'm not allowed to go to a doctor.
I'm not allowed to say I'm depressed
and that I'm not eating
and that I'm not sleeping.
I'm banished from the community.
And then Åsa takes my daughter.
I'm not allowed to keep her.
And she's not allowed to call me mum.
She's told that I'm a traitor,
"Your mother is on her way to hell.
She's a disgusting person. You're not
allowed to call your home, home."
And it's
There is a view that you can raise
your hand to others,
according to the Old Testament.
But there's a New Testament.
There's love and goodness
in Jesus and God too.
Why not use that method instead?
Why not get the message across verbally?
Why physical violence?
I don't know.
Have you difficulty
controlling your anger?
No.
Kristina tells us here
that you attack her.
The violence you subject her to
takes her completely by surprise.
She says that you hit her on the head,
and that you scratch her body,
bite her neck and pull her hair.
And she urinates on herself.
Are you saying that you didn't notice
how terrified she was
that she urinated on herself?
- I didn't notice that.
- Don't you remember it?
- I remember hitting her across the face.
- You've said that, yes.
I don't remember the rest.
I can't even relate to it.
When I was in the psychiatric ward,
if anyone said anything bad about Åsa
I would start crying and say stop!
Don't say that.
She hears it. She can hear it!
And I was terrified.
I thought she was beyond human.
Was there a moment you felt a release?
I remember
I was locked away in an isolation room.
I couldn't meet anyone.
I couldn't meet anyone, no news,
no reading newspapers, no TV.
When I was completely alone
in that tiny room,
it was as if it hit me then.
A nurse came in saying,
"I'm so sorry, Sara,
that you can't join
While the other patients
are celebrating midsummer out here."
But there and then I felt euphoric.
I just felt,
"Now, finally I'm free! I am free!"
In this room I am so free.
I can think what I want.
I can do what I want.
I can be who I want.
I am free.
In this room I own myself.
Tell me, what have you found?
I can see how Åsa, Helge and Sara
communicated with each other.
But if Helge wants to use this
as evidence
there should be a very clear link.
That just before he sends
a text message to Sara,
he should have received one from Åsa.
Yes, there should be a clear link
that he receives a message
just before he sends one to her.
- Does he?
- No, there's nothing.
- So he's lying then.
- The problem is, we can't know that.
Because Åsa had two mobile phones
and one of them was never analyzed.
Okay, but we have Helge's phones.
We can check his incoming text messages.
I thought that too.
But I've now discovered,
that 16 years ago, in 2004,
technology had its limitations.
To get a complete picture
of text message exchanges,
you need both the sender
and the receiver.
In order to find out
if Åsa texted Helge,
you would need the data
from Åsa's phone.
There could be more data on
Helge's phone than we can see here
- since we don't have Åsa's data.
- Yes.
- That's crazy.
- That's how it was back then.
We can request them. We have her number.
I did that. But the problem is,
it's no longer possible.
They've been deleted?
The police didn't
request the data back then.
I've even called the operators,
but to no avail.
Yes.
You've compiled a digital version of
this stack. You've been through it all.
We've gone further than anyone else
in following this lead,
yet we still can't say what happened.
No, that's right.
Even though Helge says the evidence
is there and we can't find it,
it still doesn't prove
that he's is lying.
Correct.
Crazy.
There must be records of text messages
from Åsa somewhere.
This happened with Alexandra's
mobile phone data that was restored.
There were texts from Åsa
that weren't in the lists.
For some reason,
her text messages weren't there.
We don't know how much data exists.
We just know
what we get from the police.
So we will never know
if we got all the data,
or if it is complete.
But based on what we have,
we cannot see any link in this data.
- No.
- You can't
We cannot say
that there's systematic evidence
that Helge receives texts from
an instigator that he then forwards.
We can't see that.
All the evil, the problems,
the misery, the abuse,
everything that Knutby was accused of
was because of me.
The interesting thing is,
it got seven times worse after I left.
You would imagine
when this kind of thing happens
that it would be an eye-opener.
That they would have done
some soul-searching,
"What went wrong?
What are we doing wrong?"
But by saying that Helge caused it all
and now he's gone,
they didn't have to change anything.
And if it was because of me then
it would not have continued like it did,
and escalated and gotten out of hand.
Nevertheless, it must be said
that people stopped dying when
after this, so
Seven times worse in one way,
but there were no further deaths.
Do you understand what I mean?
Yes, it would have been interesting
if there had been serial deaths
where people were dying annually
and this had ceased.
But that's not the reality of it.
In 2004, two people
in this congregation were sick.
That is, Sara and Helge.
The others were
in a completely different world.
But now a whole congregation is saying,
"We were a part of this sect.
It was not healthy. It was not good."
And I'm thinking too, looking back,
we criticize the police because
they don't address this sect issue.
But the question is,
what could they have said then
if the police had asked them?
Many of the sect members probably
wouldn't have been able to,
even if they tried, since they were sure
that it was the next life that mattered.
They were on their way there.
But the pressure chamber is open now
and this brain-washing is wearing off.
And now we have a group of people
that for the past 20 years
in certain cases
have violated themselves, crushed their
own egos and lost their sense of self.
And they have to find themselves again.
The question is, what will they find?
What will they discover?
What will be revealed?
The man charged with assault
and illegal threats
was given a suspended sentence
together with day fines.
The second man, for sexual exploitation
of a dependent person
to a suspended sentence
and 160 hours community service.
Two copies
of the Knutby verdict, please.
The District Court has convicted
the woman on eight counts of assault
and freed her on six counts of assault.
She was given a suspended sentence
and 120 hours community service.
You mentioned that
you don't have any contact with Åsa.
What would you say to her if you could?
I wish she could understand
how her words
have had consequences
in so many ways.
I'm one person who paid a high price
by being in Knutby and following her.
In relation to my family,
my old friends,
it has affected so many people,
and I'm just one of say, a hundred.
And each one of us has a story to tell.
What's that?
A letter from Åsa.
"Hi, you've been trying to contact me
in different ways.
I'm not interested in taking part.
It doesn't matter what I say anyway.
It will be edited to suit
the media's story and commenting on
or denying other people's statements
and experiences is meaningless.
It's impossible for me
to explain something
that I'm processing and grieving over.
It would also mean
exposing people I loved
and believed I was living
in unity with. I won't do that.
Furthermore, addressing defamation
and insults from Helge and Sara
is just too much. My family and I
find this too difficult.
Yours sincerely, Åsa."
Now we know
where she stands in any case.
Yes and we must respect that.
She's always said that Helge is lying.
I was completely prepared to
If I had received a message
saying shoot yourself
I would have done it.
- Do you mean that?
- Yes, I mean it.
I didn't exist.
I was a shell, a robot,
I was annihilated, so nullified.
A few years back, I thought about
This is so difficult to talk about
When I thought about
Alexandra's reaction
to the first shot
There was nothing. Nothing.
Because it hit the hip
and there was no reaction.
How can that be, I don't understand?
Now I can see and feel that
Then I thought it was on me,
but now, it's like
Wait a second. How could it be?
Why did she not move?
Wait, that she could have?
What do you mean Sara?
I don't know.
I don't know if she was alive or not.
Maybe she wasn't alive
when I got there. I don't know.
Åsa Waldau has declined
to participate in the series.
She has been informed
about the claims made against her
but did not want to reply
to comment further.
Urban Fält declined to participate
in the series
but has been informed about
the claims made against him.
His reply is that he
deeply regrets his actions,
believed strongly at the time
he was doing gods work,
but says that he was brainwashed
and is sorry for the harm he caused.