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SOME NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED.
911, what's your emergency?
Around 15 emergency calls come in.
People are very upset when they call emergency services.
You can hear it in these emergency calls.
Some are afraid.
Some think it's explosions, while others are fairly sure it's gunshot.
And some have looked out to see a person lying on the ground.
And seen three people near the person on the ground.
And a witness has seen a shot being fired at the person on the ground.
THE AVENGERS
At 3:09 am on the night before the 12th of December, 2019,
a number of ominous emergency calls begin to come in
about a probable shooting
in a residential area of Nacksta in western Sundsvall.
With the information we have,
all three patrols leave directly from the police station,
and head toward the address that was reported.
Naturally, we treat it as a very serious incident,
and try to prepare ourselves mentally in case it is a shooting.
Nacksta is a residential area just west of Sundsvall,
a fairly large area.
There are pizzerias, supermarkets, and so on,
a lot of rental apartments and a lot of apartments people own.
So there are a range of ages of people who live in the area.
It doesn't take long to get from the station to the area in Nacksta.
Maybe seven to ten minutes.
My colleague and I didn't have as much time to talk as we usually do,
since it's such a short drive,
and so much information is being pumped out.
I'm busy trying to absorb the information
and trying to control the patrols I have at my disposal on the way.
We're quite concentrated and focused on what we have to do,
what might await us at the scene.
And we don't know if there still are perpetrators at the scene.
Information comes in that three people are moving in the area.
Some say it's three men in dark clothes,
who don't seem to be in much of a hurry.
We arrive and, as we get out of the car, we see a group of people,
standing in the courtyard.
We guess there are around seven to ten people, maybe,
as we approach, we see they're doing CPR and someone's on the ground.
It's a man, he has blood on his chest and the ground beneath him,
and it's winter and it's snowing, so it's quite visible.
The highest priority is to save the life of the person on the ground.
Life always comes first.
Then you can start thinking about how to continue,
secure the location. Are the perpetrators still at the location?
My colleague helps with CPR since we're first on the scene.
The ambulance is on its way but they haven't arrived yet.
And I try to step back a bit and get an overview here.
Are any perpetrators still here?
And, as I stand there, I'm told by a number of witnesses
that three perpetrators wearing dark clothes had disappeared
in the direction of the city centre and the industrial area down here.
Just after the first patrol has arrived at the scene,
the ambulance arrives, and takes the injured man to Sundsvall Hospital.
The canine patrol arrives at the same time, and begins tracking,
and to try to catch up with the suspects
that witnesses saw leave the scene, just a few minutes prior.
We know exactly what to do when we arrive at the scene,
and as soon as we arrive, I let the dog out
and put all the stuff on him so he can begin tracking
the suspects who have run away.
And when I go near where the suspects were seen running away,
I meet a witness as well, who says, "They ran this way."
Down a sloping, fairly protected spot.
In this case, when you have a witness who shows you a direction
where they think the suspects have fled,
the dog is an incredibly good tool in the hunt,
who can search for the scent trails that we humans leave behind us.
And, sure enough, what the witness says,
my dog confirms.
This is the right direction.
He gets a strong scent right from the start.
The scent leads down between two buildings.
So I decide to make a tactical pause,
and get everything ready
so I know we have my colleague on the same page,
and that everything is in order in case we catch up with them.
With people who have shown they're prepared to shoot.
So we're constantly aware of that as we chase them.
It doesn't feel like we're too far behind them.
It was reported relatively quickly and was just a short drive away.
And we got a good lead,
so it felt like we were closer than we can be in some cases.
We follow the scent to a turning bay.
And it's a very secluded location,
as I approached, I kept thinking, "This is where the scent will end".
They would have had a car here, or something else to leave with.
So I slowly start approaching, and feel a kind of disappointment
that we're not going to catch up with them.
They've had some form of transport here at the turning bay.
We're not going to get any further.
But the dog is very clear at this point,
and actually pulls me over.
It's a moment before I actually see in the snow
that they've actually continued.
We keep following the tracks
which come to a fairly high construction fence.
From the construction fence, we continue tracking,
and after a short time, we get to a train track.
I call through the radio that we're approaching the train tracks now,
and need to stop the trains to secure a safe work environment.
They copy on the radio, my dog doesn't want to wait,
he keeps doing.
And there aren't many people who have been walking here.
I can see in several places
that we're chasing three people.
It hits me again, what is it that we're looking for?
The hunt takes a hold on you.
We have bulletproof vests on, which can take a certain calibre.
And my colleague have their service weapon out.
I try to create as good conditions as possible for us,
in case we catch up with them.
We continue following the train tracks quite a way,
before it turns off very abruptly into an industrial area,
over another fence.
I let the dog through who again shows great confidence in his path,
and continues to track.
He's got the same conviction and pace as he's had from the start.
We get to a tree.
And when we're on our way past this tree,
the dog lifts its tail and braces itself.
So I drop the lead I've been holding this whole time,
and draw my service weapon and start scanning the tree,
around the tree and even up in the tree.
It feels like they're here now.
We've caught up with them.
At Sundsvall Hospital, it's established
that the victim has been shot at least nine times.
In the hip, arm, and chest, among other places.
And while the canine patrol tracks the suspects,
police learn that the man has died.
Thanks to identification found in his pocket,
he can be identified as 28-year-old father of young children,
Phillip Elander.
Phillip grew up mainly with his maternal grandparents in Sundsvall,
and then he lived with a partner
with whom he had two children
who I think, at the time of the crime,
were close to school age.
But the relationship had ended and the children lived with their mum,
but he wanted to see them.
Then he was in Stockholm where he lived with another partner,
but when that ended, he moved up to Sundsvall again.
and at the time of the crime, he was living with another woman.
Phillip is known to police.
There are drug offences and violent crime on his record.
That can indicate the kind of motive, and that kind of thing,
but it's much too early to draw any conclusions.
But you have those thoughts
when it's someone with a criminal record who has been shot.
The canine patrol is right behind the suspects,
and after around 40 minutes' tracking,
the dog makes clear marks at a tree.
I turn on the torch on my service weapon, and...
scan the tree.
In case someone was sitting there.
I don't see anyone, but when I shone the torch back again,
down toward the dog who's standing
with front paws almost up in the tree
and shows that he's found something.
Not someone, but something.
So when I go up to the tree where the dog is standing,
I look into the tree and see some kind of beanie.
With a gun in it.
We're still on the hunt for the suspects.
That's still the highest priority.
We try to get a patrol there as quickly as possible,
who can take care of this,
so we can continue tracking.
From the tree, the tracks continued out on Södra Järnvägsgatan,
and I see a taxi coming with it's light turned off...
which should mean it's booked.
And my thought is that it's them sitting in a taxi in front of us.
We stop the taxi and establish it's just the driver in there.
It's otherwise empty.
My colleague is tasked with investigating the taxi more closely,
and find out where it's been and where it's going.
Meanwhile, the dog keeps tracking past the taxi.
And we get to a house where the dog wants to go up a small staircase
and to a door.
The dog sniffs at the crack in the door,
and is about to bark and let me know that they're inside.
I report it and request permission to go inside,
but we hear on the radio that we shouldn't go in,
that we should instead secure the property
so no one can get in or out.
As a result, we decided to wait for the taskforce.
At the crime scene in Nacksta,
police are meanwhile working intensely to cordon off the area
and interview more witnesses.
I'm thinking he's either been shot where he's lying
where we find him, outside, in the courtyard here,
or it's happened somewhere else and he managed to move a bit.
Then we find out that shots were fired in the stairwell of 44C here.
So I go there to see if I can find any clues.
I come in here and see straight away there's blood spatter on the floor
and shell casings in several places here.
I come up the stairs here and see the occasional spatter on the floor.
I go up the stairs to see if I can see any more tracks.
I don't see anything further up and don't hear anything up there either.
I decide not to go out into the courtyard now
because if we have a possible crime scene,
I don't want to destroy any potential shoe prints and so on.
In the next stage, forensics get involved.
But there are great challenges for the forensic investigation.
When we arrive, we see that time will be an important factor here.
We decide to prioritise securing tracks outside, given the weather.
It's above zero and the tracks risk disappearing
or being damaged as time passes.
There are a huge number of shoe prints in this area.
And we have to choose where we think the perpetrators have moved around,
and keep to those places.
We don't know on location if we have the right shoe prints or not.
We just had to secure, document and photograph them.
One person has moved around in deep snow here,
over to building B.
And then into the deep snow again, to a window there on the balcony.
And there's a blood deposit there
which matches the victim's DNA.
Here, outside the balcony, where there was blood on the window,
there were three bullet casings.
The victim lay right here.
And there were two blood deposits.
From nearby the blood, we secure multiple shoe prints and a shell.
Just before four o'clock in the morning,
less than two hours after the first emergency call,
the regional taskforce arrives at the house on Södra Järnvägsgatan,
where the suspected killers are believed to be.
The first thing we do is get a bit of an overview of the location.
This is a dangerous situation.
We have perpetrators we believe to be armed,
they're capable of violence, they've shown this by shooting another man,
and we have a complex operation environment here as well.
We're in central Sundsvall, it's early morning,
there are lots of people out and about, on their way to work,
so we also cordon off this road we're standing on
because we don't want the public
getting between us and the property where the perpetrators might be.
Our goal to start with is to isolate the perpetrators within the property
so they can't leave.
We're not in a hurry to enter the property
where there are three perpetrators who are likely armed.
So we choose a defensive approach.
But we do have a resource who can go in if necessary.
The next step is to try to reach a solution through negotiating,
to get the perpetrators out.
But after a while, two people come out the door on the left,
where the dog handler has tracked them to.
We see they have no weapons in their hands.
I think they seem surprised to see us there,
but as soon as we started giving commands,
they listened, stayed calm and did exactly what we said.
With two of the three suspected murderers arrested,
all that remains for police is to secure the property,
and arrest the third, and probably last, man.
The operation continues.
We don't know many people are in the apartment.
So we plan how we'll enter and search the property.
At the crime scene, forensics investigate the stairwell
where police observed additional traces of blood and bullet casings.
When we enter the stairwell, we get the feeling that
the victim and perpetrator were very close to each other,
because it's tight and the bullet casings are close to one another.
The blood comes fairly directly from the corner,
the projectiles lie right by the stairs.
The amount of blood increases from the lower floor to the one above.
The blood up here had dripped,
and there was blood deposited on this door.
My assessment is that a bloody hand has held the handle
on this apartment door.
Maybe as support when moving forward or calling for help.
From the apartment door, the blood trail leads to the entrance door,
whose handle has also been held by a bloody hand.
You could interpret it to mean the victim has fled the perpetrators
up the stairs to the upper floor and out to the courtyard.
50 minutes after two of the suspects leave the house and are arrested,
the taskforce decide to enter the property to find further suspects.
As we approach, we don't want to move in this open area,
because we'd be so exposed,
so we go past this red house and a little further up.
Then we take the tools we need.
tools to force our way in, to guarantee entry,
and we decided to use a shield, so I put one on and go first.
When we've put our tools on, we move stealthily,
go between these houses,
and stand roughly at the corner near the garbage bins.
We gather the resources we have and make sure everyone's ready.
Then we move forward to the front door.
It's quite high tension.
We have motivated perpetrators who are probably armed.
They've shown their capacity for violence by shooting someone.
So there's a certain tension when entering an apartment like this.
When we get to the front door, it's unlocked.
So we open it, and almost immediately as I open the door,
I see someone sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
So I go in and secure the person
while my colleagues search the rest of the property
and ensure there are no more perpetrators in the property.
And there weren't.
There was just one person, asleep in there.
The arrest was very calm. He was a bit surprised but calm.
He didn't resist and we secured him as he lay on the mattress.
We have a car with us
which we use to transport him to the police station in Sundsvall
as we cordon off the location.
What's very important in the investigation
is to secure these people who have been arrested,
as well as the weapons found during the night in the tree.
A bit later that day, another dog handler walks the exact same track,
and finds another gun in the same tree.
Police have now secured two probable murder weapons.
One 9mm Walther pistol, and one 6.35 calibre FN pistol.
Along with the other finds, these are sent in for analysis.
Investigators now try to get an overview of the three arrested men.
Jussi Laamanen, Roman Rasouli and Ken Lundin.
All three are previously known to police
for drug offences, violent crimes and disturbance of the peace.
They haven't been very active in Sundsvall.
They come from the northern part of the region
where they grew up, and already know one another.
Somewhat anonymous, I haven't dealt with these three before.
But don't see them as the type
who would really set out to commit this type of crime.
Their reaction when they're arrested is to deny the crime.
"They had nothing to do with it."
Roman and Jussi don't want to talk about what they've done
or where they've been.
They deny all criminal activity.
Ken says he's taken benzos,
that he has no memory of the evening,
that he knows nothing.
But he lives in the apartment on Södra Järnvägsgatan,
where all three are arrested.
Since the arrested men don't want to speak to police,
investigators continue to look for a motive,
and a connection between the suspects and the victim.
They deny all knowledge of Phillip, the victim.
That they met him or contacted him or know who he is.
And we can't see a relationship between suspect and victim.
We have to gather information,
as much information as possible on the arrested men and the victim.
And not get stuck in the belief that these three men committed the crime,
but to constantly remember there could be alternative perpetrators.
We investigate other things as well.
Meanwhile, it comes out
that there was an incident during the summer
where Phillip was assaulted outside his grandparent's place.
His girlfriend tells us
that he got out of a car,
and then some people approached him,
also from a car, and assault him.
And he manages to run away,
and enter the house.
There's talk that it's a Stockholm gang,
and the Death Squad are mentioned.
Our theories about this are that it has something to do with
a drug deal that's gone wrong.
It comes out in interrogations
that Phillip allegedly defrauded some people
of a large amount of drugs and money.
Major drug crime is very common here in Sundsvall.
Previously, our criminals travelled to the big cities.
Now we're seeing big city criminals are coming to us.
I think the competition for drugs in the big cities is getting tougher.
It's a rawer environment.
We all know that gun violence has increased.
So I see people trying to claim new shares.
There are new markets to win up here in the northern areas.
So this is something we investigate.
But nothing shows or suggests in any way
that the murder is gang-related.
We can never tie it to anyone.
And the person who could tell us is Phillip, and he...
can't do that.
Police dismiss the lead that a Stockholm gang might be involved
in Phillip's murder.
But when they dig deeper into drug deals that went wrong
during the summer,
they find other interesting information.
Phillip and a few other people were travelling somewhere from Sollefteå,
then they were going to Norway, over Östersund.
There, they were going to sell drugs.
When they make a stop at some kind of petrol station or fast food place
or something like that, the other two people exit the car,
and Phillip drives away from them,
keeping the drugs or money that's in the car.
One person mentioned at the time, who was involved in this, was Ken,
and another name mentioned by witnesses,
who was involved in this was Roman.
That's information we've gotten from several witnesses,
so I think it's a likely motive.
In searches of the men's homes,
meaningful finds are made in the form of drugs,
jackets, bulletproof vests, and more guns.
But also a phone, which police hope will support their theories
regarding Phillip's murder.
Ken's phone is confiscated from Södra Järnvägsgatan.
It's bent up and broken,
and, first, we try to get into it.
IT forensics here in Sundsvall don't succeed,
so they send it on to the forensics lab.
We assume that phone is important,
since they tried to destroy it in a way that...
They didn't just try to hide it, they tried to bend and break it
so it couldn't be used, or have evidence retrieved from it.
That makes it even more interesting.
But it's far too broken for the lab to get into it,
and that feels really sad from the sake of the investigation.
But, despite not being able to retrieve information from the phone,
police get other help in their investigation
when they come across images from a security camera
on the road the suspects fled down from Nacksta to Södra Järnvägsgatan.
It shows that right after these shots were fired,
we see three individuals on this camera,
and they're walking and jogging a bit,
and then when we look at the security footage,
we see that the police are about 12 minutes behind them.
It's extremely important.
I've worked many years as a prosecutor,
I've never seen an investigation that has been so exact
regarding the timeline.
where everything lead right into the next.
When the results from the lab tests start to roll in,
it feels like we breathe out a little.
We get results that there is gunshot residue
on gloves and jackets,
we get DNA from these people,
on the casings left at the crime scene, bullets in the guns,
on the guns.
We get analyses from shoe soles
which establish the shoes we've confiscated from the arrest location
match tracks right next to the blood at the crime scene.
We have the same shoe prints on the path they fled down.
So it feels like we're really on the right track.
Based on the apparently strong technical evidence,
the prosecutor decides to bring charges,
and on the 7th of July, 2020,
the trial begins in Sundsvall District Court.
Our theories are that these three people who are being prosecuted
have decided to execute Phillip,
and they plan and get weapons,
and then make their way there and shoot him,
and they have then decided to escape down this route.
We investigators were in complete agreement
that this was a solid preliminary investigation.
We were completely convinced, given the evidence we had,
that it would result in a conviction.
But when the verdict is handed down on the 5th of August,
the court unexpectedly decides to acquit the three men
for Phillip's murder.
According to today's court verdict,
the technical evidence didn't hold up.
Other people's DNA was also found on the guns.
It's therefore not possible, according to the court,
to say who carried out the murder.
The three men were instead convicted of a series of small crimes.
Two of the three received short prison sentences,
the third, fines.
I was very surprised and disappointed.
It's not at all what we'd hoped for.
And I feel very sorry for the victim's family.
The disappointment was palpable,
considering we thought we'd proven that these three people
had committed this crime,
so it's a frustration.
At first, the wind is knocked out of you,
but then you just know, this just needs to be tried again.
So I appealed this pretty much right away,
because I want this dealt with as soon as possible.
We just need to have another go at it.
We're convinced we've got the perpetrators,
that they're the ones we've had detained,
so we have a new meeting with the prosecutor
and go through the verdict, is there anything we can add
before the prosecutor appeals this verdict?
We haven't gotten into one of the phones.
We put great focus on trying again.
Before the trial in the Court of Appeals,
the investigators choose to try yet again to access Ken's broken phone,
which the lab previously failed to get into.
It's sent to an expert
at the National Police Operational Department in Stockholm.
He looks at it,
and we explain that it's extremely important,
and he slaves over it for a long time,
and manages to get into it.
What we work on now,
thanks to the operational department accessing the phone,
is trying to find contact between the victim and these perpetrators.
In the phone, there's a Wickr app among other things.
There, we can see that Ken and Phillip have messaged one another
on the evening of the murder.
We also see that they've had contact right before the murder.
Phillip writes that they should come to Nackstavägen 44.
We believe they've decided to meet,
and that it's related to handling drugs.
That's the feeling, even if we haven't been able to prove it.
The feeling when we find this connection,
that they've had contact that evening,
it was a really good feeling.
We also find media in the phone
of someone handling one of the guns, the 6.35mm,
and in these films, you can see a person
wearing a grey jumper with a gold watch.
We find more film in this phone
where Ken is wearing this jumper at some party,
and a gold watch, so we can see it's the same person handling this gun.
We also find images of ammunition for the various guns.
We're so happy.
Now it's completely impossible for us to fail.
On the third of November, 2020, the Court of Appeals trial begins.
Ken, serving another sentence, arrives with correctional services,
but the question is whether Jussi and Roman, who are at large,
will turn up at all.
It's long been uncertain whether the suspects will appear
at the Court of Appeal hearing, because they're free men.
But they come to the trial.
The trial lasts several days and they are in court on those days.
Before the trial ends, I request them to be detained immediately.
Then we leave and sit outside and wait.
But the Court of Appeals don't make a decision regarding detention,
on this Friday afternoon that it happens to be,
so Jussi and Roman get to leave the trial.
And, since they're not detained on the Friday afternoon, we're worried
that we won't get a conviction in the Court of Appeals either.
But the Court of Appeals sides with the prosecution
and alter the District Court's verdict.
On the 22nd of January, 2021,
the three men are sentenced to 18 years prison each.
But, since the Court of Appeals delayed detention,
Jussi and Roman have now disappeared.
They realise what the verdict will be, and...
they've had time to plan this.
It's very sad and unpleasant, especially for family and witnesses
who have been afraid, considering they're serious criminals.
They could commit serious crimes.
It's incredibly frustrating.
We have two people who have been convicted,
at large, out among the public,
and they're convicted of a murder,
where they've shot another person to death.
There are also certain challenges involved in trying to find them,
considering we no longer have an open preliminary investigation
in which we can use various kinds of coercive forces.
We realised that we're dependant on the public.
WANTED
Help police locate Roman Rasouli och Jussi Laamanen,
who are evading justice.
They've been sentenced to 18 years' prison for murder,
but they haven't showed up to serve their sentences.
We don't want to public to intervene against these men.
They're convicted of murder, and are on the run.
We receive a tip that they're residing everywhere from Malmö
to Haparanda, so tips came in from all over Sweden.
A number of the tips were very concrete with a certain substance,
and we acted on those.
A number of tips could be dismissed quite early,
as not being at all relevant.
So it was a very mixed inbox.
It's not easy to hide for your whole life.
It costs a lot of money and you need someone to protect you,
and you need to be careful or someone might turn you in,
so it's not an easy life, being in hiding.
Even though Jussi and Roman are wanted,
both nationally and internationally by Europol,
they manage to stay hidden.
But in October 2021,
two serious store robberies are committed in western Sweden,
where clues lead to the two convicted murderers,
who are now believed to be hiding in Värmland.
Regions East and West are holding these investigations,
so we have contact from a fairly early stage,
and they believe they have figured out where they are.
So we follow the hunt for Jussi and Roman.
Police have arrested Roman Rasouli och Jussi Laamanen.
On Wednesday, last week, 11 months after the verdict,
the convicted murderers were finally arrested
after an intensive tracking operation,
as they were travelling to their hiding place in nature reservation,
Glaskogen in Arvika municipality.
That they have the opportunity to disappear
and commit what seem to be new, major crimes,
I think is awful for the people who have been affected
by the new crimes.
At the same time, it's very satisfying
that we can conclude this murder with these people being arrested.
It's definitely moved me, because it was a young person
who was executed.
You can imagine the anxiety he had
during those last minutes as he tries to run for his life.
Of course this murder has moved me.
The young man... who was murdered,
who has a family, who...
will never get to see him again.
And that's very moving.
Subtitles: Lily Ray plint.com