12. of. 2022 12:32 – Updated 12 Dec. 2022 16:01
The man accused of Tengs’ murder pretended to be a woman online to get other women to send photos, an ex-girlfriend explained in court on Monday.
The accused had taken care of his then girlfriend’s dogs while the woman was on vacation. When she got home earlier than expected, she went straight to the man’s beach house to pick up her dogs.
– What comes my way is the sight of lots of underwear, shoes, photos, phones, and miscellaneous. The first thing I thought was “where is the girl he had behind me”. In my mind, she must have been a girl who used these things. But it turned out she wasn’t, says the 50-year-old woman at Tengs trial in Haugaland and Sunnhordland District Court on Monday.
From 2009 to 2014, she was in love with the man who is now accused of killing Birgitte Tengs in 1995.
Pretend to be your boyfriend online
The woman also discovers that the man is active on a website where he pretends to be a woman.
– There he has contacts with 130 ladies with whom he talks and to whom he sends photos, and who send him photos, says his ex-girlfriend.
– In a previous interrogation, you talked a little about which photos he himself posted on the website. Can you say something about it? asks prosecutor Nina Grande.
– There were photos of me, without showing my face. There were pictures of my feet, which were her fetish, and he used them to talk to other girls who sent him pictures, she says.
He says he also often found handwritten notes with the man in which he had noted the name, age, address, appearance and often also the size of shoes and clothes of various women.
She says she tried talking to him about the online activity, the women’s clothes and notes, but that he often got angry when confronted and would run away from the situation.
I don’t think the defendant is a murderer
The woman describes the relationship with the man as an on and off relationship in which she broke up with him several times. However, she points out that they had a lot of good times and often had fun together.
She broke up with her husband for the last time when she discovered that he had been saving Facebook photos of her 16-year-old daughter on a PC. There she also found photos of several other girls from the family and close relationships.
– Did you think he might be able to kill someone? asks defender Stian Kristensen.
– No I do not think so. I can’t imagine he could hurt anyone like that.
– I didn’t think it could be him
Nor did the man’s psychologist, Atle Austad, think he might have a killer ahead of him when the defendant went to therapy with him between 1999 and 2000.
– I didn’t think it could be him, says Austad during the Tengs trial.
It was only after lawyer Sigurd Klomsæt, who for a time represented Birgitte Tengs’ cousin, sent Austad Bjørn Olav Jahr’s book on the Tengs case, that the psychologist realized that the anonymous Jahr was writing about could be the man she had been in therapy and who is now being charged with murder.
“It wasn’t something I thought about before reading the book,” says Austad.
– I do not know
Bjørn Olav Jahr’s book “Who Killed Birgitte Tengs?” released in 2015.
After reading the book, Austad contacted Jahr to ask how he justified his suspicions. He also contacted lawyer Arvid Sjødin, who is now representing his cousin.
– To this day, I do not think one way or the other. I have no idea and have not decided on it. I don’t even care what Jahr, Sjødin and Klomsæt think. What they think doesn’t always agree with what I think, says the psychologist.
Austad also explained about the exposures and burglaries where the defendant entered houses and stole women’s clothes and shoes, the so-called burglaries.
He said he believes the defendant likely had stronger experiences from the burglaries than from exposure.
– The strongest experiences we have are often the ones we repeat most often. I take this to mean that he profited more from the thefts than from the exposure.
