Stefan Sjöstrand’s family members were murdered in Åmsele

Stefan Sjöstrand has achieved success during his four years as CEO of Skistar.

Photo: Jack Mikrut / DI TT NEWS AGENCY

The murderer Juha Valjakkala under a reconstruction image from 1988.

Photo: THE POLICE

Police investigation after the triple murderer Juha Valjakkala in Vänersborg in 1988.

Photo: SÖREN HÅKANLIND/EXPRESSEN/TT / EXPRESSEN TT NEWS AGENCY

Stefan Sjöstrand is one of Sweden’s most successful CEOs and has increased ski resort giant Skistar’s turnover by 80 percent since he took office four years ago.

But alongside his unlikely career, which began with him selling vacuum cleaners and sweets in Halland, Småland and Skåne after high school, he has been carrying a trauma since he was 20 years old.

It was his family members who were murdered in cold blood by Juha Valjakkala in one of Sweden’s most described criminal cases 35 years ago: the Åmsele murder.

That is why Stefan Sjöstrand chooses to tell the story

Now he chooses to talk about the incident publicly for the first time Di’s reporter Johanna Lundsgårdwho writes that the light in the CEO’s eyes goes out, and that his voice sometimes cracks when he starts to tell.

– I have understood that there are several people who know about this, so I would rather it come from me instead of it becoming a rumor. No one has ever asked about it in this way either, he tells the reporter.

Stefan Sjöstrand’s parents divorced when he was two after meeting in Halmstad. Father Sten, who was in the military, moved to Åmsele in Västerbotten where he remarried and had two more children. Stefan Sjöstrand and his mother moved to Slöinge outside Halmstad.

On Friday 2 July 1988, Stefan Sjöstrand had a telephone conversation with his father, his wife Ewa and his little brother Fredrick, whom he promised to buy a T-shirt for during the Bruce Springsteen concert he would see on Saturday at the Stadium in Stockholm, he tells Di.

A day later, all three were dead.

The moose murder

During the night of Saturday 3 July 1988, Stefan Sjöstrand’s father and his brother Fredrick followed a then 23-year-old Juha Valjakkala and his girlfriend Marita Routalammi after they stole one of the family’s bicycles in Åmsele, Västerbotten.

When they managed to catch the thieves in the community’s cemetery, they were forced to their knees by Juha Valjakkala at gunpoint – then he first shot the father to death with a shotgun, then the son.

A neighbor saw later during the night how Ewa took her bicycle and headed towards the cemetery to look for her husband and son.

During the morning, Ewa was also discovered murdered next to the cemetery, by the vicar. Beaten with the butt of a rifle and stabbed to death.

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Stefan Sjöstrand only got the news on Sunday, from his mother, after he had returned home from the Bruce Springsteen concert in Stockholm.

– I don’t really know what happened in me other than that I just… I cried, I was shocked. We were at home for a few hours, then we went to a doctor and then I just sat there and talked, he tells Dagens industri.

He describes to Di how the trauma was then compounded during the ensuing police chase. Every day fliers appeared with pictures of his murdered family members and Stefan Sjöstrand did not want to show himself.

After a week’s police manhunt, the couple was arrested at a train station in Denmark.

Juha Valjakkala is on her way into the courtroom in 1988.

Photo: CORNELIA NORDSTRÖM / EXPRESSEN TT NEWS AGENCY

Juha Valjakkala received love letters after the murders

When they were put on trial, the relatives received a new cold shower: Many girls had fallen in love with Juha Valjakkala, sent him love letters in custody and were there to support him during the trial, which Stefan Sjöstrand had a hard time understanding, he tells Di .

The newspaper writes that the evening papers’ reporting on the couple in particular had given them a kind of Bonnie & Clyde status.

Juha Valjakkala escaped several times after being sentenced to life and transferred to a Finnish prison. On one occasion he made it to Sweden, a national alert was issued and Stefan Sjöstrand and his family were forced to have a protected identity, writes Di.

On February 27 last year, Juha Valjakkala died at the age of 57.

– It was peace, that’s how it felt when he died. That chapter could be closed. That was nice. If you can say so, Stefan Sjöstrand adds From.

READ MORE: Premium Juha Valjakkala – the triple killer who became a girl idolREAD MORE: Information: Triple murderer Juha Valjakkala dead

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