New DNA investigations and completely new interrogations are among the investigative material that could lead to a new trial to uncover the truth about what happened in Baneheia on May 19, 2000. While Jan Helge Andersen has confessed and served time for the murder of Stine Sofie Sørstrønen ( 8) and Lena Sløgedal Paulsen (10), Viggo Kristiansen has always denied that he was present.
In February, it was decided that Kristiansen, who was sentenced to 21 years in custody, will have his case resumed. In a survey conducted by Ipsos for Dagbladet, four out of ten answer that they have very high or fairly high confidence that the process of resumption will reveal the truth about the Baneheia killings.
The survey was conducted by Ipsos on the web in the period 14-24. June. 1008 interviews were conducted in the population 18 years +.
RIGHT: Stine Sofie Sørstrønen (left) and Lena Sløgedal Paulsen were found killed in Baneheia in 2000. Photo: Privat / NTB
view more
– More difficult and more difficult
Private investigator Tore Sandberg has been working for several decades to get old cases resumed. Today, the 77-year-old is still working actively, ten years after he retired, and is currently trying to get the Orderud case resumed.
He himself has not worked directly with the Baneheia case, but still draws several parallels with the Orderud case, including the time perspective. The triple murder on Orderud farm took place just one year before the murders in Baneheia.
DEMANDING: Private investigator Tore Sandberg has, among other things, worked with the Orderud case for a number of years. Here with Per Orderud. Photo: Nina Hansen / Dagbladet
view more
– In general, it becomes more and more difficult to get to the bottom of cases and investigations the longer it takes. Witnesses can fall away, we are all affected not only by what we originally saw or heard, but also by things and details we may have become acquainted with afterwards. In that sense, it can make the case more difficult, says Sandberg and elaborates:
– Witnesses who testified 20 years ago do not necessarily testify the same way today. If you come up with new information or change the explanation so long after, you have to ask yourself how credible it is.
view more
–
Judgment or acquittal
The private investigator nevertheless emphasizes that it is not at all impossible to solve old cases. Among other things, he himself ensured that the Fritz Moen case, in which Moen was convicted of two murders in Trondheim in the 1970s and subjected to murder, was turned into a full acquittal. At that time, Moen had been in prison for almost 20 years.
– The most basic is if new information or new expert knowledge emerges. The question one must ask is that if the new information or knowledge was known, could it have had a bearing on the verdict? It can not be a question of a small trifle, there must be circumstances that can be important for the actual outcome of the case, Sandberg tells Dagbladet.
Full quarrel: – Dangers of untruths
Will never get any answers
However, getting one hundred percent answers to all questions in a case like the Baneheia case, he thinks is unrealistic after so many years. But to document that an investigation does not hold up to a conviction is something else, according to the private investigator.
– As I have understood it, there are two elements in particular that are questioned in the Baneheia case, in addition to Andersen’s explanation – it concerns the telephone evidence and the DNA evidence. When some DNA analyzes have come to the conclusion that there could be four people involved, what confidence should one have in the evidence ?, Sandberg asks and adds:
– And if there can be reasonable doubt as to whether the DNA evidence is durable, then in my world there is a belief that the mobile evidence must have even stronger weight. If it also does not prove that Viggo Kristiansen was at the scene, do you really have enough for a verdict?
