The cousin’s father describes the police investigation as a disaster.
– In the critical days immediately after Birgitte Tengs was found murdered, the police made many mistakes.
Faced with Dagbladet, Jakob, the cousin’s father, describes a police error after a police error in the investigation into the murder of Birgitte Tengs.
The police did not come
– It starts with a man from Skudeneshavn who has been fishing. At 03.30 on the night of Saturday 6 May 1995 he finds his car bloody. It’s probably been three hours since Birgitte Tengs was killed.
– The same day – after learning about the murder – call the police. But nobody comes to look at the car. The next day he calls the police again. Even then no one comes to investigate the case, the father tells his cousin.
He makes it clear to Dagbladet that he doesn’t know if the car, which was covered in blood, had anything to do with the murder.
Johny Vassbakk (52) accused of the murder of Birgitte Tengs
A year later
After the two police investigations, where the fisherman has not received an answer, the man goes to work in the North Sea.
– Only a year later, in 2006, the fisherman was contacted by the police. So they are interested in examining the car. The moldings of the car were unscrewed, but the forensic technicians found no traces of blood. Perhaps not so strange, the car was washed many times ago, says the cousin’s father.
The bloody car was then parked in Skudeneshavn, the home of Johny Vassbakk, now accused of killing Birgitte Tengs.
The car, which was bloody, is not the only thing the cousin’s father describes as catastrophic misjudgments by the Haugesund and Kripos police.
Three councils named
– Three days after the murder, two officers from the Skudeneshavn sheriff called – each separately – and informed the head of the man’s investigation that he is now accused of the murder of Birgitte Tengs, says the cousin’s father.
The cousin: – A relief
The next day, Tuesday 9 May 1995, the police – according to Jakob, the cousin’s father – received a tip from a psychologist. A psychologist who had treated the man who is now accused (Johny Vassbakk, ed) of killing Birgitte Tengs.
– It is completely incomprehensible that three specific advice, from the psychologist and two sheriff’s officers, and the report on the blood-smeared car, did not make the investigation direction react, says the cousin’s father.
Ståle Finsal, former homicide commission emergency officer, does not want to comment on his father’s cousin’s accusations of mere police work.
Finsal’s only comment is the following:
– I think it is wise to let these claims remain unchallenged.
On Monday it became known that Johny Vassbakk was charged with the mystery of the 27-year-old murder. Vassbakk denies criminal guilt.
27 years of hell
On Monday, both the attorney general and the police director apologized to the cousin, first convicted and then acquitted of the murder. The man was however further sentenced to compensate his parents in the case in a subsequent civil criminal case, a sentence he is fighting for overturning.
