THE SERIES CONTAINS RECONSTRUCTIONS.
THE VICTIMS IN THE CASES MENTIONED HAVE BEEN ANONYMIZED.
We always threw really great parties,
especially the ones in the summer where we could all be outside.
We were so comfortable around each other.
But everything just falls apart.
You think you know everything about a person,
and it turns out, he's someone else.
Nothing makes sense anymore. I mean, I was completely fooled.
We're now talking about murder, and the locals are worried.
New details in the case were found at the crime scene
where police have focused their investigation.
Well, we've found certain items,
but I can't get into the specifics at this time.
The killer is still at large, and as we try to track him down,
it's vital that he doesn't know the steps we're taking.
I promise you that we will do everything in our power
to find the person that's committed this horrendous crime
and bring them to justice.
A FRIEND, A MURDERER
My name is Kiri, and I'm from Vemmelev. I've lived there almost my whole life.
Vemmelev is a small town of maybe 2,000.
It's about ten kilometers from Korsør and about ten from Slagelse.
When I was a kid growing up there, it always felt really safe.
I'd walk or bike over to my friend's house.
Our school was just, like, four houses away,
and so we could just walk right down the street to school,
no big deal.
I lived with my parents,
and I had one sister that was older and one younger.
The three of us always got along. We'd go everywhere together.
Especially in 2016 and '17, we had a lot of fun going to parties.
The first time I heard about the girl,
I'd actually just gone out in Slagelse the night before.
I remember it really affected me a lot, because I had gotten home
one hour before they said she would've taken the train home,
at four in the morning.
My dad picked me up at three that morning.
So I thought, we were out at the same time.
I got home safe, and… she didn't.
Today, police are doing everything in their power
regarding the investigation of the murder,
after her body was discovered in the marshlands near Borup in Zealand.
According to police, a crime was committed,
but they are not currently disclosing any other details they may have.
There's a level of ruthlessness.
I mean, she has been murdered and then,
in cold blood, left, submerged underwater,
65 kilometers from Korsør.
It's those facts that tell us that the killer is extremely ruthless and
well, callous.
Whenever we'd go out to the clubs at night,
even the year after,
we would still be super scared that it was gonna happen to one of us.
And since the killer hadn't been caught, it could be anybody.
I was getting afraid.
Afraid of going out.
And I was so scared and afraid because I was woman.
I mean, my anxiety, it…
Yeah, it was just crazy,
and I start taking anti-anxiety medication to try and calm me down.
One thing we don't say out loud to each other is,
"There's a killer among us."
That sentence…
That's the first time I've said it.
The thought is so incredibly horrible,
we can't say it out loud.
It also raises a lot of new questions for the public,
What new leads do they think they have,
and what evidence did they find
where the body was found at Regnemark Hill?
Where are the police going to focus their efforts now?
EIGHT MONTHS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE 17-YEAR-OLD
Police have been searching for leads in this murder case following a tip.
The forensics team was digging at Motala Road,
and, according to a Korsør newspaper, they were looking for the girl's handbag,
which was allegedly buried there.
Motala Road is… a residential part of town,
that unfortunately was labelled a ghetto at some point.
They have a lot of issues there.
When the police announced that they were going to focus the investigation
on Motala Road,
it actually made a lot of sense
because she would've had to walk right through that area on her way home,
and also because it's a…
it's just kind of a tough area.
I personally wouldn't wanna walk through there.
Several residents there had heard some odd noises that morning
and had also seen some boys running from the Kodak Path over to Motala Road.
One of the residents that we talked to on the first day, I think,
had heard, around four in the morning, some younger people shouting,
"Did we just do that?"
And then they ran up Motala Road.
Well, I tell you, I woke up because I heard a woman screaming.
VOICE OF A RESIDENT
But then I also heard what sounded like, to me,
more than just one man talking, when that woman screamed.
Whenever we gathered for a search that started at Comwell Hotel,
some of the boys from Motala Road would pay us a visit.
I remember one of the young boys really early on saying,
"Relax. Don't you get it? She's been killed."
And we weren't even thinking about that at the time.
They would just sort of yell at us.
They wanted to know why we were in Korsør,
yelling at us to get the hell out.
And that just made me think, "What are you afraid I'll find?"
Motala Road was definitely a possibility.
According to the investigator, no new leads were found.
We haven't found anything relevant to this investigation.
DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT
First, there was the old man in Korsør that was under suspicion.
Then it was the immigrant boys on Motala Road.
So there just ends up being these classically cliché kind of ideas,
that we all have, of what a killer looks like.
I had a new job in Bilka
and had just moved back into my parents' house in Vemmelev
because I'd broken up with my ex-boyfriend.
And I met Nichlas shortly after that.
I thought he was good looking,
and I could see he had really muscular arms.
I thought he had nice hair and everything, you know?
He was my type,
and after maybe two or three weeks, we were actually dating.
When I first met Nichlas,
he told me about this group of friends that he used to hang out with.
But then when Nichlas got divorced,
he and two of the friends in the group drifted apart.
So then it was just Philip and Nichlas.
He lived with his best friend.
And so when we started hanging at his house more, I met Philip.
They were more like brothers than friends.
They had travelled together, they went to high school together.
They'd stay up all night playing poker,
and partied together when they were younger.
So I mentioned that it might be time for me to find my own place,
or maybe we could figure something else out,
because I was kind of getting tired of living with my parents.
But I was over at Nichlas's place so much
that I thought maybe we should get a place together.
They had a big house.
But it was so empty.
There were no decorations, no plants or…
It looked like… two guys lived there, two friends.
When I moved in, I was pretty curious about Philip.
I felt like I knew Nichlas pretty well, now that we'd been dating for bit,
so I was looking forward to getting to know Philip better.
What the fuck?
I wanted to be his friend and kinda show him that he could trust me.
I'd heard he'd never had a girlfriend and hadn't dated either, I think.
So I thought it might be fun to make it my mission
to try and help him find a girlfriend. Maybe he wasn't good at it.
But he didn't want it.
I mean, he didn't need it. He just wasn't interested.
ELEVEN MONTHS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE 17-YEAR-OLD
Until June 2017, the case had grown cold,
leaving everyone still wanting answers, and hoping the case would get solved.
And over those six months, it was extremely dark
and extremely painful for the family,
and for everyone that had been pouring their hearts and souls into the search.
And they got nothing. There were no leads.
The police were completely silent until June 2017.
Police received a series of tips today
in the murder case of the 17-year-old girl from Korsør.
These new tips come after the police released a video
and some photos from Korsør train station.
Then, out of the blue,
the police decided to release a reconstruction of CCTV footage.
This reconstruction shows that there is a vehicle
that is leaving the train station at 4:07 in the morning,
which is around the time when she would've been there.
The train station's camera was focused on the stairs
down to the platform and not on the parking lot,
which is barely visible in the picture.
The recording hasn't been of much use to us due to the poor quality of it.
There's no movement in the entire window section here.
Only in a fraction of it.
Maybe around one percent of the video shows any movement.
The video was sent abroad to be reviewed by experts.
And from this footage,
this one expert was able to assess the types of cars we might be looking at.
Then the police acquired each type of car singled out by the expert,
and they drove them in the same route as the vehicle on July 10th, 2016
with the same lighting conditions as there were at 4:00 a.m.
The police announced today that the car, in all likelihood,
is a light-colored Hyundai i30.
It turns out that the police contacted more than 2,000 owners
of this particular model
living in the vicinity of Korsør, on Zealand, on Funen, and in Jutland.
Everyone that owns this car is a person of interest.
I don't think any kids have been allowed to walk home alone
from the train station since this happened.
Including my own.
There's a killer on the loose, and who knows if he'll strike again?
You were afraid to go out. Your kids, even older ones,
definitely shouldn't be walking out there.
Under no circumstances should they be near the train station.
No one would stand there, waiting… alone.
Whenever I've talked to my confirmation students about evil,
I would almost always end up referencing a particular movie
or a book or something.
All of a sudden, that lecture strikes a deeper chord because it's about us.
Over summer, police were looking for witnesses
who'd seen a light Hyundai at Korsør train station.
But, in spite of talking to multiple people,
police aren't any closer to a breakthrough.
We threw a Halloween-themed party for my birthday,
and Philip helped us decorate.
And because he was living there too,
I could tell he wanted it to be a good party.
There were a lot of people. Like 20, maybe.
DAMN WELL DONE, PHILIP
Philip was always there whenever we had friends over
for, like, a game night or dinner party,
or when we went out to a bar,
or threw any kind of big party, or had Christmas lunches.
I'd dream about the day we'd live on our own. Me and Nichlas.
WHO'S ON NETFLIX?
PHILIP - KRUSE
Is it you, Philip? Is it you, Nichlas?
The three of us spent so much time together during that time,
and I felt it was long overdue. I was ready for us to live on our own,
but Nichlas was just not as… affected by it, I guess.
I'm not exactly sure when it was, it might've been in the spring,
when he asked us if we wanted to go look at houses with him.
I was so surprised, like, "Oh, he wants me to come along?"
I was happy that he asked me.
I remember that we went to look at two houses.
One was very far out, in the middle of nowhere.
And a wood-paneled house, which I thought was a little weird,
because I knew the house would need a lot of upkeep.
The house was in Svenstrup, on Swallow Street.
And all of a sudden, I see on Facebook that he bought that house.
GETTING THE KEYS ON JULY 1ST
And I do remember asking him if he wanted any help moving.
He just said no.
It felt really, really good after he moved out.
It was such a huge relief. Finally, it was just the two of us.
TWO YEARS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE 17-YEAR-OLD
Police still haven't solved the murder.
People are frustrated on behalf of the family.
Everybody's hoping for closure in this tragic case.
THREE YEARS AFTER DISAPPEARANCE
People are questioning the investigation.
The fact is, the police have admitted to me…
LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE VICTIM
…that parts of the investigation didn't go as planned.
FOUR YEARS AFTER DISAPPEARANCE
Police have again searched the lake where the 17-year-old was found.
This girl's murder must be solved.
South Zealand and Lolland-Falster Police
now acknowledge that, in the beginning,
certain investigative steps were not taken.
FIVE YEARS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE
Today marks five years since the 17-year-old local girl disappeared
in Korsør.
The murder is still unsolved. The killer has not been found.
Is it fair to say your investigation has failed?
We've worked hard on it,
but it just hasn't led us to finding the killer.
SIX YEARS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE 17-YEAR-OLD
We found out that we were pregnant.
Both of us were really excited to surprise Philip,
and tell him that we were going to have a baby.
Um…
So on November 8th,
Nichlas invited him over to the house.
We wanted to tell him the big news.
So I put a baby onesie on the table
because I thought it would be fun and cute.
He goes over and sits down on the couch and he doesn't notice the onesie at all,
so I ask him, "Do you notice anything?"
And I kind of point over to the table, and he goes and picks it up,
kinda looking at it like, "What is this?"
We say, "We're having a baby."
He just goes, "Oh? Well… Yeah. Okay."
So, yeah.
It was like he wasn't capable of processing what it meant,
and so we just ended up watching TV and…
It was all fine and whatever,
but he didn't seem like he was happy for us
and didn't say congratulations or anything.
I mean, like, at least give us a hug or say, "I'm so happy for you."
It was just awkward.
THREE DAYS EARLIER
The first time I saw him was November 5th.
I was by the road, and I was trimming trees.
VOICE OF WITNESS ONE
Suddenly someone came walking down the road.
They were wearing a long, black coat,
with the hood pulled way up over their head,
with boots on.
And I thought it was strange because it wasn't raining or anything.
I kept watching him, and he just walked on by,
but then he did stop all of a sudden, and he looked over at a house nearby.
He didn't stop for very long,
and then he kept on going down Lundhøj Road.
A little bit later, I'm not exactly sure how long,
maybe 20 minutes or something,
he came out of the woods and walked to the parking lot.
There was a black car parked there.
The next day, I was there trimming again,
because I wasn't done yet,
and all of a sudden he came walking past again.
I thought, "Now, this is just weird."
There's a path over in the forest there,
and that path goes from the boarding school
all the way through the forest.
BOARDING SCHOOL
On November 8th, 2022,
a 15-year-old girl is out going on a walk near Sorø, West Zealand.
She attends a gymnastics boarding school,
which is located in a rural area,
and she's out walking down some country roads
and around some of the open fields.
The young girl is dealing with feeling homesick
and usually gives her parents a call at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m.
Help!
DAD
On Tuesday, 8th November…
VOICE OF WITNESS TWO
…I'm on my way home, and I'm driving down Lundhøj Road,
and I see this black hatchback parked at my hedge.
I've lived there for 25 years,
and I've never seen anybody parked by my hedge like that before.
So I just drive up my driveway, and when I do that,
the lights on my carport automatically turn on.
I park the car at the carport, and I'm trying to just forget about the car
and I go inside.
But then I end up saying to my girlfriend, "It's weird."
"There's a car parked by the hedge."
When the carport lights turn off,
he tells the girl to count to a hundred, and then he runs off.
Then the girl runs back to the school.
About an hour went by,
and all of a sudden, there's a knock on the door.
It's the police.
They ask me if I've seen a man wearing a long coat.
We haven't seen anybody, but I tell them, "I did see this car by the road."
Then I tell them about all the cameras that I've got.
Apparently, the police had received a report of an assault at ten after six,
and you can see on my surveillance footage
that this car stopped at the hedge there at six minutes after six.
It's there for a bit with the brake lights on,
then they turn off.
From the time that I…
that I get out of my car and walk out of the view of the camera,
about a minute goes by.
And that's when you see the brake lights on the parked car turn back on.
Now, we can assume the car pulled up and parked there for 16 minutes
and also that someone left the car and then came back to it.
A boarding-school student was attacked last night and threatened with a knife.
The attack happened just after 6:00 p.m.
when a man threatened her with a knife and forced her to the ground.
The police take this very seriously,
so they go to the school to speak with the girl and her principal.
The school has implemented emergency plan of action,
and all students will have access to counseling.
This case gets very little, in fact, almost no attention,
from the media or anywhere else, for that matter.
It's simply perceived as just one more meaningless attempted rape.
SEVEN YEARS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE 17-YEAR-OLD
On April 15th, 2023,
a 13-year-old girl is out on her paper route,
and she's doing her delivery out in Kirkerup,
which is a small town on West Zealand.
After her last newspaper, the girl heads home,
but she never makes it there.
Her parents are obviously concerned,
and so they try to call their daughter on her phone quite a few times,
but she doesn't answer.
The phone just rings and then goes to her voicemail.
And they're worried now.
And so now they use their "Find my iPhone" app
and have located her phone.
South Zealand and Lolland-Falster Police
have started an intense search for a 13-year-old girl.
The police suspect that the matter may be a criminal one.
In April 2023, I read that… this was also on Facebook,
that a 13-year-old girl had disappeared.
I think we instantly had a bad feeling about it
because no 13-year-old girl would leave their bicycle,
and definitely not leave their phone behind like that.
"This can't happen. She's gotta be found before it's too late."
This incident really caught my attention
because the girl has gone missing in an area that is really close to Korsør.
They've got helicopters in the air, K9 units are on the ground,
and they call for backup from local police departments
and the armed forces.
South Zealand and Lolland-Falster Police have all the gears in motion,
looking for this girl.
We take this matter very seriously.
We've got a lot of manpower on this case,
and we're working hard to cover as much as we can so we can find her.
But think about this.
They are the same police department investigating the other girl's case,
so now they wanna show the public
that any lead or piece of evidence is important.
If you have any footage from dashcam or CCTV,
please take a close look at what you have.
And it was very clear then that they'd learned something
from the harsh judgment of the other girl's case
where they had failed to collect all the surveillance footage.
That evening, various surveillance materials
are given to the police by the locals.
KIRKERUP ROAD SURVEILLANCE SD CARD
Police work round the clock from Saturday to Sunday,
and the girl's still missing.
ON-SITE COMMANDER, POLICE
Everyone in Denmark held their collective breath
for those 24 hours, not knowing what had happened.
Police cordoned off a property near where the girl disappeared.
At some point, it's announced that they're digging in an area of the forest
that's close to somebody's property.
At the property, the police dogs caught the scent of fresh blood.
The house is located just minutes away from where the girl disappeared.
It turns out that the blood comes from freshly slaughtered chickens,
and that means that the police are back to square one.
At some point, the police call a press conference,
but there isn't any prior announcement of what the conference is about.
It was just so unsettling.
I was definitely thinking,
"Oh, not again."
She'd been missing now for 27 hours.
And with girls, boys, children who are missing for that long,
it's very rare that it ends well.
But when an officer manages to work through all the surveillance footage,
he discovers something.
I've got a quick announcement.
We have to postpone the press conference for 15 minutes.
There's been a new development.
When the police postponed the press conference,
I immediately thought they'd found her, and it wasn't good.
It takes me right back to the other girl's case.
I did think about it a lot,
and I couldn't help checking my phone all the time
and hoping she'd be found alive and okay.
There are cars coming with sirens and lights.
Both unmarked cars and regular police cars
arriving at high speed.
I can see one more coming now, so we'll just step aside.
I'm so afraid. I fear the worst.
I'm afraid that somebody's done something to her, and she's no longer with us.
That she's dead. We knew nothing.
We only knew that something was going to be announced
at the press conference.
Then we'll know if she's alive.
Hello, everyone.
We've called a press conference, and initially, we had a different agenda
than what I'm about to announce to you now.
A few minutes ago, we were able to report
that we've found her alive.
We have all had a tremendous workload
over the last 36 hours,
and so we're kind of emotional.
I thought, "Oh, that's good news."
I was so afraid he was gonna say the opposite.
Hearing that she was okay really affected me.
I definitely shed some happy tears.
Thank God.
I got goosebumps, and I was…
I mean, I was honestly so surprised that they were able to find her alive.
I just start crying because I'm so happy.
I thought, "Phew, we don't have to do this all over again."
We've arrested a 32-year-old man,
and so that is the reason that this press conference is being held
with a slightly different tone.
RELIEF FOR RESIDENTS
Absolutely the best possible news for people in this town.
So it was a very dramatic and eventful day for everyone here,
but it ended with many happy faces.
Well done.
Well done, police. You were swift this time.
What the police officer discovered when he checked the surveillance footage
was that the owner of the black Hyundai that drove by
a few seconds before the girl passed
had owned a light Hyundai i30 five years earlier
and had been questioned by police in connection with the other girl's case.
So two officers in full gear had been dispatched to the owner's home address,
right before the press conference.
Police are working at a rapid pace.
We're standing at a police cordon in Svenstrup, a small town near Korsør.
In the background of the video,
I can see there's a street sign that says Swallow Street.
Police have cordoned off the area while they check out a property.
That's all the information we have.
We are completely caught up in what's going on in Svenstrup
because it's not that far from where we are in Vemmelev.
I notice that Nichlas is really tense
and he's just sitting there, texting on his phone,
and I can tell that he's really upset about something,
so I ask him, "Who are you talking to? You know they found the girl."
Nichlas really wants to know what's going on out there.
You know, like, why are there so many police cars?
So he calls Philip.
He's sitting on the couch, and I go over,
and I'm standing there looking down at him, and…
he calls, but there's no answer.
It just goes to voicemail.
On Facebook, TV2, and also on DR1,
they show an image of his car
with the plates blurred out.
And I yell at Nichlas,
"It's Philip!"
I was just completely stunned.
My mind is racing, my heart's pounding,
my stomach is in knots,
and I don't really know what to do with myself.
I just keep hoping that Philip isn't the one that did this.
What's going on? I mean, and why?
None of it made any sense.
Why would he do that?
I just felt so betrayed by him
because I thought I knew him really well.
And I never thought I'd ever know somebody
that the whole entire country would now know
as somebody that kidnaps girls.
What makes you do something like that?
So I tell Nichlas that I need to take a shower
to get my mind off this.
Because it's so…
it's so… crazy, and I didn't know what I should do.
I remember standing there in the shower, just crying.
It didn't make any sense.
It just… I couldn't wrap my head around the possibility that Nichlas's best friend
might have kidnapped a 13-year-old girl.
POLICE PRESS CONFERENCE
Police are to hold a press conference
regarding the investigation of the 32-year-old.
We've not at present been told what exactly they'll be talking about.
This comes out of the blue. It's important to stress that.
The police just suddenly called this press conference.
Due to the nature of this case and its similarities,
we made the decision to investigate
whether the person charged for the current kidnapping
could in any way be connected to any unsolved cases.
And based on the evidence found,
the police have charged the 32-year-old with the kidnapping, rape, and murder
of the young woman from Korsør.
My world just fell apart.
He will also be charged with making threats using a knife,
attempted kidnapping,
and attempted rape of a young woman in November 2022 in Sorø.
It was surreal, and I kept thinking that, "There's gotta be something else to this."
"What's the real reason here?"
"Someone must've made him do it."
Could there be more arrests in connection with the case?
We can't rule out the possibility of an accomplice.
SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
Earlier, you stated there might be an accomplice.
-Are you ruling that out, or…? -We can't comment on that.
Did he do it alone? Was there an accomplice?
And if there was, who? He doesn't know that many people.
He's only got one friend, and that's Nichlas.
Yeah…
South Zealand and Lolland-Falster Police have been confronted with the criticism
raised against them in the documentary.
They have declined to be interviewed.
Philip Patrick Westh has been informed by his lawyer of the criticism
raised against him in the documentary.
He has made no comments. documentary.