THE SERIES CONTAINS RECONSTRUCTIONS.
THE VICTIMS IN THE CASES MENTIONED HAVE BEEN ANONYMIZED.
Yeah.
I really don't know how to explain it. It's just…
It's really hard to talk about.
I've spent more time with Philip
than I have with anyone else in my adult life.
The police have charged
the 32-year-old with the kidnapping,
rape, murder…
and making threats using a knife,
attempted kidnapping,
and attempted rape of a young woman in Sorø.
And with the kidnapping and rape of a 13-year-old girl from Kirkerup.
Earlier, you stated there might be an accomplice.
-Are you ruling that out, or…? -We can't comment on that.
A FRIEND, A MURDERER
Missing for over 24 hours,
the 13-year-old girl was found alive today.
A 32-year-old man was arrested in connection to the crime.
My partner is sitting on the couch.
She holds her phone up.
"It's Philip," she shouts at me.
I can't really…
I don't get what's happening. It's extremely surreal.
I'm at a total loss. My heart's pounding, and I feel completely disoriented.
We go to the psychiatric emergency room in Slagelse.
They say, "Well, we can give you benzodiazepine."
It's a very strong antianxiety drug.
So I take a pill that night, but it does nothing.
I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
So then I decide that I'll call the police.
I start by telling them that I've been best friends
with the man they've arrested for 15 years
and that I also know the girl.
And the women gets quiet.
I was the girl's teacher. I was actually her homeroom teacher.
The police never actually confirmed that there was only one killer,
and they also never said that there was more than one
in the other girl's case.
When they were interviewing me,
one of their questions really shocked me.
It was about Nichlas.
They asked if I knew what he was doing that weekend.
And then later, when I was on the phone,
talking with my friend, who's Nichlas's ex-girlfriend,
I was really, really surprised to hear that they had also asked her
what Nichlas had been doing that weekend,
if they'd been together,
and if they spent the night together on the night of July 10th, 2016.
FIFTEEN YEARS BEFORE PHILIP'S ARREST
I first met Philip in August 2008.
We both had started a high-school program
called the Higher Commercial Examination Program.
I saw him sitting by himself,
and he was sitting there, kind of hunched over.
And he had this hat… this baseball hat covering his eyes.
He didn't look very put together.
Some of his teeth looked like they were about to fall out,
they were really discolored.
Right away, he was bullied by classmates.
He was also bullied by our teacher.
Like, if you were late for class or didn't answer a question right,
he'd say, "Look at you."
"Congratulations, you just pulled a Philip."
He didn't defend himself.
It just seemed to me like he tried to be… to take it in his stride,
but as I got to know him better I could tell
it wasn't rolling off his back as much as he thought it was.
When we started high school, I was 16 and he was 17.
I came straight from ninth grade in public school,
but he ended up having a rough year in tenth grade.
He went into rehab that year because he had to deal with some addictions.
Our friendship really took off when I found out that he played poker.
And then, slowly but surely, I was totally drawn into the world of poker.
After high school, we continued to be friends and hang out.
In 2013 or 2014,
the city agreed to pay for him to get new teeth,
and I mean a complete set of teeth.
It was like night and day,
how much his confidence and overall self-worth
had dramatically improved.
We partied Fridays, sometimes Saturday.
He couldn't hold his booze, so he'd end up throwing up,
and that happened almost every time we drank.
This was after high school, too, actually.
I guess I always felt some sort of obligation to protect him.
We're both brought in for questioning,
and then they wanted Nichlas's phone, so they came here to get it.
They needed some other stuff, like timelines and texts.
I remember he was kind of out of it,
and confused why no one else had to give up their phone.
Why just him?
It's 10:34 a.m., questioning Nichlas Kruse.
As I'm sitting there in front of three investigators,
the woman in the middle, it feels like she doesn't blink once.
She's just staring at me really intensely,
and I actually chose not to look at her that much.
I just focused on the questions from the other two.
And then suddenly, this woman opens a folder
and she pulls out this picture.
In this picture, there's a green mattress on a floor,
and on top of that is this Velcro… sex toy,
that's like some sort of fixation thing. I don't even know what you'd call it.
They ask me what I know about it,
and, "No, I've never seen it before. There's no one…"
They ask if I'm sure.
"Yes, I'm sure."
And I say, "Well, you're showing it to me
because my DNA is on it."
"Why would you say that?"
"What other reason is there to show me that?"
"Well, yes, we've found your DNA on it."
And then…
I didn't really… have a good explanation for it.
I mean, I had so many things going through my head, so many questions.
What have I accidentally touched, or what exactly happened?
Did Philip actually ask me to move something on purpose,
and that's why my DNA is on there?
When I was 23 years old, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do.
I made a living playing professional poker,
but I was very aware that poker wasn't a career
I should commit to for the next 30, 40, 50 years,
so I was thinking about what I wanted to do.
But I didn't get to… think too much about it
because I found out that
I had this tumor.
Philip would go out of his way and sometimes take a day off of work,
so that he could drive me to my scans, or checkups, or surgeries, um…
I don't think he ever said no.
It was really important for him.
My girlfriend at the time and I got married
in Vemmelev church on August 24th, 2019.
I, of course, ended up choosing Philip as my best man.
I'm an only child, I don't have any siblings,
but, in my mind, Philip and I were as good as brothers.
As soon as I leave the interrogation room, the first thought I have is,
"Do I need to get a lawyer? Am I just overthinking this?"
"Are they suspicious of me?" Stuff like that.
I was scared.
I was so scared, I couldn't drive home.
My mother-in-law had to come pick me up because I was shaking so much.
So I was really happy when one of the detectives called
and said they were done with their investigation.
It seems like a crazy coincidence
that the best friend, that he had been roommates with,
had also been the teacher of one of the victims.
That just seems to be… way too much of a coincidence,
so I totally get it if people made that connection.
I went from being a completely normal, boring Dane
to all of a sudden being dragged into all of this,
and I had to use my sick leave so I could get away from everything.
ONE YEAR AFTER PHILIP'S ARREST
The trial began against a man from Korsør
charged with horrific crimes against young women.
The 32-year-old pleads partially guilty
to the kidnapping and rape of the 13-year-old girl
but pleads not guilty to the new charges against him.
A long line of people have been waiting outside the courthouse in Næstved
since early this morning, hoping to get a seat for the trial.
JOURNALISTS
Media from all over Denmark is there.
There was media from Germany, from Sweden, and from Norway.
They all want to know how this trial is going to end.
There's electricity in the air because everybody knows
that what's about happen has been long overdue for this community.
There's the courtroom,
where Philip will be sitting during the trial,
but two additional courtrooms have also been opened up
for anybody who wants to follow the proceedings and watch via video link.
So there's an insane amount of attention on this trial.
His family's sitting in the back.
The relatives of the 17-year-old are there,
along with the relatives of the 13-year-old girl
and the relatives of the 15-year-old girl.
There is so much emotion in that courtroom.
You can really feel it in there.
The tension in the air is palpable.
It's one thing to take the stand,
but it's also the first time I see Philip in… like 14 months or so.
The last time I saw him was the day he turned 32.
We went to a restaurant in Slagelse together,
and I paid for him, as a kind of birthday present.
Two friends having dinner at a restaurant.
I get to the courthouse and when I walk in,
I'm taken to this waiting room next door,
and I just see the clock up there going, "Tick, tock, tick, tock…"
And I think it was exactly 9:30 a.m., on the dot,
that the door for the waiting room opens and Thea Høst, the prosecutor, says,
"Nichlas, come with me."
And so I enter this room, and I'm keeping my eyes down,
because I don't want a bunch of people to recognize me.
And then I look at Philip, and when I looked into his eyes…
I didn't see guilt.
I didn't see spite.
I didn't see shame.
But to me, it seemed like
he was upset that he'd been caught.
The case against Philip Westh is led by two female prosecutors,
and special counsel Susanne Bluhm starts the proceedings.
EXTRACT FROM COURT RECORDS
You were best friends. What was Philip's relationship with women?
It's not something he talked about or seemed interested in.
If it came up, he'd say he didn't have time for it.
I thought he was asexual.
Is it true that you had plans to see Philip
during the weekend of April 15th and 16th of 2023?
We had loose plans,
but I'm not sure if we're gonna hang out or not,
so I call him, and he says he's gonna visit his sister
who lives in Farum.
And that's normal. He does it a lot. He says he does that a lot.
Is it correct that you also lived together
from December 2019 to April 2021?
Yes.
Do you know the 13-year-old girl?
Yes. I've been her homeroom teacher.
Did you ever mention her to Philip?
I have some class photos on the wall in my office
at the back of my house.
I have five or six class photos hanging there.
I wonder if he'd been in there, looking at them, getting ideas.
On my way in, I keep my eyes focused all the way across
to the chair I'm supposed to sit in in the middle of the room.
I deliberately avoid looking at Philip.
And from out of the corner of my eye,
I can see that he's looking at me while the prosecutors question me.
It was clear as day that these friends,
about to testify against their best friend,
found it really, really difficult.
It was an incredibly uncomfortable situation.
Not only due to the charges brought against him
but also because the image they had of their best friend
was irreparably shattered.
As the prosecution starts questioning Philip Westh,
the intention is also to get a clear understanding
of what kind of a person he is and what kind of criminal.
And it becomes very clear to everyone
that the kind of criminal we're dealing with
is a very systematic one.
When he's arrested, the police find a gag ball,
a bat with spikes, and a whip,
zip ties, rubber sheets, and diapers.
Police secure 147 items that are deemed relevant to the investigation.
We were told police found a list of women's names
on his computer. Can you say more?
Yeah, they say it's a list that he called the "kidnapping planning list".
HOLIDAY 2014
KIDNAPPING
These lists they found contain specific girls' names,
and next to their names, their ages, addresses, and bus schedules.
According to the prosecution, these are detailed plans
for how he intended to rape these girls, kidnap these girls,
and harm them.
When asked about it, he said it was just part of his fantasies,
but it paints a picture of a man
who has, prior to the assaults that he's accused of,
spent a really, really long time planning it all.
It also comes to light that the police seized two short stories
written by Philip Westh while in custody.
Seventy handwritten pages with a first-person narrator.
One short story is called I had been looking forward to this day,
and the other is called It had been a quite extraordinary day.
The stories are about a man who kidnaps young girls,
rapes them, keeps them locked up,
and sadistically abuses them in various ways.
Regarding the case involving the 13-year-old girl,
the prosecution believes that the accused intentionally hit the 13-year-old
from behind with his car.
It is the prosecution's belief that the accused
then removed the girl's shoes, socks, pants, and underwear,
forced her into his car,
drove around with her in the trunk of the car,
brought her to an address in Sorø
and then to his home in Korsør.
The accused prevented her from leaving.
Several times…
Many horrible details were heard in court today.
The indictment is ten pages long
and contains the details
of what the prosecution believes happened to the 13-year-old girl
while she was held captive.
A recorded statement from the girl who, according to the indictment,
was a victim of kidnapping, rape, and attempted murder,
was heard in court.
Due to the girl's age, her statement was prerecorded
and was listened to behind closed doors.
The young girl explained in her recorded statement
how the accused left her there
and took off shortly before the police arrived.
It's not something a normal human being does to somebody,
especially not to a young girl.
It's so crazy and surreal to listen to.
And the fact that it's a friend
that did these unimaginable things to these girls,
that did such horrible things to them, is just… Yeah.
Today's court session dealt with the assault
on a boarding-school girl in Sorø who was threatened with a knife.
We already know that there's surveillance footage,
showing what the prosecution believes to be the accused's car
on a road close to the boarding school,
where the car is then parked for a while.
Regarding the charge of assault on the 15-year-old,
the prosecution believes that the accused grabbed her from behind
and forced her to the ground…
…sat astride on her back
while hitting her on the body with his fists several times,
tied her hands up with zip ties, and threatened her with a knife.
He then got her up and led her across the field
with the intention of getting her into his car, parked nearby.
Then holding her captive for a period of time
and having intercourse with her without her consent.
The attempt failed, as the 15-year-old cried for help.
The accused abandoned his plans.
Instead, he placed her on the ground and told her to count to 100,
while he fled the scene.
It's completely evil.
Nobody should ever be put through something like that.
Yeah. It's really scary.
It used to be normal for women to walk home alone at night in Korsør.
Witness statements were heard in court today in the Kirkerup case
from the girl's friends
who were with her the night she disappeared.
The prosecution believes
that the accused subjected the 17-year-old to prolonged confinement
near or close to Korsør train station.
All these thoughts about how he must have done it.
He was parked there,
and she said no to the taxi and started walking that way.
Maybe she listened to music with her earphones on,
texted on her phone or something like that.
And she was just walking, totally unaware,
and it was slowly getting lighter out.
And maybe he had a knife or something like that, and then he…
he got her into his car somehow.
He transported her to an unknown location, as of yet,
and then the accused killed the girl, presumably by means of asphyxiation,
by covering her nose and mouth with packing tape.
The accused disposed of the naked body in a lake in Regnemark Hill in Borup,
where it was discovered on December 24th, 2016.
It's just so surreal. I'm starting to feel a little…
I'm seeing spots and feeling…
I feel like I'm gonna faint, actually. Could I have some…
I think need some sugar.
What does the psych evaluation say?
Well, it shows that he has some personality traits
that make it difficult for him
to play by the same set of societal rules as the rest of us.
He can also be impulsive, as well as aggressive,
and he has difficulty recognizing emotions.
The accused is not mentally ill,
and he was not mentally ill when the crimes were committed.
He suffers from schizoid and anti-social personality traits,
but no psychopathy per se.
The prosecutor explains that the schizoid personality disorder
means he's extremely good at keeping his two different personalities apart.
He can be both a good friend showing empathy,
and he can be this rapist and murderer.
July 10th, 2016, was the European Cup finals.
On July 9th, we're trying to figure out
how we were all going to watch this soccer match.
THE DAY BEFORE THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE 17-YEAR-OLD
PHILIP READY FOR SOCCER TOMORROW AT THE WHARF?
NICHLAS PICK US UP AT UNI AT 6:10 P.M.
AMANDA DID YOU CHECK THE WEATHER REPORT?
PHILIP NO?
IT'LL RAIN, GREAT
AMANDA WE HAVE A CAMP SITE IN BOESLUNDE
PHILIP I'M IN
Knowing everything I know now,
I kind of feel like I was just a pawn in his game.
That he used us for an alibi and…
It's weird he wanted to drive.
He never used to do that, but…
One thing I've thought about a lot,
it's actually one of the first things I told the police.
It was
that I may have been the first person to sit in that car after the girl.
And that's…
I think that's disgusting,
to think she probably had just been sitting there.
Where was she while we were…
were hanging out with her murderer?
Was she lying in the car?
Was she being held somewhere, fighting for her life?
Police determined that it's a suspicious death,
and there are clear indications
that the body has been submerged in the water for quite some time.
The body has been sent to the Department of Forensic Medicine
to determine the gender and cause of death.
On December 25th, Philip invited us to a party,
right after they announced a dead body had been found in Borup.
He knew who they'd found.
It's like he wanted to celebrate it.
And to think that
I was a part of how he chose to hang out that day.
It's hard to think about.
It'll never be okay.
There's Philip, who was my friend,
and Philip, the murderer.
They can't be the same person.
Are you going to sleep? Is your butt cold?
He's a monster.
On November 8th, 2022, he and I had plans to hang out,
but it just kept getting later and later and later.
TWENTY MINUTES AFTER THE ASSAULT ON THE 15-YEAR-OLD
PHILIP AM ON MY WAY
He texted me at 6:45 p.m. saying, "On my way,"
with a happy emoji, like nothing had happened.
And he got to our place around 7:05 p.m. or something.
How insane is it for him to actually show up at our house?
What would've happened if he…
if he had succeeded?
Would he have kept her in his trunk? Would he have canceled?
Was he gonna drop her off at his house? What would he have done?
You think all kinds of crazy things.
When he got to my house, he was acting different than usual.
He was a little off. He didn't congratulate us
when we told him that Kiri and I are expecting our first baby.
And then it started to make sense why he didn't seem to be
interested in that.
I just think it's so scary how good he was at hiding how so…
how callous and indifferent he was to other people.
ONE HOUR BEFORE THE ASSAULT ON THE 13-YEAR-OLD
NICHLAS: HI PHIL, I'LL BE ON THE COMPUTER AROUND 2 P.M. TODAY, DO YOU WANNA JOIN?
PHILIP NOT TODAY, SORRY.
ARE YOU RESEARCHING MORE GAMES OR WHAT?
TWO HOURS AFTER THE ASSAULT ON THE 13-YEAR-OLD
NICHLAS MAYBE IT WORKS BETTER FOR YOU TOMORROW?
MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED
SIX HOURS AFTER THE ASSAULT ON THE 13-YEAR-OLD
PHILIP: I'M SORRY. I'LL BE IN FARUM THE WHOLE WEEKEND
Once again, I'm so close to what he's doing.
And when he was arrested,
I was in my living room, thinking,
"But it's…"
I just started having all these flashbacks.
I'd been visiting a friend,
and Philip lived at my place at that point.
I called Philip and said something like,
"I'm going to the grocery store, so I'll be home in a little bit."
And he was fine with that,
but then I changed my mind, so I got home a half hour earlier.
I walked through the front door of my house,
heading back to our shared office.
So I went into the room,
and I could see that his computer was on.
And as I turn around, I could see he was on…
what I can only assume is a very, very strange porn site.
I'm thinking, "What? What? Okay…"
And I only look for a split second, then I look away.
The police seized his computer,
and on it, they found child pornography.
More than 3,500 images,
over 500 videos,
with a total runtime of more than a hundred hours.
There is an overwhelming amount of material.
Some of it is organized in subfolders called Hanging and Drowning and Snuff,
which is death porn,
necrophilia porn and so on.
Then there was a time when I…
I was cleaning our house, and he asked me if I'd been in his room.
"Yeah, I've cleaned in there."
"Oh. Did… Did… Did you go under my bed?"
"Um, no, I didn't. Why?"
He just goes, "Never mind."
So, yeah, I'm absolutely convinced
that he had some really nasty stuff in my house, unfortunately.
It also comes to light that the police found a suitcase
that contained a funnel, a bottle of vodka, and a few other items.
And among those other items is a roll of tape,
which the police find very interesting.
After finding the girl's body in Regnemark Hill,
they discovered that her head had been wrapped in clear packing tape.
When forensics examined the roll of tape,
the girl's DNA was found on it.
The prosecution finds this tape extremely incriminating.
When she asked Philip Westh why this roll of tape was in his home,
he then explained that he must have found it one day
while he was out walking.
Today, we'll hear the verdict in the infamous Kirkerup case
where a 33-year-old man stands accused of a series of horrific crimes
against three teenage girls.
The day of the verdict is just a really rough day,
so I…
I really feel like I need to be with… somebody who I can relate to.
So that's why Nichlas and I decide to meet there,
so we can support each other.
The day of the verdict,
I'm standing with Amanda, and we are outside the courthouse,
and we're just waiting to see what's going to happen next.
And I just… I look over at her, and then I look around, and I'm thinking,
"Now, it's really real."
ORIGINAL AUDIO
The accused, Philip Patrick Westh, is sentenced to life imprisonment.
I hope you burn in hell, you psycho!
The stepdad of the 13-year-old got up and yelled,
"I hope you burn in hell, you psycho!" Or something to that effect.
And people just started clapping.
There were a lot of emotions in court today.
The killer we've been afraid of for so many years now
is finally being held accountable.
The relief doesn't outweigh the grief.
The grief is too profound.
That was my friend.
I actually thought I'd mentally prepared myself for this,
but I really hadn't.
Even though I was right at the courthouse,
and I can see it and read
that he'll be one of the few people in Denmark
to receive the maximum sentence,
it still doesn't sink in.
The fact that the crimes that were committed
were carried out with extreme ruthlessness
was a big part of the reason
why they unanimously sentenced him to life in prison.
Relief has hit the streets.
Fantastic. It's the best thing that could happen.
It feels perfect.
I think it's absolutely the right decision. Finally.
We can relax now.
Hopefully,
this means now that we can all feel a little more safe.
Letting our children go out at night
and to walk the path again.
It means that when you experience something as basic as anger,
there's some relief you get
in being able to direct that anger at someone,
which allows you to let go of it finally.
And then you're able to focus your life elsewhere.
After the verdict,
I just felt the need to delete everything on my account and his.
Everything I could delete on his Facebook profile with my name.
To remove any sign of our relationship.
REMOVE TAG
YOU WILL NO LONGER BE TAGGED IN THIS PHOTO
Even if it's really hard.
I also feel like I'm erasing our memories, but…
but without them, who am I?
It feels like I'm… closing a chapter,
and that I'm saying goodbye forever to…
to my friend.
PHILIP WESTH
REMOVE PHILIP AS A FRIEND?
After the verdict, I was going to the Slagelse Festival
with my really good friend.
We were having a great time.
It's the first time that I don't feel that I'm haunted anymore
by this killer that made me so afraid to walk alone at night.
And so, that night, I just walk home.
Even though it's midnight.
I felt so free.
It's not like I can just erase those 15 years of my life
because it's a part of me.
I've thought a lot about whether I wanted to visit him or not.
But then suddenly, the mail comes.
And I… I bring it inside and look through it.
There's a newspaper and some other stuff, and then I see that
there's a letter, and it's sent from prison.
I see it's handwritten.
And I think,
"Okay, I guess Philip has sent me a letter from prison."
"Hi, Kruse."
"Sorry I didn't write this letter to you sooner."
"I know you must be shocked by this whole thing
and that you probably have a lot of questions
and feel confused,
and if I could or was allowed, I'd really like to answer them."
"I wish you both the very best with your little family,
and it makes me sad that I won't ever see you as parents."
"If you feel like it, I'd like it a lot if I could see a picture of you,
or all three of you, when the time comes."
"I completely understand that you condemn the facts of this case,
but I do hope that you can overlook this really stupid action…
and remember me for who I also am."
"I hope I haven't completely fucked up the 15 years of friendship that we've had,
and that you still will give me a chance to try and fix it."
"I've included an application form you can submit
that will grant you visiting rights."
"Until then, I wish you well."
"Merry Christmas. Philip."
Well…
I think this letter just goes to show you how detached from reality he is.
But obviously, it…
…it's still really emotional for me
in so many ways because…
It doesn't matter how you look at it, he was the…
the best friend I probably ever had.
There is a part of me that, despite feeling the way that I do,
I still would like to spend an hour with him
and ask all the questions I could think of.
The first question that I'd ask, it would be,
"Were… were we ever really friends?"
"Was I just a pawn in your game, and were you just using me?"
"When did all of these… extreme sexual tendencies and fantasies start?"
"Did you commit any other crimes, other than the ones we know about?"
"Do you realize how abnormal this is?"
I mean, there are so many things that, on one hand,
I'd just like to forget about it,
but then, on the other,
every time I think about it, my head explodes with questions.
I've started taking medications I've never taken before.
I… I have nightmares and panic attacks
and crippling anxiety. I've started to…
I guess I just question a lot of really basic stuff,
and even questioning my own existence and my…
my lack of judgment with a lot of things.
Because I keep wondering… could I have noticed?
Why didn't I notice?
Maybe if I had looked under the bed or had talked more with him about his…
his sexuality or his love life,
would I have noticed something then?
"To Philip."
"I have written this letter many times,
and I've deleted it at least as many times."
"On the days where I've found it to be really hard,
they're filled with hate, contempt, and condemnation,
and with doubt and despair."
"And the next day, when my mood was better,
I'd be filled with questions and confusion,
and questioning whether our friendship was real,
and what the past 15 years meant to you."
"I've thought about our friendship over and over."
"I've revisited our memories, conversations and experiences."
"The minute we met, we had a chemistry that was good and fun."
"You always had my back, and I always had yours."
"And because we were so close, I can't help feeling responsible
and that I'm also somehow to blame for this."
"Your guilt has become my shame."
"Logically, it makes no sense, but regardless, that's how I feel."
"And the only way to stop the shame is to distance myself,
and therefore our friendship is over."
"It hurts, but it's necessary for me and for my family."
"Goodbye. Nichlas."
When you're faced with such a monstrous, pure evil,
it'll change you.
I know it changed me.
I'm not quite sure I know how.
None of us do, not yet.
It'll take all of us some time.
You shouldn't just forget it.
The right thing isn't to just say that we should just move on.
I think it's right to say we're…
We're living a changed life…
…with love and joy.
But also with sorrow.
Philip Patrick Westh has been informed by his lawyer
of the criticism raised against him in the documentary.
He has made no comments. gainst him in the documentary.