Niklas Lindgren

Partial list of attacks

• August 1998: a 14-year-old girl is assaulted.
• 1:20 a.m, 9 May 1999: a 26-year-old woman is assaulted and raped in a park in Haga.
• 6 November 1999: three women are assaulted in three different locations in Haga. One of the women is raped.
• 19 March 2000: a 22-year-old woman is assaulted on Brandmannagatan.
• 19 March 2000: a 22-year-old woman is assaulted and raped in the university area. The woman almost died from her injuries and hypothermia.
• 1 December 2000: a 15-year-old girl is assaulted and raped in Ersboda.
• Between 1 and 2 a.m, 10 December 2005: A 51-year-old woman is brutally assaulted and raped at Tegsbron. The woman was seriously injured and fought for her life while her assailant attempted to drag her to the edge of the ice covering the banks of the Ume river and throw her into the icy waters. The perpetrator bit her ear off during the assault, but police were able to locate it by using police dogs, and it was reattached at the university hospital.
• 13–15 December 2005: Two more women are assaulted, one at Tegsbron and another at the Mimerskolan. It is still not certain that the perpetrator in these cases was Hagamannen.

  Police investigation

• The police received a tip from a woman at the university hospital in the year 2000 that a father of a newborn child bore a striking resemblance to the facial composite, but the police dismissed this tip. According to the woman she was told that it was unlikely that the father of a newborn child would be the perpetrator of such crimes. The suspect now in custody was at the university hospital at the time with a newborn child, and several assaults took place within the vicinity of the hospital at the time. The police are holding an internal investigation into why the tip was not taken more seriously.
• With the knowledge that the perpetrator had unusually small feet, the Swedish police attempted to access armed forces records. All Swedish men are required to register with the armed forces, who in turn determine their suitability for military service. During this selection a physical examination is performed and records are kept in case the need arises for further conscripts. The armed forces refused to hand over their records or allow access.
• DNA samples are taken from all children in Sweden in order to be used for medical research into hereditary illnesses at the PKU lab. The police wanted to access this database in order to yield a suspect, but the lab refused. Some individuals have requested that their samples be destroyed; the police requested records of destroyed samples, but the lab refused.
• The suspect was found by forcefully mass DNA testing males in the area. A matching profile was found after 777 tests.
• The police then considered using a plainclothes female police officer in order to draw the perpetrator out, but this idea was discarded since such behaviour on the part of the police would constitute entrapment which is not allowed under Swedish law, according to JO
• Before taking him into custody the police spent some time observing the suspect's daily routine. The suspect apparently liked to spend a lot of time alone in the garage that he built adjacent to his house. The locations that the police mapped out served as a basis for the police interrogation and are therefore likely to be thoroughly examined by police forensic technicians.
• The facial composite has been a central point of the investigation, and its release to the media and general public ultimately proved to be what would yield the first suspect in the case. The police are also examining one unsolved murder and one death which took place under mysterious circumstances during the time that the Hagamannen was active. The DNA match will likely be the key evidence in tying the suspect to the crimes at trial.

  Evidence

• DNA: The Swedish Police and Swedish State Criminalistics Lab secured DNA samples from at least three of the crime scenes. The DNA from the crime scene near the Ume River matched the suspect's DNA. According to the criminalistics lab the probability of error is one in one million samples, which they characterize as a nine on a scale from one to nine.
• Facial composite: The suspect bears a striking resemblance to the facial composite- indeed he even jokingly referred to himself as Hagamannen when talking to his co-workers.
• Height: The perpetrator is unusually short for a man. The suspect is also unusually short for a man.
• Shoe size: The perpetrator has unusually small feet for a man, which the police have been able to determine by analyzing footprints left by the perpetrator. The suspect also has small feet, his co-workers even joked that he could be the perpetrator because of his unusually small feet.
• Proximity: The suspect works in a car-repair shop in the Haga part of Umeå, which is within the vicinity of many of the attacks. He had 24-hour access to his place of employment. The police theorize that the suspect may have used his place of employment as a base to look for potential victims.
• "Trophies": The police state that the perpetrator took "trophies" from at least three of his victims, such as identification documents. The police are searching premises that the perpetrator had access to in order to secure such trophies if they are in the possession of the perpetrator or in a location to which he had access. On 9 April 2006 the Police discovered a property located far from the suspect's residence and place of employment to which the suspect also had 24-hour access. The newly discovered property lies close to where some of the attacks took place.
• Line-up: In cases where the perpetrator did not leave any DNA evidence, or where the victim was able to escape, a police lineup can be used to identify the perpetrator.
• Knife: The police are also looking for a knife or knives used by the perpetrator in the property of the suspect, or in places to which he had access.
• Alibi and other circumstantial evidence.

  Arrest

Suspect in custody

Court proceedings