The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson's Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin

by Jan Stocklassa

The infamous von Sydow murder had shaken Stockholm many decades earlier. Late in the afternoon on March 7, 1932, three people were found beaten to death in a 2,700-square-foot eight-room apartment on the fourth floor of 24 Norr Mälarstrand. The three bodies were discovered by the family’s fifteen-year-old daughter. The victims were identified as Hjalmar von Sydow, who lived in the apartment, Karolina Herou, the cook, and Ebba Hamn, the housekeeper. All three had been killed by blows to the head with a blunt object, probably an iron that was missing from the household. Hjalmar von Sydow was the president of the Swedish Employers Association, a member of the upper house of the Swedish parliament, and a knight of the Royal Order of Vasa and was, therefore, one of the most prominent personages in the city and the country. As soon as the police were called, it was clear that the killer was probably the family’s twenty-three-year-old son, Fredrik von Sydow, who had fled the scene with his equally young wife, Ingun von Sydow, née Sundén-Cullberg.