Doctors Failed to Raise the Alarm – He Shot the Real Estate Agent

New audiobook by Niklas Svensson about the fisheries director in Småland who became a murderer – sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Read an excerpt from Niklas Svensson's book "The Realtor Murder":

Weapons and mental illness are a dangerous combination. Most would agree that a person with recurring psychoses, delusions, or deep depression should not have access to a gun cabinet – let alone a loaded rifle in their own home. Such a person would pose a significant risk to both themselves and others.

So what is our society doing to prevent this from happening?

Nearly half a million people receive specialized psychiatric care in our country each year. At the same time, Sweden is the fourth most gun-dense country in the EU. Approximately 700,000 Swedes have access to firearms intended for hunting or sport shooting.

We do not know how many belong to both categories, that is, both receiving specialized psychiatric care and having access to weapons. There is no such statistic. However, there is a system in place to prevent mentally ill individuals from handling weapons. Doctors in Sweden are required to report patients who are not medically fit to possess firearms to the police, who can then confiscate the weapons and revoke the license. We can state that they make about 2,000 such reports a year.

We can also state that it is not enough.

Because it happens that people with access to weapons use them to kill themselves and others. And it happens despite healthcare, social services, and police being alerted to the alarming situation.

The incident at Campus Risbergska in Örebro in February 2025 was a painful example of this. The perpetrator, Rickard Andersson, became Sweden's worst mass murderer of all time. His mental health issues were well-documented – yet he owned a semi-automatic rifle intended for hunting large game, two shotguns, and another rifle. Doctors made fatal misjudgments that resulted in him being able to keep his weapons, and he eventually used them to shoot ten people before taking his own life.

There are more examples of misjudgments regarding mental illness and weapons, more relevant cases that need to be highlighted – and we do not have to go very far back in time to find them.

When I began to delve into the case of Olof Lessmark, who murdered a realtor he had previously hired, I initially got the impression that what happened was tragic but completely unpredictable. An act of madness that no one could have imagined would occur.

Could it really be so?

I decided to investigate further what could drive a person who had functioned well for many years to commit such a terrible crime. For Olof Lessmark is an unusual murderer. He was once one of the country's leading fisheries experts and lived a completely ordinary family life with a wife and children. Due to mental illness, he ended up homeless. Eventually, he committed a horrific murder.

The more I read about what happened, the more people around Olof I talked to, the more astonished I became. I discovered that Olof, who was a hunter, had legal access to three shotguns, two rifles, and a combination gun – while warning signs about his mental state were constant. Yet society never intervened. Despite all the warning signs, he was allowed to keep his gun license – and his weapons.

This is the story of how it could happen.

The day the realtor is murdered, he wakes up early, just as he usually does. When he goes out to the mailbox to fetch the Smålandsposten, he notes that it's chilly outside. Frost mist hangs thick on Stamvägen in the Teleborg district of Växjö. He sits at the kitchen table. The coffee is freshly brewed, and breakfast is laid out.

The realtor thinks through the plans for the day. That evening, he is to attend a lecture with the Nature Conservation Association with a friend, while his wife is going to the cinema. But first, they have a few other chores to take care of. Around half-past eleven, the couple leaves the yellow villa and gets into the car to visit their daughter, who has a sore throat. They have brought easily digestible food, falukorv and mashed potatoes, and stand in the doorway to avoid getting infected.

In the afternoon, the wife goes to the swimming pool to swim while the realtor takes a walk in the neighborhood. He enjoys strolling around the houses in the large residential area and always greets his neighbors. He knows many and knows what it looks like inside several of the neighboring houses because he has been involved in their sales.

The realtor's wife is stressed when she comes home at twenty to four. The bus to the city center leaves in just thirty-five minutes. Friends are meeting outside the cinema shortly after five, and before that, she needs to quickly pop into the clothing store Lindex. The film starts at half-past six.

"Have a nice time," says the husband.

"You too," she replies.

These are the last words the couple, married for forty-two years, say to each other.

The wife does not lock the front door when she leaves the house. The husband is also about to leave soon. But first, he gets some time to himself at home. The friend the realtor is going to the lecture with is supposed to pick him up at his home at twenty to seven, as they have agreed. In the meantime, he has settled down on the sofa in the living room upstairs. It's an exciting sports day. First, he will watch a football match, and then the start of the CHL hockey round of 16, where Luleå faces German Wolfsburg. The total number of goals in the double meeting determines which team advances, and since Luleå Hockey won the first match in Germany, a draw is enough for them.

When there are just under twenty minutes to puck drop at Coop Norrbotten Arena, the realtor listens extra carefully to the experts in the hockey studio. He is waiting for them to mention the name of the grandchildren's cousin, who is one of the players in Luleå.

Then the doorbell rings.

It must be the friend arriving already. How early he is, the realtor thinks. It's only twenty to six, an hour before the time the friend and he agreed upon.

He gets up from the sofa in the living room on the second floor and heads towards the stairs to the left. The curtains in the window next to the door are drawn, so he doesn't see who is out there, but he is convinced that it is the friend who has come to pick him up. Great, then they can watch almost two periods together before they have to leave, he might think.

The realtor sees nothing through the half-moon-shaped window on the door. It's a little too high up. He grabs the door and pushes it open.

The person standing in front of him is someone completely different than the realtor expected. They don't have time to say anything to each other before the man pulls out a weapon and fires it.

First a shotgun. Then a bullet.

The realtor falls to the floor.