The False Confessions of Thomas Quick

Sture Bergwall, treated under the name Thomas Quick at a Swedish psychiatric institution, confessed between 1992 and 2001 to more than 30 murders across Sweden and neighboring countries. He was convicted of eight of them without corroborating physical evidence, largely on the basis of his detailed confessions.

Confessions under therapy

Bergwall's confessions emerged during a controversial course of psychotherapy that used memory-recovery techniques now widely considered unreliable, combined with heavy use of sedative medication. Investigators and prosecutors at the time treated the confessions as credible.

Recantation

Starting in 2008, Bergwall recanted all of his confessions, saying he had fabricated them under the influence of the therapy and medication he was receiving, seeking attention within the institution. Reviews of the evidence found no reliable physical link between him and any of the murders.

Exoneration

By 2013, all of Bergwall's convictions had been overturned by Swedish courts. The case became a major scandal about the Swedish psychiatric and legal systems. Because the original murders he had confessed to were real crimes with real victims, this page lists the case as unsolved: no one currently stands convicted of them.