– The police installed a hidden camera on the opposite side of his home. Thus, they had full control of the home and his parking space, says Stian Kristensen, who defends the accused man in his 50s. Day and night, the police could therefore follow the man’s movements. The police also tapped the telephone and monitored the computer of the accused man. – They monitored his phone and PC in certain periods from 2019 until his arrest in September last year, says Kristensen. In addition, the man suspects that the police used undercover agents several times to get close to him. He bases this suspicion, among other things, on two factors: He believes that suspicious people appeared in the dog community of which he was a part. He was hit by two female clothes sellers when he was parked with his motorhome. Secret operation started despite DNA match In 2017, the police started a new investigation to try to find out who killed Birgitte Tengs on Karmøy in 1995. Among other things, both untested and previously tested biological material was sent to a laboratory in Austria, which is known to be the world leader in highly advanced DNA tests. In April 2019, the answer came from Innsbruck. The DNA found on the tights of Birgitte Tengs was exactly the same as the DNA of a man in his 50s from Karmøy. A man the police knew well from the past. Although the police thought the DNA evidence was strong, they did not arrest him. Instead, they started a very extensive and secret investigation against the man. In July 2019, the police visited the man in his 50s for the first time. Then they ransacked his sea shed. In the following months, the police searched his house four times. His motorhome was also examined by the police as part of the covert investigation, says the man’s defender. The police first entered the sea shed of the accused in July 2019. Then a covert investigation lasting over two years began. Photo: Marthe Synnøve Susort Johannessen / news – They found nothing of interest during these searches, Stian Kristiansen. The name was on the block on 25 May 1996, just over a year after the murder of Birgitte Tengs, the Karmøy man who is now charged with the murder was stopped by the police. The background was five cases of exposure in the center of Haugesund and a subsequent car chase on Karmøy. He had then tried to escape the police and almost ran over a policeman. In September of the same year, the man was sentenced to prison for assault, exposure and violence against a public official. In the glove compartment of the man’s green Opel Ascona, the police found a camera. On the roll of film were pictures of a number of young women. At this point, the investigators in the Birgitte Tengs case had received at least three tips about the man, including from two local police officers. The policeman who was almost hit also tipped off the investigators about the man. Nevertheless, it would take over 25 years before he was arrested. The man’s defender, Stian Kristensen. Photo: Oystein Otterdal / news Became suspicious Although the man in his 50s knew nothing about the hidden investigation, he must have gradually suspected that someone had been inside his house. He did not suspect that it was the police, but instead thought that it was someone else entirely. – He thought that the team behind a documentary film about the murder of Birgitte Tengs had been inside his house and found it terribly uncomfortable, says the man’s defender. The man called the police and notified them of a possible break-in. When they did nothing about it, he set a trap. He put a nail in the door, and when he got home and the nail had fallen from the door, he knew someone had been inside. – He suspected that someone had been inside and deleted some of the recordings from the memory card of the surveillance camera. We don’t know if he had any specific suspicions, but he never suspected that the police were there, says Stian Kristensen. The man in his 50s also suspects that the police went undercover several times to try to get close to him. Hit by clothes sellers In the autumn of 2019, in a car park in Haugalandet, the man is said to have parked his motorhome in a large and clear space. Suddenly, two women drove into his car. – The women collide in his motorhome in a large and clear car park outside a shop. Afterwards, they are very keen to make up for this. However, they cannot pay then, but agree to meet him later, says the man’s defender to news. During a meeting at a shopping center a little later in the day, it emerges that the women sell women’s clothes. Allegedly, the women had informed him that they had traveled from Eastern Norway to visit a fair for the sale of women’s clothing. It has emerged during a previous court hearing that the accused had a fetish for wearing women’s clothes. The accused man must have been sure that someone was trying to get into his house. Among other things, he is said to have noticed that surveillance videos had disappeared from the memory card. Photo: Marthe Synnøve Susort Johannessen / news – Eventually these women ask him to look after their clothes, but he says no. However, we will never know if this was the police, says Kristensen. In 1996, the police seized the home of the accused Karmøy man. According to Bjørn Olav Jahr’s book “Who killed Birgitte Tengs?” “51 articles of the type of women’s clothing/effects in his room at his parents’ house” were seized. The accused man suspects that this was not the only time the police used undercover agents. – It is quite possible that the police also infiltrated the dog community he was part of. It is something we will never be able to confirm, but he has explained that before he was arrested he reacted to the fact that there were suddenly so many new people in the dog community, says Kristensen. When the police infiltrate, it is not regulated by law in the same way as, for example, room eavesdropping, and the police do not have a duty to notify the accused and the defense afterwards. The man charged with the murder of Birgitte Tengs suspects that someone from the police tried to infiltrate the dog community, according to the defender. Photo: Private The police’s suspects Birgitte Tengs was found murdered at Gamle Sundsveg on 6 May 1995. The police early called for two car drivers after the murder. A girl who looked like Birgitte was seen getting into a green car in the center of Kopervik shortly after midnight on the night of the murder. In addition, a car with a man and possibly a woman was seen speeding Kopervik just after midnight. Early in the investigation, the police were certain that Birgitte was driven to the crime scene by car. If these car observations are the perpetrator and Birgitte, all findings from the car will be interesting. The accused’s car, a green Opel Ascona, was never investigated by the police. In June 2001 it was wrecked. In a ruling from the court last year, it emerged that the court agrees with the police that two factors other than the DNA finding strengthen the suspicion against the man: His explanations about where he was on the night of the murder. His previous criminal history. news has previously told that the accused man in his 50s was already in 1996 on a police list of 13 people in a car who did not have a sufficient alibi for the period around the time of the murder. The man has also been convicted several times in the 1990s and 2000s, including for burglary of women. He himself says that he has nothing to do with the murder of Birgitte Tengs. – He still denies criminal guilt, says defense attorney Stian Kristensen to news. Charged with the murder of Tina Jørgensen Recently it became known that the man is also charged with the murder of Tina Jørgensen, who was found in a basin at Bore church in Jæren in October 2000. She disappeared after a city trip in Stavanger in September of the same year. The murder has not been solved. MURDERED: Tina Jørgensen went missing on 24 September 2000. A month later she was found murdered. Photo: The police The man has been suspected of the murder, and the fact that he is now charged in the case is due, according to the police, to the fact that they have carried out a covert investigation against him also in the Tina case. According to the defender, the police were also looking for objects in the Tina case during the search of his home on Karmøy. The reason is that Tina Jørgensen’s bag and mobile phone have never been found. – They probably had an idea about finding objects. They never found that, says defender Kristensen. The man says he has nothing to do with the murder of Tina Jørgensen either. 5.5 million files The defense attorney is now working to get an overview of all the hidden investigations the police have carried out against his client. – We have received 5.5 million files from the covert investigation that we are conducting and going through. We are talking about everything from pictures to videos, audio files and documents. Kristensen, who together with two other lawyers make up the defense team for the accused man, says they currently do not have an overview of the surveillance and what the police have concretely done in terms of covert investigations. – There is an incredibly extensive amount of material to search through. Furthermore, the documents we have received are not structured in a sensible way. There is no table of contents or any file name that means anything, says Stian Kristensen. – How has your client reacted when he realized the extent of the covert investigation against him? – He experienced an insecurity from strangers. At the same time, he sees that the result of all the hidden investigation strengthens his explanation. That he has nothing to do with these matters. DNA The police’s most important evidence in the case is DNA from a blood stain on Teng’s tights. The police believe that the DNA must come from the accused man. Analyzes from an expert report show that the accused’s DNA has a mutation that makes it different from the rest of the paternal family. This expert report is also supported by the Forensic Medicine Commission. The man’s defenders believe it could be a matter of cross-contamination, meaning that it could have got on Teng’s pantyhose via another person he had been in contact with. The police have recently concluded the investigation against the accused in the Tengs case and sent their recommendations to the state attorney. As far as news is aware, they have insisted that charges be brought. The public prosecutor must now process the submission, before the public prosecutor must decide whether the man should be prosecuted or not. Police inspector Unni Byberg Malmin. Photo: Odin Omland / news The police do not want to comment on the covert investigation, but have previously confirmed to news that covert investigation methods have been used against the accused. – When it comes to the undercover investigation, neither the police can nor will say anything further about this. We also do not want to comment on the evidence in advance of a possible trial, says police inspector Unni Byberg Malmin to news. The trial is scheduled in advance in Haugaland and Sunnhordland District Court on 31 October.
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