The 52-year-old was on holiday in his motorhome in Southern Norway when he was arrested by the police on 1 September 2021. By then, the police had already been conducting a secret investigation against him for a long time. The turning point came in April 2019 when the police received answers to DNA samples from a laboratory in Austria. The man’s DNA matched biological material found on Birgitte Teng’s pantyhose. The DNA evidence is the key in the case against the accused. This is clear from the rulings in Sør Rogaland District Court and Gulating Court of Appeal when the 52-year-old was remanded in custody for 12 weeks in October 2021. The 52-year-old from Karmøy is charged with the murder of Birgitte Tengs. Photo: Privat The Court of Appeal then wrote: “According to the Court of Appeal’s assessment, the overall picture of the evidence shows that there is a very strong probability that the accused is guilty”. Early on in the case After Birgitte Tengs was found murdered on Gamle Sundvegen on 6 May 1995, it took a short time before the defendant’s name appeared in the tip pile to the police as a mode candidate. Birgitte Tengs was found murdered on Gamle Sundvegen, near her own home, on Saturday 6 May 1995. Both sheriff’s deputy Bjarne Skådel and a psychologist tipped off the investigation management. In addition, sheriff Hallstein Trælhaug in Skudenes tipped off that the Karmøy man was driving a green Opel Ascona. In 1995, the defendant disposed of a green Opel Ascona of this type. Photo: Illustration/Syed Ali Shahbaz Akhtar / news At the time it was well known that several witnesses had seen a girl who looked like Birgitte standing by or getting into a green car in the center of Kopervik shortly after midnight on the night of the murder. That is, in the same time period as the last safe observation of her in Hovedgata in Kopervik. In the years leading up to the arrest in 2021, the defendant had been questioned a total of five times by the police: Twice in 1995 and 1996, and three times in 2000 and 2013 – then also in connection with the Tina Jørgensen murder. The 52-year-old is also charged with this murder. In the first questioning, the Karmøy man said that he was in Haugesund on the night of the murder, and that he came home around 02.30. This means that he must have driven past or through Kopervik on the night of the murder. He said in the interrogation that he neither knew Birgitte nor the area in which she was found murdered. Private investigator Grete Strømme tipped off the police about the Karmøy man as a mode candidate in both the Birgitte Tengs and Tina Jørgensen murders. Photo: Private The fact that he had no alibi led in the autumn of 1996 to the police selecting the man as one of 13 potential suspects. Prior to this, police secretary Grete Strømme had also delivered a 22-page report to the investigation management in which she pointed to the man as a mode candidate. New rounds A new questioning of the accused was carried out in November 1996. In the book “Who killed Birgitte?” author Bjørn Olav Jahr wrote that there were clear flaws in the man’s explanation, without this being followed up further. Police prosecutor Thor Buberg led from 2000 the new investigation into the Birgitte Tengs murder. Photo: Gisle Jørgensen / news In 2000, then police chief Karl Henrik Sjursen in the Haugaland and Sunnhordland police district decided that the investigation into the murder of Birgitte Tengs should be resumed. The investigation was led by police attorney Thor Buberg at Haugesund police station. In 2002, the police summoned 43 people to take DNA samples from the mucous membranes on the inside of their cheeks. These were checked against five unidentified strands of hair that were found on Birgitte Tengs, including one that was found in her hand. The Karmøy man was one of the 43 people. On 12 December 2002, the police published the result. In an interview with news, Buberg confirmed that none of the samples came back with a DNA match. – We have carried out these investigations now and have not come forward with the perpetrator, Buberg said at the time. More violence and immorality cases The reason why several people tipped off the investigation management about the defendant was the violence and immorality cases for which he was convicted in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1990, wearing women’s clothes, he is said to have visited a female psychologist and assaulted her. The psychologist notified the police about the incident four days after the murder. One year after the murder, in May 1996, the Karmøy man came into the police’s spotlight again. First he assaulted a woman on Risøy bridge in the center of Haugesund. Later in May, the man exposed himself to five different women in one night. In the ensuing car chase, a policeman was almost hit. He also tipped off the investigation management about the Karmøy man as a possible mode candidate in the Tengs case. In the early 2000s, his name appeared in several theft and burglary cases. Several of the thefts concerned women’s clothes and women’s shoes, and in 2005 he was sentenced to seven months in prison for, among other things, two burglaries of women in Stavanger in 2003 and 2004. After 2005, no further convictions have been registered against the 52-year-old. The Tina Jørgensen murder When the man was arrested on 1 September 2021, he was also charged with the murder of Tina Jørgensen. Jørgensen was found dead in a basin near Bore church in Jæren on 26 October 2000. She had then been missing since 24 September after being out on the town in Stavanger. Tina Jørgensen disappeared after a city trip in Stavanger on the night of 24 September 2000. Just over a month later, she was found murdered. Photo: Police The Karmøy man was visiting a relative in Stavanger on the weekend Tina Jørgensen was killed. In January 2001, former police secretary Grete Strømme met the head of the investigation to tip off the man as a mode candidate in this case as well. In the summer of 2001, the man was questioned about the Tina Jørgensen murder. He explained that he remembers the weekend Tina Jørgensen disappeared because he collided with a taxi driver at the Esso station in Tjensvollkrysset. He couldn’t remember if it happened on Friday or Saturday. According to the damage report, he was driving a red Opel Vectra. This is the car the 52-year-old drove on the weekend Tina Jørgensen was killed in Stavanger. Photo: Olas Bil Also in the Tina Jørgensen case, there are unidentified vehicles that were wanted. A witness told police she had seen a woman matching Tina’s description get into an old “dark gold or possibly burgundy” car. The same weekend there was a bare episode in Stavanger, without this being connected to the Karmøy man at the time. In early 2013, the police in Stavanger reopened the investigation into the murder of Tina Jørgensen – among other things after several tips that the two unsolved murder cases in Rogaland had the same killer. The police concentrated the investigation on eight people. One of them was the 52-year-old from Karmøy. This spring, the man was questioned twice; once in March and once in April. In the first questioning, he said, among other things, that he was not shocked that he was in for questioning again. He knew that people tipped the police about him, but that he did not know who and why. At the same time, it is stated in the interrogation that “he realizes that he has a past”. In the questioning four weeks later, the man was confronted with the naked episode on the same weekend that Tina Jørgensen was killed. He denied having done this, and said that he only exposed himself in Haugesund. The 52-year-old added that he had stopped doing this now. The Karmøy man was also asked about three girls he drove from Åkra to Kopervik the year before Birgitte Tengs was killed, without this being connected to the murder. The 52-year-old is still charged with the murder of Tina Jørgensen, but the police have finished the investigation. Police inspector Unni Byberg Malmin in the Sør-West police district is now considering whether the accused should also be prosecuted for this murder or whether the charges should be dropped. Her recommendation is then sent to the public prosecutor. In this case too, the Karmøy man denies criminal guilt. Cold case recommended new investigation On 7 December 2016, the police in Stavanger reopened the investigation into the Birgitte Tengs murder, following advice from the newly formed cold case group for Kripos. The Tengs murder was the first unsolved case the new unit investigated, and the recommendation was clear. – In our opinion, concrete investigative steps should be followed up, said Cold case manager Espen Erdal at a press conference at Haugesund police station. Cold case manager Espen Erdal believed the police could take a number of investigative steps, when at a press conference at Haugesund police station he recommended reopening the investigation into the Birgitte Tengs murder. Photo: Marthe Synnøve Johannessen A year and a half later, in the spring of 2018, the investigation into the Tina Jørgensen murder was also reopened. Once again on the recommendation of the Cold case group. The 52-year-old from Karmøy was already at the time one of the main suspects in both cases. One year later, in April 2019, came the DNA breakthrough that linked the defendant to the murder of Birgitte Tengs, but instead of arresting him, the police therefore started a more than two-year-long covert investigation into the Karmøy man. The trial against the 52-year-old is scheduled to start on Monday 31 October in Haugaland and Sunnhordland district court in Haugesund. Twelve weeks have been set aside for the main negotiation.
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A 52-year-old man from Haugalandet is charged with the murder of Birgitte Tengs – news Rogaland – Local news, TV and radio
