On the night of 1 June 2019, Ronny Nygård (43) died in a car park at Åsane terminal in Bergen. At first the police thought it might be an accident. Then a man (30) was charged with murder in the case. This week he appears in court accused of grievous bodily harm resulting in death. The prosecution believes the toddler’s father took a stranglehold or tightened a branch around Nygård’s neck and stuck a wooden stick into his mouth. According to the indictment, Nygård died as a result of suffocation. The 30-year-old denies criminal liability, but remembers little of that evening and night because he was drunk. PLACE OF FOUND: A crime technician sees where Ronny Nygård was found dead on the morning of 1 June 2019. He was lying on a steel box, with his arms pulled above his head. Photo: Jon Bolstad / news – Not an accident The woman who found Nygård dead on the morning of June 1 testified on Thursday. – My first thought was that this was a murder. This was not an accident. That’s how I perceived it when I got to the crime scene, the woman in her 30s told the court, before they went on a visual inspection to the place where Nygård was found dead. Between 20 and 30 people, including the press, were there when chief investigator Kenneth Berg went up the route the prosecution believes the defendant and the deceased went after they got off the night bus. INVESTIGATION: Public prosecutor Rudolf Christoffersen and chief investigator Kenneth Berg at the inspection at Åsane terminal on Thursday. Photo: Jon Bolstad / news “It looks like someone has tried to strangle him” The woman who found Nygård told the court that she works as a healthcare worker at a hospital. This Saturday she was going to the Nr1 Fitness training centre. While she was unpacking the car, one of her children said that there was a man in the parking lot below. The woman called the police and told them about the lifeless man, but was quickly told to go downstairs to check on him. Prosecutor State Attorney Rudolf Christoffersen recorded audio clips of the entire conversation for the court. “Oh, no. Ugh and ugh. He’s dead,” says the woman despairingly as AMK connects to the call and wants to know where in Åsane the man is. “He is dead, he is freezing cold and has a lot of blood in his nose. It looks like someone has tried to strangle him with a twig or branch,” said the woman, clarifying to AMK that “I am a healthcare professional”. WALKED TOGETHER: The defendant and Ronny Nygård at Åsane terminal on the night of 1 June 2019. A few hours later, Nygård was found dead nearby. Photo: The police – Was tight around the neck The woman had been told to check if the man was lifeless and therefore started looking for a pulse. – In the situation, I did not think that I could check his wrists, because his arms were raised above his head. She said that she had to “move and loosen” on the branch to get to and check the pulse in her throat. The branch was tied at least once around the neck of the deceased. – It wasn’t just easy on the branch, I had to take hold. When I removed the branch I saw a bruise on his neck. There was no pulse. – How tight was the branch? asked the prosecutor – It was so tight that I realized that it had not gotten there by itself. I thought that someone must have tightened it for it to be so tight. He hadn’t tripped over something and gotten a branch over him, replied the witness. Defense attorney Einar Råen asked if the branch was attached to something. – I can’t say whether it was physically attached to something or had a knot. But I realized that the branch went around the neck and stayed tight because the man was lying with his head backwards. KVIST: This twig thinks the prosecution is being used to poke Nygård in the mouth with. It only has DNA from the deceased on it. Photo: The police Cast doubt on the police’s findings The defendant remembers very little of the evening and night when he and the deceased were caught on a surveillance camera at the bus terminal, at 02:58 on the night of 1 June 2019. Both left the city on the same night bus. They did not know each other from before. After a short time they went south together towards the car park where Nygård was found dead the next day. During the inspection at Åsane terminal, both the prosecutor, judge and defense counsel asked questions for the police investigators. Defender Einar Råen was particularly active. He tried to cast doubt on the findings of the police and asked the investigators several questions about whether they were sure of the information they gave to the court, or whether they came up with assumptions or theories. DEFENDING THE DEFENDANT: Lawyer Einar Råen is defending the 30-year-old accused. Photo: Jon Bolstad / news The police have made a reconstruction of the accused earlier. Although his memory has been bad, he has said there that he wanted to avoid a man who wanted him to join him in the nachspiel. That is why he walked away from him several tens of meters from the crime scene itself. Råen repeatedly asked the police if they were “absolutely sure that the deceased and the ‘nachspiel man’ are one and the same man”. The investigators then referred to the surveillance videos at the terminal and to the reconstruction interrogation with a scope. No DNA on broken twig GPS data from the defendant’s mobile connects him to the crime with a margin of error of 13 meters at 03.09. In addition, crime technicians have found blood fragments from Ronny Nygård on the trousers and jacket the defendant was wearing on the night in question. At the crime scene, the police found a broken twig under Nygård’s head, which the prosecution believes was used to stab the 43-year-old in the mouth. A piece of bark was also found in the wound inside the mouth. But only DNA from the deceased was found on the broken twig. The investigators initially had a theory that the death could be an accident, where Nygård tripped over a steel box and fell while trying to grab hold of a low-hanging tree. Therefore, branches and twigs were not collected until they formally questioned the woman who found Nygård with “the branches around his neck”.
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