Field Notes

event

Mordet i Västermalmsgallerian

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Two men were stabbed outside Västermalmsgallerian in Stockholm in May 2021 after an altercation with two brothers. One victim died. Liam O’Connell was convicted of murder, against his denial, and sentenced to sixteen years. His younger brother Tigh O’Connell was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to nine years, supported by witnesses and his own confession. The prosecution’s theory was that each brother stabbed one victim with his own knife.

Tigh O’Connell has consistently said, during trial and afterwards, that he stabbed both men with the same knife and that his brother committed no stabbing. TV4’s 2024 documentary Dömdes rätt bror? examined the record and found that the surveillance video shown in court had a seven-second gap cut out during the critical sequence, disclosed to neither the court nor the defence; that no DNA or other technical evidence tied Liam to the killing; that no witness identified him at the spot where the fatal stabbing was placed; and that two witnesses described Tigh attacking the deceased where Tigh says he did. A forensic consultant read the blood traces as consistent with Tigh’s account. TV4 also found a knife matching the case knife, using a metal detector at the spot Tigh had described to police, where police had searched and found nothing, and handed it to the police.

The reopening prosecutor at Riksåklagaren declined to have the knife examined, stating that resning would not be warranted even if both victims’ DNA were found on it, because traces could have transferred between the brothers. The defence applied to Högsta domstolen for resning; as of mid-2026 the application is reported denied, but the decision itself has not yet been read for this wiki.

The case matters in Rättssäkerhet in Swedish criminal cases because the reopening gate treated the strongest possible new physical evidence as answerable in advance, before any examination, by the same institution whose conviction it would test.

Open questions

  • Obtain the Högsta domstolen resning decision, its case number, and its stated reasons.
  • Record whether the recovered knife was ever forensically examined and with what result.

Built on 3 sources (3 external).

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