We investigate how the shocking murder of a young woman beaten and drowned in freezing North Atlantic waters rocked virtually crime-free Iceland to its core
Iceland hadn't had a single murder since 2015 - until the naked body of Birna Brjánsdóttir washed up on a desolate beach on the Reykjanes peninsula eight days after she went missing
IT played out like an opening scene of the latest Scandinavian crime thriller.
The naked body of a young auburn-haired girl washed up on a desolate Icelandic beach in the middle of winter, a lonely lighthouse the only marker of her whereabouts on the Reykjanes peninsula.
Hours after the grim discovery, in her office at the Reykjavik Police Department, Sigríur Björk Gujónsdóttir – the force’s first-ever female police chief – was informed that the woman was Reykjavik local Birna Brjánsdóttir, who’d gone missing eight days earlier.
The area where 20-year-old Birna’s body was found was familiar to Sigríur. Before getting the top policing job in the country, she’d headed up the police department, which covered the Reykjanes peninsula.
Her reputation as a gifted investigator ensured a quick rise through the ranks, and in 2014, the 48 year old was sworn in as the chief of police for Reykjavik.
The discovery of a body wasn’t what Sigríur wanted to hear.
“Violent crime and murder are rare in Reykjavik and neighbouring towns,” reveals her colleague Gunnar Rúnar Sveinbjörnsson of the Reykjavik Metropolitan Police.
“In the past six years, there have only been eight murders in total. Last year there were none.”
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Even so, years of police work had steeled Sigríur for bad news. And since Birna had disappeared after leaving a bar in downtown Reykjavik during the early hours of January 14 this year, the signs had looked increasingly bleak.
With every day that passed, Sigríur knew the chances of her being found alive were getting slimmer. Then, tragically, at 1pm on Sunday January 22, a coastguard helicopter caught sight of Birna’s body by Selvogsviti lighthouse, 22 miles south-east of the capital.
The night she disappeared, friends had left Birna drinking alone at the live music hangout Hurra, because she had insisted on staying until closing time at 4:30am.
Just under an hour later, CCTV captured her weaving unsteadily down foggy Laugavegur, one of the main roads in and out of the centre.
Eating a falafel pitta, she was walking east towards her home in the suburb of Breiholt, a suburb of the city. But she would never make it to the house she shared with her dad Brjánn Gujónsson and cat.
When Birna didn’t turn up the next day to the department store where she worked as a sales assistant, and neither family nor friends could contact her on her mobile, the authorities were notified.
“A young woman walking alone down the main shopping street after a night out is not unusual for Reykjavik. It’s well lit and covered by cameras,” explains Nanna Arnadottir, a 32-year-old reporter who covered Birna’s story for the Icelandic media.
“I’ve done it, all of my friends have at some point, and it’s precisely for this reason that Birna’s death resonated so much with Icelanders. There wasn’t a single murder in Iceland in 2016 – it happens now and again; a year with no murder at all. So a woman is snatched off the streets and killed by a stranger? It’s unfathomable.”
While the police raced to find Birna, her mother Sigurlaug Hreinsdóttir gave a TV press conference appealing for information.
“The only thing we’ve thought of, because she enjoyed talking to tourists, is that she could have accepted a ride with some foreigner, maybe by the sea,” she said tearfully.
“We’ve been knocking on the doors of random apartments here with her picture, asking if anyone has seen her, because there are no clues.”
According to her former boyfriend, American Andrew Morgan, Birna’s good nature could have been the key to her murder.
“She was so trusting and she always saw the good in people,” he tells Fabulous.
“She was incredibly easy to talk to and very interested in travel and getting to know people from all over the world.”
Meanwhile, the search continued and locals came together, using the hashtag of “Ég er Birna” (I am Birna) on social media in a bid to show it could have happened to any of them. They also laid notes and bunches of flowers at the spot where Birna was last seen alive.
She was so trusting and she always saw the good in people.
Andrew Morgan
An “I am Birna” march was organised in the missing girl’s honour, retracing her last walk down Laugavegur. Over 4,000 people joined it, culminating in a candlelit vigil at Arnarhóll, the hill east of the city that’s become a focal point in times of both celebration and sadness.
Within days, the hunt for Birna became the largest missing person search ever mounted in the country.
It involved over 120 different police, coastguard and specialist search-and-rescue units, as well as 11 tracking dogs and almost 1,000 volunteers who scoured 4,350 miles of Icelandic roads and coastline.
Back at the Reykjavik Police Department, Sigríur and her detectives had begun sifting through large quantities of data from security cameras and mobile phones.
Two days later, with still no sign of Birna, they released the CCTV footage that eerily captured her last known movements. It appeared to show a red Kia Rio car driving in the opposite direction towards her and past the camera. After that, Birna was never seen again.
Investigators tracked mobile signals from her phone and concluded that a car must have picked her up shortly after her appearance on CCTV because the signal – which continued until around 5.50am – was moving too quickly for her to have still been on foot. It last pinged at a telecom tower in Hafnarfjörur, a port town 10km away, until the phone was manually turned off.
When volunteers found Birna’s black Doc Martens in Hafnarfjörur, six days before her body was discovered, they had snow on them, even though there was none in the area. It suggested that at some point she’d been taken somewhere it had been snowing, and traces had remained because of the freezing temperatures.
Then, on January 18, further CCTV of the harbour gave Sigríur the breakthrough she was after – parked up by one of the trawler moorings was a red Kia Rio.
A trace of the licence plate showed it had been rented by Thomas Møller Olsen, 25, a crewman from a Greenland fishing ship called Polar Nanoq, which had been in port at the time of the murder but had left hours later.
Iceland’s armed police unit – known as the “Viking Squad” – was scrambled to board a coastguard helicopter and intercept the boat.
A search on board soon found a cannabis haul worth around £1.5million, as well as Birna’s driving licence in a black bin bag on the deck. Soon after, Thomas Møller Olsen and Nikolaj Olsen, 27, were identified by eyewitnesses on board as being in the red Kia Rio the day Birna vanished.
The Greenlanders, who share a surname but aren’t related, were arrested and brought back to Reykjavik for questioning.
Back on the mainland, the desperate search for Birna continued, until that fateful day when her body was discovered and Sigríur declared it a murder investigation.
Detectives quickly established that Thomas Møller Olsen had a criminal record for dealing drugs in Greenland and that he had picked up Nikolaj Olsen at a popular fisherman’s haunt called The English Pub after the older man had fallen asleep drunk at one of the tables.
According to Thomas Møller Olsen, the pair picked up Birna, who he identified from a photo of her, and a second, unknown woman, from the road.
Under interrogation, Nikolaj Olsen admitted that he was so drunk that his only recollection was seeing an unconscious girl in the back of the car when he left the vehicle at the ship’s mooring back in the port of Hafnarfjörur.
Indeed, harbour surveillance cameras showed Nikolaj Olsen getting out of the car and unsteadily boarding the Polar Nanoq, while Thomas Møller Olsen drove to a dimly lit area away from the pier.
At 5:53am CCTV then picked up the car at a nearby golf course and showed him getting into the back seat for 50 minutes. Four hours later, security cameras captured him cleaning the back of the car.
There wasn’t a single murder in Iceland in 2016 – it happens now and again; a year with no murder at all. So a woman is snatched off the streets and killed by a stranger? It’s unfathomable.
Nanna Arnadottir
While Thomas Møller Olsen says he picked up the two women, he insists he dropped Birna and the second girl off at a roundabout near the highway leading to Keflavík and then went to sleep in the car for over three hours. When he woke, he claims he set about cleaning vomit from the backseat.
How Birna’s licence ended up on board the boat with his fingerprints on it, he doesn’t know.
Then, in early February, Sigríur received the forensic report. It revealed the full horror of what Birna had endured and told how the red Kia Rio contained “significant quantities” of blood in the back seat, as well as on the steering wheel, which was confirmed as Birna’s.
Her blood was also found on Thomas Møller Olsen’s jacket and other clothing.
The report revealed that Birna had “sustained severe injuries to her head and face”, and that she “must have lost significant amounts of blood sustaining these injuries.” It also stated that she had “severe bruises on her throat, suggesting she had been strangled with significant force.” Police are yet to comment on whether she was sexually assaulted.
Birna’s autopsy revealed her cause of death to be drowning, meaning, horrifically, she was still alive when she entered the freezing waters of the North Atlantic.
Thomas Møller Olsen was charged with murder in the first degree of Birna Brjánsdóttir on March 30, and is currently awaiting trial. He continues to deny the charges, but if convicted he will face up to 20 years behind bars.
The girl who Thomas Møller Olsen alleged to have been with Birna has never been identified.
Meanwhile, the murder has rocked a country that had always prided itself on the safety and security of its citizens.
“In the aftermath, there was a kind of openness among my Icelandic friends,” explains Nanna.
“Women I knew started sharing their own stories of assault, speaking up about personal experiences and their survival through trauma. In a way, that drew people together, too, because the more people talk about assault – be it violent, sexual or both – the more you realise how common it is.”
Locals were looking for reassurance, so Sigríur swiftly delivered on a promise to install 30 new security cameras in Reykjavik city centre, and there are further plans to put more police on the streets of the city in the early hours.
“It is a fact that women do not feel safe in a variety of situations,” she said in an interview at the time.
“The case of Birna Brjánsdóttir is a terrible reminder of this, and it would be a great pity if one of the consequences of this crime was for women to become even more frightened than before.”
But is it too late? The image of Iceland as a laid-back country where women could wander alone after dark without any concerns is ebbing away, and the murder of Birna Brjánsdóttir is still one of the main topics of conversation in bars and restaurants.
She had her life ahead of her and it was snatched away in a moment. It’s horrific.
Andrew Morgan
“She had her life ahead of her and it was snatched away in a moment. It’s horrific,” says ex-boyfriend Andrew.
“I still can’t believe she is no longer here.”
When Birna’s body was laid to rest on February 3, hundreds of people – including the President of Iceland – paid their respects, solemnly watching as the simple white coffin adorned with flowers and carried by her friends, passed by.
Those who weren’t able to be there took to social media to show solidarity and regret, their message clear and simple: “I am Birna”.