The horrifying real assassination that inspired Netflix’s new crime thriller The Unlikely Murderer
THE next true crimes series that everyone will soon be talking about is Netflix’s The Unlikely murderer. The Swedish series is a dramatic interpretation about the man who likely assassinated the country’s prime minister, Olof Palme. The prime minister was assassinated in 1986 when he was walking home from the cinema with his wife, Lisbeth. […]
THE next true crimes series that everyone will soon be talking about is Netflix’s The Unlikely murderer.
The Swedish series is a dramatic interpretation about the man who likely assassinated the country’s prime minister, Olof Palme.
The prime minister was assassinated in 1986 when he was walking home from the cinema with his wife, Lisbeth.
He was shot once fatally in central Stockholm, with a second gunshot injuring Lisbeth.
Christer Pettersson was originally convicted of Palme’s murder but was later acquitted.
It has since become widely accepted that graphic designer, Stig Engström, assassinated the prime minister.
Known as The Skandia Man, Engström died in 2000 and the truth about what happened that night might never be uncovered.
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Beloved Swedish actor Robert Gustafsson will play the likely assassin and described the chapter in his country’s history as an “abscess that never disappears.”
Most shockingly, Gustafsson was at the cinema the same night as Palme.
“It’s an exciting challenge and a great responsibility to portray Stig Engström, but also, in a way, a form of therapy,” the actor revealed.
“Since I was at the same cinema as Olof Palme on the night of the murder, this case has always felt like an abscess that never disappears – and I’m not alone in feeling that.”
The five-part limited series will explore how Engström managed to elude justice right up to his death through a combination of audacity, luck and a perplexed police force.
The Unlikely Murderer will explore how the police let him get away, despite being on to him.
The murder was not planned well, Engström did everything wrong from the beginning and almost no one believed his lies about what he actually did during that fateful night.
Author Thomas Pettersson penned the book on which the new series with the same name is based.
“When I started looking into the Palme murder in 2007 and discovered ‘The Skandia man’, I could barely believe my eyes,” Pettersson explained.
“His testimony seriously deviated from every other testimony at the crime scene. It was so obvious ‘The Skandia man’ could be the murderer – why hadn’t he been arrested and interrogated?”
The Unlikely Murderer will debut on Netflix on November 5.
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