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Thursday marks 20 years since Tina Jørgensen apparently disappeared without a trace from Stavanger. A month later, she was found dead in a drainage basin at the Bore church in Jæren.
No one is a suspect or accused of the murder.
– We have the objective to solve the case, says Unni Byberg Malmin to Dagbladet.
She has been the leader of the prosecution in the Kripos group of open cases, which since the fall of 2018 has looked at the murder case with new eyes. The investigation group has worked primarily with tactical investigations, which means that it has largely conducted witness interviews and followed up on leads.
The police have taken new interrogations in the Tina Jørgensen case
Investigator
During the period, about 100 witness interviews were conducted. The tasks that were recommended in the cold case work have been completed and the project is complete. The resources that were allocated to the investigation have been returned.
– But we are still working on the case and investigating. New tips are constantly coming in. No later than August, we receive suggestions. All tips have been reviewed and handled.
However, the case is pending.
– Mainly witness interviews have been conducted. We have also followed some electronic tracks. I will not go into the investigation that has been done, but the technical investigation has not provided us with further information.
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She says that she and an investigation leader follow up on new advice that comes to the case and assess whether it requires further investigation steps. If necessary, bring in the other six who contributed to the Cold Case project.
– When we know the case as well as we do now, we quickly know if the advice that comes is something we know before or if there is something we should investigate further. Then it is much easier to evaluate the information that comes in continuously.
Tina Jørgensen’s mother: – I cry for the family who must experience this
Extensive case material
All the interrogations carried out by the Cold Case group were interrogations of witnesses.
– What are the challenges of investigating a case so far back in time?
– Our job has been to contact people who have submitted suggestions or are mentioned in the suggestions. The challenge is that some don’t remember they tipped. But we experience that he often comes back in touch with them. There is also extensive case material that has been carried out in previous investigations.
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Malmin was not part of the previous investigation and therefore cannot comment on it.
– Tips have been processed and revised to a greater or lesser degree. We have collected information there and have seen if it can take us a step further. The main objective was to see if we could have missed something.
From 2000 until today, the police have received 1,700 leads. 50 of them came since 2018, when the Cold Case group started working. 130 tips are related to specific job tasks that have been completed.
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“Unusual duality”
In 2018, Erlend Frafjord, a longtime journalist at Stavanger Aftenblad and now at NRK, was able to reveal a number of new details about the murder investigation in the book “When Tina Was Murdered.” It revealed, among other things, that almost all of the biological material in the case had been discarded.
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In the book, Frafjord points out one of the surprising characteristics of the murder, which he calls an “unusual duality”: that the murder itself appears to have been carried out by a person who was out of control, but that all subsequent actions, like chasing away the body, pack it in a sack and throw it into a basin, seemingly without leaving telltale traces, giving associations to people with a cold distance to murder.
Malmin doesn’t want to comment on “the unusual duality.”
– We have not had any progress in the case. We have thought very broadly all the way. It also becomes natural. We don’t have a clear picture of what happened before the murder. Part of the task has been trying to understand and discover what happened before and after.
Tina’s former defendant receives NOK 75,000 in compensation
– Someone needs to know
She notes that there has been extensive research material to become familiar with.
– It is an issue that has not only involved at the local level, but has also gained attention at the national level. We have a strong desire to resolve the matter. It’s a challenge with old stuff and we’ve put the list low. We are interested in getting in touch with people who think they have something to tell us. There must be someone who knows something.
Marianne was kidnapped. Tina and Trude died. Read mothers’ letters to unknown perpetrators
Tina Jørgensen (20) disappeared on the night of September 24, 2000 after being in town with her boyfriend. Three weeks after the disappearance, the investigation was drastically reduced when the main hypothesis of the police was that she had disappeared of her own free will or had taken her own life.
On October 26, more than a month after her disappearance, she was found in a sewer at the Bore church in Jæren, 30 miles away.
In retrospect, the police have believed that she was murdered under Bybrua in Sølyst, just 200 meters from her own apartment.
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Five provisions
It was in October 2016, just after four men were acquitted in the case, that the Chief of Police of the Southwest Police District asked the Serious Unsolved Cases Section in Kripos, the so-called open cases unit, to review the unsolved murder case. It was then that it was decided to return to the matter. Later, the open cases unit also came up with criticism of the police investigation.
– Much of the seizures were ruled out. Unfortunately, it is not unique in this case. However, we have the impression that the police are better handling seizures today, Cold Case Police Superintendent Ingrid Tveit said at a news conference.
Not tested
A total of five men have been charged in the case, but the case against all of them has been dropped.
The case appeared to have a definitive solution in 2015, when the police arrested a man in Sørlandet. He said in an audio recording that he and three friends from his youth were behind the murder. All four were arrested.
But a year later, in September 2016, the whole case failed. What was said on the audio recording was just an invention. The charges against the four men were dropped and the Attorney General cleared them all of any suspicions.
Tina’s ex-boyfriend was also charged with the murder in 2001, but he was also acquitted and awarded compensation and reparations.
