Birthday Cards and Private Notes on Conflict – VG

In the days and weeks following Tom Hagen’s arrest and indictment in April this year, the police carried out a series of seizures both at the couple’s home and at Tom Hagen’s workplace in Lørenskog.

Along with other written findings, police have argued that these may support their theory that marital problems and old conflicts may be a motive, something that Tom Hagen himself has rejected.

He denies having anything to do with his wife’s disappearance.

Police learned early on that Anne-Elisabeth Hagen had told people around her that she had lived in a troubled marriage for several years, and she believes written sources can back this up, among other things:

• A marriage covenant from 1987 and an addition to it from 1993.
• Separation documents signed by Anne-Elisabeth Hagen, dated several years before her disappearance.
• Excerpts from several of Tom Hagen’s notebooks, including those from 2018.
• Private Notes from Anne-Elisabeth Hagen.
• Birthday cards and wedding cards, especially from Anne-Elisabeth Hagen to her husband.

District Court – Ground for Suspicion of Murder

The district court several times during the investigation confirmed to the police that there is good reason to be suspicious, but in May Tom Hagen was released after the Eidsivating Court of Appeal reviewed this assessment. The majority of the Court of Appeal ruled that the basis of the suspicions against him was too weak.
A few weeks after the crushing defeat, more precisely at the end of June, the police went back to the Nedre Romerike district court. The reason was that the police wanted the court’s blessing to re-search the family’s cabins.

The police presented new evidence and it was confirmed by the court to the effect that there is a preponderance of probabilities that Hagen was involved in the murder or complicity in the murder of the spouse for almost 50 years.

The decision was never appealed to the Court of Appeal by Tom Hagen’s defense attorney, attorney Svein Holden, and it remained so.

VG is now able to publish the new findings that the police presented to the court in June, and has asked the Hagen camp several questions about these:

– With regard to the questions that VG has presented to us, we will first point out that they contain unbalanced factual information. However, due to our duty of confidentiality, we are unable to comment on individual information, Holden writes in an email.

(Read the full answer below in the case.)

• Excerpts from several of Tom Hagen’s notebooks

Several of the notes that were presented to the court were drawn up by Tom Hagen in the period from 2007 to 2018, VG is informed. Here, marriage to Anne-Elisabeth Hagen was the subject repeatedly.

She writes, among other things, about a marital conflict in 1993, about the challenges it has created in hindsight, about how she has had to be patient in the relationship, and about how a divorce can affect the man more.

VG is informed that Tom Hagen in a note from 2018 describes 1993 as a crossroads in marriage: the time before is summed up as good, while the years after and up to 2018 are described as bad.

It also talks about the years to come, but which questions. Hagen writes that he must do something, VG is informed.

• Birthday and wedding cards

Several of the cards that were filed in district court in June are written by Anne-Elisabeth Hagen. They are from different periods of the marriage, but several are from the last years before his disappearance – 2014 to 2017. On several occasions he expresses that he regrets the conflicts between them, VG reports.

On a birthday card for her 67th birthday, she writes that she loved her husband and wanted to live with him, VG reports. But he also expresses that living together has at times been difficult and turbulent.

• Notes from Anne-Elisabeth Hagen

Police have made several seizures of old Anne-Elisabeth Hagen notes from the couple’s home, including a blue coffin. VG is informed that it is unclear when they signed up, but that, among other things, he has written about living with Tom Hagen from the late 1960s to the 1980s.

According to information from VG, he also wrote here about a difficult marriage.

VG is aware that the police have investigated a laptop found on Sloraveien 4. Web logs show that someone has Googled the word “divorce”, but the police cannot determine who did the search.

However, the police have recorded that Tom Hagen has rejected divorce as a subject.

Confirmed fears of divorce in 1993

When Tom Hagen broke two years of silence and posed for a longer interview with NRK at his home on Sloraveien 4 two weeks ago, marital problems and a possible divorce came to the fore.

– I have experienced and … Lisbeth has experienced that we have had a good marriage, but we have had bumps in the road like everyone else. There is nothing to hide. We have lived a life, Hagen said.

At the same time, the billionaire confirmed that the separation papers that the spouse had filled out were completely unknown to him. The documents, which are mentioned in various media, were found by the police during a search in Sloraveien 4.

– I didn’t know anything until I saw it. That is why you have found them in a drawer or on a dresser.

– Do you think he would get a divorce?

– No I dont think so. Then he would have, Hagen told NRK.

Hagen was also asked about the addition to the marriage covenant in 1993, which various experts have called unreasonable:

– So the situation was that we had been inside a small valley of waves, and then the situation was that I was a little scared …

– What were you afraid of?

– No, it could be that, for example, if there was a divorce, then… To accept it, Hagen told NRK.

Tom Hagen has not been in extensive questioning with the police since he was arrested.

VG has previously written that he questioned witnesses in 2019 about the 1993 conflict, but even then denied that the couple had ever sat down to seriously discuss divorce. He has also dismissed revenge, jealousy, and money as motives he might have had.

The three adult children have also said in questioning that they do not recognize each other in eyewitness descriptions of a troubled marriage.

Critic for the VG article

VG has sent a series of questions to Hagen’s defender, attorney Svein Holden, for this article. In an email, the defender responds that in recent days we have received requests from various media to comment on the police leaks.

– With regard to the questions that VG has presented to us, we will first point out that they contain unbalanced factual information. However, due to our duty of confidentiality, we are prohibited from commenting on individual information, Holden writes.

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Therefore, the police hope for a solution.

The defender further writes that they are concerned that VG chooses to reproduce individual elements of the relationship between Anne Elisabeth and Tom Hagen without informing his readers of the context from which the statements are taken.

– Other information from the same sources would have given the opposite impression. Tom Hagen’s core material is over 15,000 pages long, plus a part from Anne Elisabeth Hagen. Individual citation leaks here and there mean that the article content becomes wildly misleading and has the appearance of being a “shit package” for Tom Hagen from VG sources, Holden writes.

– We would also like to remind you that it was these views of the police that were not heard in the Eidsivating Court of Appeal, which contributed to Tom Hagen being released.

– The murder charge is weaker

In the email, Holden writes that they have the perception that there is no question that the police indictment against Tom Hagen is even weaker today than this spring.

Holden claims that the police have recently established that a telephone test they used before the Nedre Romerike District Court and the Eidsivating Court of Appeal, in relation to Tom Hagen’s custody request, is not correct.

– We are happy that it has now come to light that it was a false accusation against Tom Hagen. At the same time, it is regrettable that police have spent a disproportionate amount of time discovering this, Holden writes.

The defense attorney believes that the police have not made it likely that a murder occurred and that the kidnapping appears to be at least as likely.

– There is no evidence of any connection between Tom Hagen and the necessary collaborators in the alleged police murder, he writes.

Holden also writes:

– Anne Elisabeth Hagen has been missing for 2 years. It hurts your loved ones not knowing what happened to you. For Tom Hagen, it has been incredibly demanding to be charged with the crime, and our fear that the police will not find Anne Elisabeth and the perpetrators is growing stronger.

– Articles like this do not take the case further, but only impose additional burdens on the Hagen family.

Police Inspector Agnes Beate Hemiø in the Eastern Police District does not want to comment on the case, but has previously told Nettavisen the following about the state of evidence:

– At present, the evidence does not have a force that allows us to issue an accusation, Hemiø said.