When Birna Brjánsdóttir disappeared and was found murdered it would shock the nation of Iceland. There aren’t many murders in Iceland. How could a vibrant 20 year old just disappear from one of the safest countries in the world? Listen to find out why “I AM BIRNA” became a rallying cry for this Icelandic Nation.
Apple Podcasts
Stitcher
Pandora
Spotify
Google Podcasts
iHeartRadio
TuneInLocation
Reykjavik’s population is under 230,000 and it holds 63% of Iceland’s entire population. Because of its location in January, the sun is only out a few hours a day and the temperatures are normally below freezing.
Going Out
On the night of January 13th, 2017, Birna Brjánsdóttir was out with her friends enjoying the nightlife. Birna was 20 years old and by all accounts, she was fun-loving, really social, and always ready to have a good time. They went out bar hopping and dancing in Laugavegur, the main shopping strip in Reykjavik. Around 2 am her friends decided to leave. Birna wanted to stay and she did until closing around 4:30 am – 5 am.
It is important to point out that Iceland is a very safe place. It is normal for a woman to walk around the city at night with no reason for fear. The population is so small and it’s very tight-knit. People feel like they know each other and that they are a community.
From 2000 to 2015 the average murder rate was 1.6. Most of these were young men known to each other.
When Birna left the bar she started to walk home to her father’s house, where she was living. It was a 30 min walk from where she was. She stopped to get something to eat and continued walking home. There is a video of her doing this on CCTV. She is clearly very drunk in the video, stumbling a bit, and dropping coins at one point. It was 15 degrees Fahrenheit outside and she was wearing black Doc Martens boots, jeans, a gray sweater, and a black hoodie over her shoulders. The surveillance shows her walk past a bar and a cafe, and then she’s gone.
Birna Brjánsdóttir Missing
When she didn’t show up for work Saturday morning, it was immediately suspicious, as she never missed work. She worked with a friend Maria who she grew up with. When Maria tried to call Birna’s mobile, it was off, which also never happened.
Maria started calling around to the friends Birna Brjánsdóttir was with the night before. She also checked with Birna’s father but no one had any idea where she was. She contacted Birna’s mother Silla who immediately filed a missing person report. Silla also started pushing things out to Facebook to spread the word about her missing daughter.
Police Search
On Sunday morning police had an update. Birna’s phone had pinged on a tower close to an industrial area in a port town about 6 miles south of Reykjavik before being turned off around 5:50. Birna’s mother went there with friends knocking on doors to see if anyone had seen her, but no one had.
Keep in mind, they have about 5 hours a day of sunlight.
By Monday all of the news outlets have reported on the story and it is all over Iceland. Again, this is a safe place, and this sort of thing doesn’t happen. Detective Grimur Grimsson was called in to work the case but he wasn’t overly worried when he arrived at the station. Most young people that went missing ended up having slept at a friend’s house or hooked up with someone.
Red Kia
When police examine the footage more closely they see that at the same moment that Birna Brjánsdóttir disappears from the camera there’s a red Kia Rio in the same spot. The video quality isn’t good enough to get a license plate. Unfortunately, there were too many of that type of car to narrow down quickly.
All of this info was being shared with the local media. Now everyone in Iceland is trying to figure out who was in that car.
On Monday night, 2 brothers were looking in the port town where her phone had last pinged. They had no relation to Birna, the case, or the forces looking for her. They went to look around the harbor and there was a fenced-off area with oil storage tanks and building supplies. There they found a pair of black boots. Based on the descriptions that had been shared of what Birna had been wearing they suspected they were hers.
Divers and helicopters immediately began searching. The CCTV footage was examined, and they spotted a red Kia entering the harbor a little after 6 am on Saturday morning. The car stopped beside a fishing boat called the Polar Nanoq. A man exited the passenger side, obviously drunk, and went on to the ship. Then the car drove off.
They were able to get the plates. It turns out the car was a rental being used by Thoman Olsen, a 25 yr old crew member of the Polar Nanoq. The car had been returned at lunchtime on Saturday and the police were able to impound it. It had a strong chemical smell and traces of blood were found on the backseat. Samples had to be sent to Sweden for testing along with Birna’s DNA.
The Polar Nanoq
The Polar Nanoq was a Greenlandic ship and had set sail Saturday afternoon. A journalist found out the ship had been linked to the murder. The journalist then discovered a Facebook group that the crew used and messaged asking if Thomas knew who had rented the red Kia. Thomas showed the message to the captain. The captain told him, if you didn’t do anything, you have nothing to worry about, and gave him a sedative.
Back in Iceland, there were major worries about being able to get the suspects before they had time to destroy evidence and coordinate stories. Luckily for them, the captain had read that the ship might be connected. He feared it may have been one of his men, and he decided to sail back to Iceland. The captain and the senior crew told everyone there was a problem with the engine and they had to go back for parts.
He also turned off the Wifi so no one would be able to read about the case. Iceland does not have special forces, but they do have the Vikingasveittin or Viking Squad. On early Wednesday morning, 6 Vikings boarded the boat and a helicopter flew out to meet the boat as it entered Icelandic waters.
Arrest
Nikolaj (the passenger exiting the car) and Thomas were arrested and confined to their cabins until land could be reached 12 hours later. All of Iceland was gripped by this case. They even postponed the airing of the series “Missing” to show respect for Birna’s friends and family. Once on land, the men were brought in for questioning. The blood that had been found was Birna’s but both men denied causing her any harm.
The first part of the story matches. On Friday Nikolaj had taken a cab from the port to Reykjavik and went for a drink at a pub. There he had won a prize of 8 beers, which he drank. Thomas drove his rental and met Nikolaj, who was already very drunk. They went to another bar and then got in the car and drove down to Laugavegur. There, two women entered the car, one of them being Birna Brjánsdóttir.
Nikolaj says he fell asleep on the way and didn’t remember anything about them. Thomas says that after dropping Nikolaj off at the boat, he parked at the end of the harbor. He climbed into the back of the car with the two women, who he kissed. He then dropped them off at a nearby roundabout after about an hour.
Nikolaj’s Story Check Out, But…
Nikolaj’s story checked out completely, Thomas’s did not.
At 7 am he was seen leaving the harbor and does not reappear until 11 am. He says that he slept in his car during that time, but the odometer showed that wasn’t the case. Thomas was caught on camera buying Ajax, clothes, and plastic bags at the market and then scrubbing the inside of the car. He claimed that this was to remove vomit, but as we all know there was blood on the seat. They also found scratches on his chest and Birna’s driver’s license folded in a trash can on the ship.
Birna’s Body is Found
A week after Birna’s disappearance the search party grows. There are 835 volunteers and 87 vehicles out looking for her. The search association Ice-SAR had a mantra “today, she is our sister and our daughter.”
Around noon that day, a helicopter flying over the southern peninsula’s coastline spotted her body near the water’s edge. Birna Brjánsdóttir was found naked. There were no signs of sexual assault. She had been struck on the head and strangled, but she was alive when she was placed in the water. The official cause of death was drowning. Nikolaj was released after 2 weeks, and Thomas never changed his story. We still do not know why Birna got into his car or why he killed her.
Trial
Thomas was charged with murder and drug possession. Police found 1.4M of hashish which is the resin of the cannabis plant. By trial, his DNA had been found on the laces of Birna’s boots and his fingerprints were on her driver’s license. He tried to change his story during the trial, saying Birna Brjánsdóttir had only gotten in the car. He stopped to pee and Nikolaj had driven away with Birna. When he came back she wasn’t in the car. A month later 3 judges convicted him of both charges and he was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
At her funeral, hundreds of people came to pay their respects, including president Gundi Jóhannesson. Vigils were held in Iceland, Greenland, and Denmark with social media adopting the mantra – I am Birna.
Resources
- The murder that shook Iceland | News
- Candlelit vigils unite Greenland and Iceland in grief over killing
- Woman Was Thrown Into Ocean, Autopsy Says, in Murder That Shook Iceland