Transcription
[Music] Kevin Patrickson H Marson was born on October 12th, 1993, to parents Patrick Scug and Toas Helal Marson in Dovik, Arva municipality, Varmland County, Sweden. Kevin spent his early years growing up in Arvika with his parents and his two brothers and was described by his loved ones as a happy, adventurous, and confident young boy who was determined, loving, and caring. Kevin adored playing alone and with his friends and spent much of his time riding his beloved red bike.
On the 16th of August, 1998, the last day of the summer holidays, four-year-old Kevin Cal Marson went to go and play with his best friend, Robin D, five, and his older brother, seven-year-old Christian Carlson, both of whom lived in Arvika. The boys spent the afternoon playing together before heading home their separate ways. However, Kevin never arrived.
After Kevin had failed to return home, his family became increasingly concerned that something had happened to him. As a result, the H. Marson family and their friends and neighbors searched throughout the vicinity for four-year-old Kevin. Later that same night, several hours after Kevin went missing, at around 9:20 p.m., his grandfather found his lifeless corpse lying on a wooden raft on Church beach, near the shore of Lake Glasss Furan, just 400 km west of the country's capital, Stockholm.
At first glance, it appeared that young Kevin had drowned in an accident. However, as the investigation continued, it became apparent that this was not the case. An autopsy was conducted on Kevin, which determined that the boy did not accidentally drown; rather, that he had been a victim of homicide. His body was bruised and showed signs of possible strangulation, specifically suggesting that a stick of some kind was lodged against the boy's throat, suffocating him to death. Investigators also found evidence to suggest that Kevin had been killed around 30 m or so away before being dumped at the lake's shoreline. Although the specifics regarding how authorities came to this conclusion is unclear, authorities couldn't determine how Kevin's body was transported to the shoreline, as there were no drag marks on the ground, nor were there any drag marks on Kevin's body. We still don't know how, to this day, Kevin was placed by the lake.
Lans's criminal police in Varland suspected that Kevin had initially been victim to a child predator, as all of the evidence pointed towards this theory. However, rather shockingly, suspicion soon fell on the most unlikely suspects: Kevin's two friends that he had been playing with that afternoon, Robin and Christian, who were both five and seven years old respectively, who were not named at the time due to their age, were questioned by police days after Kevin's body was found, initially only as witnesses, as were over 100 other children who lived in the town. However, after a short while, it became apparent that Robin and Christian were now being treated as prime suspects in Kevin's presumed murder, the two having been seen playing with the four-year-old earlier that same day. The brothers were interrogated by Swedish authorities around 30 times for two months through to October of 1998, and following both boys being questioned, both Robin and Christian shockingly confessed to killing four-year-old Kevin H. Marson, sending shock waves through Sweden. The brothers initially denied being involved in Kevin's death but later confessed after these grueling interrogations.
Rather interestingly, police did not have any evidence to prove that the brothers were involved in Kevin's death, and something else which seemed odd was that the authorities also didn't have any official recordings regarding these alleged confessions by both Robin and Christian, yet somehow they did have recordings of other interrogation sessions, just not the ones in which the confessions were allegedly made. The police gave a press conference in November and revealed that they concluded that Robin and Christian had accidentally killed four-year-old Kevin during a game which went horribly wrong. When they told the public that the boys had confessed, that they were remorseful, and that the appropriate steps would be taken to deal with the situation at hand, the boys were guilty. That the authorities had no doubt. Due to the brothers' ages being younger than 15 years of age, they could not be held accountable for their crimes; therefore, were not formally convicted or prosecuted in regards to Kevin H. Marson's death. Due to this conclusion and the boys being minors, the case was never transferred to the district court; therefore, no trial was held, and no formal justice was served for the four-year-old.
Only something about this whole case just didn't sit right with a number of Swedes. Following the brothers being found guilty of killing Kevin Karson, a number of questions arose, especially in regards to whether the confessions made by Robin and Christian were reliable. Some found it extremely difficult to comprehend how two young boys could have carried out something so despicable, especially when there was no physical evidence whatsoever to indicate that Robin nor Christian were involved at all in Kevin's demise. A criminologist named Leif GW. Parson believes that a 13-year-old boy, who remains unidentified due to legal reasons, was responsible for Kevin's death, not Robin nor Christian. The teenager was allegedly arrested on bail just 9 months after Kevin's death for sexually assaulting a three-year-old boy close to where Kevin's body was found by Glass Furan Lake in Arva. Unfortunately, no concrete evidence could link this individual to Kevin's death, nor anyone else for that matter.
For almost 20 years, the H. Marson family believed that Robin and Christian had accidentally killed their son. However, new investigations into the case cast serious doubt on this conclusion. Pressure was beginning to mount on the authorities, especially in regards to one question: where the confessions that were made made by a five and a seven-year-old reliable, or were they influenced in some way by those who interrogated them?
In April of 2017, 19 years after Kevin H. Marson's death, The Daily News newspaper launched a review into the case, and on the 4th of May that same year, the Kevin case was officially reopened by Swedish authorities due to "new circumstances that warranted the resumption of the preliminary investigation." As first feared, not all was what it seemed. Brothers Robin and Christian first spoke of the Kevin Fallot, or the Kevin case, in a three-part documentary which aired in Sweden in 2017, shortly after the review into the case was launched, and their cloak of anonymity was finally lifted. The brothers spoke of how their lives were tainted by the event of that fateful day in 1998.
Following Kevin's death, Robin and Christian were taken in by Social Services for treatment and for psychological help at a children's institution. Robin and Christian were kept away from their family and friends for years following the crime, and the state shockingly tried to make this a permanent arrangement. However, no foster parents could be found for the two brothers, and as a result, the two were eventually returned to their parents.
The SVT documentary about the Kevin case suggested that the police investigation was deeply flawed in a number of ways. Firstly, in regards to their work ethics around both children. According to Robin and Christian, the police threatened and misled them into confessing the crime. Robin claimed that the police put a lot of pressure on him, and he was scared of the police officers who were questioning him because he was frightened about what could happen to him or his brother. Bear in mind, Robin was only 5 years old at the time. He felt obliged to do whatever the police told him to do. Robin was vulnerable and had nobody to help guide him or reassure him, as his parents were forbidden from attending the vast majority of his interrogation interviews. Recordings of the original interrogation sessions also corroborated with Robin's statement here, as the recordings did depict police putting a lot of pressure on both brothers. The questions put to Robin and Christian were also very leading. They asked questions such as, "How did they kill Kevin?" and "Where did they leave his body?" Police seemingly already convinced of their guilt. In a rather outrageous twist, during most of these 30 interrogation sessions, no lawyer was present either alongside the boys, their parents, as previously mentioned, being strictly forbidden from being involved. The children were allegedly subject of a number of threats and rewards depending on how they answered each question put to them during these interrogations. At one of the hearings, which lasted for approximately 4 hours, neither of the brothers' parents were allowed to attend either. Hearings involving children should never last for as long as 4 hours, as they easily become tired and lose focus. The parents were led to believe that this was usual protocol and trusted authorities' judgment – a fatal mistake.
The methods used in regards to questioning the boys have been widely scrutinized and deemed extremely unprofessional. Neither D. nor Carlson could remember anything about allegedly killing Kevin, but over time, they began to question the events of that day because of what the police were leading them to believe. So many were convinced of their guilt, so much so that even the boys themselves started to question if it was true, and despite not being able to recall being with Kevin at the time, they feared that perhaps they had suppressed the memories of their crime. A psychology professor, amongst many other professionals involved in this case, later reiterated how these initial interrogations were conducted completely against normal rules and should have been carried out as per usual protocol with parents and lawyers present. If normal procedures had taken place, the false confessions would not have occurred. Not once during the investigation did Robin, Christian, or their parents have legal representation. Another shocking development was which was mentioned in this documentary was the fact that Robin and Christian had cast-iron alibis at the time Kevin was killed. Another family was visiting the brothers' family at the time, and yet somehow police didn't consider this when investigating and dismissed the key witness who confirmed the boys were present at home when Kevin was killed. The brothers simply could not have been in two places at once.
The Kevin case documentary shed a new light on the case, and following its airing on Swedish television, the investigation was reopened. It wasn't until March of 2018, almost 20 years after Kevin's death, that both Robin D. and Christian Carlson were finally cleared of having any involvement in the four-year-old's death. The police made far too many mistakes, and lack of evidence in itself was telling. D. and Carlson were relieved to finally be cleared and expressed their thanks to the media who told the world their side of the story in this documentary. In doing so, both Robin and Christian could finally start to rebuild their lives as innocent men.
Despite evidence of Kevin being suffocated with a stick and the fact that his body was covered in bruises, Swedish authorities concluded following the case being reopened that the four-year-old was not a victim of homicide but of an accident. It is unclear how authorities reached this new conclusion, such as whether new evidence came to light which debunked the murder theory. Whether Kevin was a victim to foul play or succumbed to a tragic accident remains unclear.
Robin D. and Christian Carlson spent over 20 years of their lives under the veil of suspicion for a crime they simply did not commit. Society branded them as child killers when they themselves were just children who were also vulnerable and misled by those who they should have been able to trust. Due to the many failures caused by Swedish law enforcement, the brothers suffered tremendously, losing precious years of their lives that they can never get back. A trial of some kind should have been carried out with evidence presented to a court and no threat of punishment being used against the boys. If this had happened, Robin and Christian would have been cleared much sooner, and this terrible miscarriage of justice could have been prevented.
The only positive to come from this is that Kevin's case has encouraged more discussions regarding protecting the rights of children during legal processes. Their rights should be protected just as much as an adult who has been accused of a crime. Any sort of confessions made by a child should be thoroughly investigated first and should not be treated as gospel straight away. Children are very easily influenced, especially in frightening and challenging situations. This case proves that.
The Kevin case has never been far from the minds and hearts of those closest to the young boy. His parents suffered immensely following their son's death and continued to do so to this day. Due to the botched initial investigation, the H. Marson family hold a lot of resentment towards the police for the way they conducted themselves, and understandably so. Whoever was responsible for their son's death has never been found, and if police had conducted themselves accordingly at the time, Kevin's killer could have been brought to justice. But as it stands, this case remains unsolved for.