Mother accused of holding son captive:

The case is being updated.

– We have had a very difficult life. My children have seen me abuse their entire childhood. We need help to cope, says the 70-year-old woman Thursday.

She has now chosen to give her version of the story to the Swedish newspaper Expressen.

They meet the woman in the same apartment as the son must have been found by his sister on December 1, while the mother herself was hospitalized. The son is said to have been malnourished and in poor condition when he was found.

– We need help, both me and my son have needed it for a long time, the woman begins.

She is in the kitchen of her own home near Stockholm.

– When you say you need help, what do you mean then?

– I have to get my life in order. The municipality will come here this afternoon and I hope that they will help me, the 70-year-old mother answers.

– Have you had contact with your son?

– No, I do not have, but I miss him. I do not know if I will ever see him again.

Police: Do not suspect crime

The Swedish woman in her 70s, who was first arrested and charged with holding her son captive for 28 years, no longer has status as a suspect with the police.

This was confirmed by the police on Thursday, after several days of questioning and investigation.

State Attorney Emma Olsson announced that there is no longer any suspicion that the woman, who was released on Wednesday, has committed a crime.

– During the days where we have worked on the case and the woman has been in custody, we have not really found any evidence that strengthens the hypothesis that there is any crime, Olsson said.

The son himself is said to have said in interrogation that he could leave the apartment whenever he wanted, and the police believe this is a matter for the health and social services, and not for the judiciary.

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– I understand that I’m sick

The woman herself says that her son left school on his own initiative because he could no longer take it.

– He was not well. It was because of our background and everything that had happened while the children were young.

– You have been accused of preventing him from going to school, did you?

– No, I have tried, but I myself have been mentally abused, she answers.

The woman further says that the social services and the school tried to help as best they could, but that it was not possible to persuade the son to start school again.

She says that both she and her son are mentally broken.

– I understand that I am ill and that I need help, she says.

Lonely and violent life

The 70-year-old says that her and her son’s lives have long been marked by loneliness, and that the two have lived “in their own world”.

On Wednesday, VG met the woman’s neighbor, Lars Österdahl (46). During the time he has lived there, one has not once thought that it was anyone other than the woman who lived there.

– It started when the children were small. I was severely abused by my then girlfriend and the children witnessed this, she says.

The mother describes a violent everyday life where she did everything to protect the children from that violence in the home, especially her youngest son. She says that her boyfriend could sometimes get so angry that he threw furniture out of the apartment and burned it in a pile of woods nearby.

The woman’s daughter herself has told Expressen that the mother’s violent background cannot excuse the way the mother has acted.

Expressen: A dilapidated, dirty home

According to the newspaper, the 70-year-old’s apartment is dilapidated. They write that it is both dirty, messy and poorly ventilated. On the wall hangs a couple of pictures with words of wisdom.

The mother allegedly lost her first son in the 1970s. When she later had a new son, she is said to have given the new son the same name as her firstborn, deceased son.

The mother is often said to have feared that something would happen to her son every time he was outside the home, Expressen writes.