After emergency crews rushed to the scene of the elderly woman’s apartment in Stockholm, they discovered that she had been holding her son captive in the apartment for twenty-eight years. Apparently the woman had been keeping her son, now 41, inside the apartment for this immense period of time, and first-response personnel were immediately able to tell that he had been tremendously neglected.
Indeed, the man’s condition was so poor that he had a tremendous amount of open sores all over his body and had almost no teeth in his mouth. Additionally, he was having immense difficulty walking and talking according to Swedish news crews.
They rushed the 41-year-old victim to a local hospital and he underwent surgery for his wounds. Luckily, Stockhold medical authorities say that his injuries are not life-threatening.
Once the man was being treated, it became obvious to Swedish police that the man had been held against his will. Thus, they went ahead and placed the mother under arrest and took her into custody.
By Tuesday of that week, the apartment that the mother and her son had shared was being scoured by police investigators. They ended up blocking off the home from any other entrants simply because of the immense amount of clues.
Reports quickly began to indicate that the mother had pulled her son out of school when he was a 12-year-old boy in 1991. Police also interviewed sources close to the mother, and it was quickly revealed that she had become “very overprotective” of her son after there had been a “family incident” that had traumatized the mother for life.
Neighbors just by looking at the exterior of the apartment that it had not been maintained for many years. Some reported that they had seen the same advent candle in one particular room for at least thirty years. Unfortunately for the son however, many of the neighbors were simply not aware that this woman’s son had been so severely imprisoned. Most of the neighbors would even stop and talk to the woman out in the public, but they wouldn’t probe too deeply, instead just dwelling on innocuous topics such as the weather.
Additionally, some of these neighbors would ask about the woman’s son. She would usually say that he was “fine” but then she would immediately change the subject. One person even saw the son out publicly last summer. He actually approached the person and said, “I know you. You’re one of my neighbors.”
However, most of the neighbors admitted that they didn’t know that the apartment had an adult male living in it. They simply didn’t realize that the woman had anyone living with her, much less an adult son.
The unfortunate circumstances that the man was in would have probably continued until one of them died had it not been for a relative of the woman. This relative had thought for a long time that something wasn’t on the up-and-up, but she didn’t realize that the man was being held prisoner.
However, this last November the plot this woman had devised began to quickly unravel. Once the woman had to go to the hospital for an undisclosed condition, the relative went to the apartment. Once there, this person immediately discovered the 41-year-old son sleeping in the kitchen of the apartment with just one blanket. This relative was also appalled at the condition of the apartment. It had a horrible smell, with urine, rotting food, and garbage. Indeed, the trash was so immense that the relative was having difficulty walking through the residence.
The son had small wounds and sores throughout his body, and they had pus leaking from them.
“We suspect that the mother has been illegally depriving her son of life and liberty and that it has caused him bodily harm,” Stockholm police spokesperson Ola Osterling told a local media source. “This man is now in the hospital. However, he doesn’t have life-threatening injuries.”