[anxious breathing]
[ominous music playing]
[g*nsh*t]
[man] It is very intriguing
when you hear that a young, elegant,
unidentified woman is found dead
in a hotel room.
There must be a family out there somewhere
that needs to know what happened to her.
Why was she in Oslo?
What was the reason for her visit?
Why was she found dead
with a b*llet hole through her forehead?
There are so many things
we need to find out.
[suspenseful main theme playing]
[horn blows]
[seagulls cry]
[car horn toots]
[horns blare]
[gentle piano music plays]
[man]
The only thing we know about the woman
is that a Wednesday evening
in the end of May 1995...
a woman checks in at the Plaza Hotel,
which was, at that time,
the top luxury hotel in Oslo.
[lock beeps]
[door creaks]
[door creaks]
[horns toot outside]
[faint conversation on TV]
[Lars] Three days into her... her stay,
one of the cashiers suddenly realized
that she has not given
a credit card for the... the stay.
This was an expensive room.
And there had been a "don't disturb" sign
on the door for two days.
So, one of the security guards took
the elevator up to the 28th floor,
walked up to the door,
knocked on the door...
[knocks]
and then a second later...
[g*nsh*t]
That was a g*nsh*t.
[pulsing music plays]
He waited for a little while,
and then he decided
to take the elevator down
to the ground floor,
to... to security headquarters.
[elevator dings]
So, there is a gap, about 15 minutes,
when the room was not guarded.
So, no one knows
if anyone left the room in this period.
[clock ticking]
Then the security chief came back...
-[knocking]
-...knocked, no one answered.
The door was double-locked
from the inside,
and that means
that you don't want anyone to enter.
And only security can... can enter
the room when it is double-locked.
He used his, uh, security key card
to open the door.
And he sees a woman on the bed.
He smells a strange acrid smell,
is what he describes it like.
So, he closes the door
and orders his, uh, colleagues
to call the police.
[man] So, we approached that room
very carefully.
And we found the woman dead on his...
on her bed.
With a g*n in her hand.
And a wound in her head.
And the hotel door
was double-locked from inside.
The woman inside
did not want to be disturbed.
And there were no trace
of other persons in the room.
There was no evidence of a struggle.
And, uh... what we found in the room
indicated just she had been living there.
Alone.
[lock beeps]
We found there was very few
entering from the room
during the stay she had at the hotel.
And there was no immediate entering
around the time for her death.
[Lars] The police theory was
that she had stuck to herself,
uh... she had been alone,
spent almost her entire time in Oslo
within her hotel room,
preparing for what she knew was coming,
her death.
[clicking]
In one of the documents,
it says 99.9% sure it is a su1c1de.
But when the investigators
went through the room,
they couldn't find any identity.
[camera shutter clicking]
No credit card, no driver's license,
uh, no wallet,
uh, no car keys, no home door keys,
which people normally bring...
bring with them.
No toothbrush, hairbrush,
no, uh, cosmetics,
no... no toiletries.
[Audun] And we did not find
any kind of ID card, not even a passport.
And that's very rare, because
mainly people has to have
a passport to come to Norway.
We looked at her clothes.
And found one odd thing,
that all her labels on all clothes she had
was removed.
[Lars] She had a sweater,
she had trench coats,
she had many clothes for her upper body,
but nothing from the waist and down.
And then there were also
some other very strange things.
She was, uh, able to be given a room,
uh, without giving any identification.
She didn't show any credit card,
she didn't pay in advance, uh...
It was a five-star hotel,
a place for kings and queens,
and movie stars, and rock stars,
and they were pretty strict
about security.
She didn't even show her passport.
She was just given a room.
This isn't possible to explain,
because this is a break
of all rules at the hotel.
The only thing we know about her identity
is the information she gave
on the registration card.
[Audun] And we have, uh, found her name...
date of birth...
and telephone number,
what country she lived in.
[Lars] She had given
a Belgian street address
in this tiny village.
So, the police, uh...
informed the Belgian police,
wanted to inform the...
the poor woman's family
that she was dead.
And then they suddenly realized that...
there is no family to, uh... to notify,
because this person doesn't exist.
She had checked in under a false name.
They looked for fingerprints.
They found only fingerprints
from the dead woman.
All fingerprints were, of course,
run through Interpol,
and, uh, no one reacted to it.
So, it... it was unknown to police.
Then the police started worrying,
is this something else than a...
than a su1c1de?
[Audun]
Just two or three days before arrival,
she called the hotel,
and said she was coming
with a Lois Fairgate.
And that name was also written
on the registration card.
[Lars] One of the front desk operators
believes she observed a person,
a man, standing beside her.
But, uh, after that,
Lois Fairgate, uh, disappears.
The hotel had pretty tight security
and they had cameras.
But then, unfortunately,
there are no information
in the police documents
about the police searching these cameras.
So, to me,
it doesn't look like they, uh...
they ever searched the cameras.
So, there are no other signs
of Lois Fairgate's existence.
[Audun]
We tried first with Belgium and Interpol,
but we got no more information about them.
[Lars] We don't know if Lois exists.
The police,
they didn't know what to believe.
I think this story is so weird.
There are so many questions
and so few answers.
But the real question is her identity.
We were hoping
that missing persons reports
could help us identify her, but, uh...
because no one from her family has...
has claimed her missing,
we can't decide who... who she is.
And that is, uh...
We've still got that question, who is she?
CRIME INVESTIGATION
INTERPOL OSLO
And for the next couple of weeks,
it was a homicide investigation.
And, uh...
But then the investigation didn't bring
any new information,
so then they went back
to the original theory...
that this was a tragic su1c1de.
Maybe the woman was depressed
or had some psychiatric problems,
wanted to die alone,
didn't want anyone to... to find her.
Uh, we kept her body, uh...
for one year before we buried her,
in case we should get
an identification of her.
[Lars] In 1996, they closed the case
and decided that they had to...
to bury the woman.
[gentle, solo piano playing]
It wasn't a funeral,
it was just a burial.
No priests...
a coffin...
and the pallbearers.
How can a...
a funeral or a burial be more...
more alone than, uh... than this one?
That's the point
when I got involved in this story.
I was doing a series of stories
on missing persons in Norway
and unidentified bodies.
I felt this is a story I have to do.
[birds chirping]
This is the grave of Jennifer Fairgate.
This is where she was buried.
No headstone,
because no one knew who she was.
Why is it important to find out
why a person d*ed, uh,
nearly 25 years ago?
People die all the time.
Uh, there are so many
unidentified dead people
all around the world.
So, uh, why is it important?
Well, I think every life matters.
I think that Jennifer Fairgate,
whatever her name really is,
I think she deserves a headstone
with her name on,
and I think her family deserves to know
what happened to her.
So, I did a story.
That was 1996.
And I kept my notes in, uh...
in my desk drawer.
And for the next 20 years,
from time to time, I took the story out
because I was sure
this was an intriguing story,
a real-life mystery
that people would get interested in.
And maybe if I could spread this story
wide enough,
that could give us valuable information
about her life,
and that could tell us
what happened in room 2805.
[train horn blares]
Uh, she claimed to be from Verlaine in...
in Belgium,
a tiny village that actually exists.
That's why we have to go here,
to see if we can find
any trace of, uh... of Jennifer.
Because there must have been
one reason or another
for choosing this little town.
...right here in Verlaine,
so people are commuting...
[man]
Lars asked me if I could help him out,
if we could do some research, ask,
talk with people here in Belgium,
if they had heard about the case,
if they knew what was going on.
At first I thought,
"This is going to be easy,
go to Verlaine, show her picture.
If she's from there, people are gonna say,
'I know who she was.'
They're gonna know her story."
[in French] When you were mayor in '95,
did you know a lot of people
in this village?
I was born in 1956,
and I was born in Verlaine.
I've always lived
in the same neighborhood,
because I built a house
next to my parents.
So, I've stayed in the same neighborhood
and have always known this place.
And that's how you become a mayor.
You get to know the people.
Eventually you have great affection
for them. I like to be of service.
But generally, you know the people.
[Lars in English]
May I show you something?
[in French] Have you ever seen this woman
in Verlaine, in the 1990s?
It doesn't ring a bell.
[in English] It says nothing to me.
-No?
-No.
[Hubert in French]
But this kind of woman...
[Cedric in English]
Nobody had ever seen this woman.
She was a complete stranger
to these people.
[inaudible conversation]
[Lars] Jennifer claimed to live
in Rue de la Station,
at number 148.
-Here is 96.
-Yeah.
-Ninety-eight.
-Ninety-eight.
-And it literally stops at 100.
-Yeah.
So, that means
the white house is the last house.
Ninety-eight.
-Number 98 is the last one.
-Yeah.
-This is, uh... another street.
-Yeah.
[Cedric] So, I think we can conclude
that she was not from Verlaine.
Otherwise, we should have known...
met someone who actually knew her.
[Lars] It's a very small village,
and it was even smaller in the '90s.
[horses whinny]
[Cedric] There was some connection,
but I do not know what that connection is.
[Lars] I'm quite sure
that Jennifer wasn't from this place,
but she must have known something
about this place and this area.
The street exists.
The phone numbers she gave up
are pretty consistent with this area.
So, um... she must have known something
about this place without being from here.
[cows mooing]
She was very successful
at hiding her identity.
And we are still left
with the same problem
as always in... in this story.
There are no traces,
there are no paths to... to follow.
It's like, uh... following a ghost.
[quiet, slow music plays]
It's so strange that no one has been able
to recognize this... this woman.
We have made sketches of... of her.
It has been widely published
in several languages, several countries.
She must have had friends,
school friends,
colleagues, lovers, boyfriends.
Someone knows this woman.
The police theory
was that she might have been
a depressed woman
wanting to take her own life.
But she obviously had a shower.
When she was found dead,
she was neatly dressed all in black,
with her high-heeled shoes on her feet.
So, it actually looks like a woman
about to go out for... for a night.
And besides,
the w*apon was a 9-millimeter
semi-a*t*matic Browning p*stol.
It's a pretty powerful w*apon.
But more strange than that is that
she had a briefcase with 25 rounds.
And that is another of the strange things
with this very, very strange
and peculiar case.
[man] It's strange to have a suitcase
with only cartridges in.
You don't need that many cartridges
to k*ll yourself.
You only need that one.
[Lars] She wasn't very tall,
uh, was a tiny woman.
She had small hands,
and she still had the g*n in her hand
when she was found.
She had a... had a very special
hand grip on... on the g*n.
She didn't have the usual grip.
She had an opposite grip
with the thumb on the trigger
and her fingers on the other side
of the... of the hand grip.
How could she still hold on
to such a powerful w*apon
with this, uh... this strange grip?
[Geir] The 9-millimeter g*n is a...
a tough g*n, with a hard recoil.
Here we have a similar g*n
that was used, uh, in the case.
This is heavy, it's powerful,
it's more an as*ault w*apon
than a w*apon
that you protect yourself with.
She was f*ring with her thumb...
here.
And then you do have
a very bad grip on the w*apon.
And I would say that, normally,
the w*apon will be thrown away.
You can just see
the recoil from the w*apon.
So, when you fire
and the recoil push the g*n back...
I think it's very odd that
that the g*n is not, uh,
falling out of her hand.
I think maybe there must have been
a second person.
[man] This could have been a su1c1de,
except for the fact that there were
no blood spots on her hand.
In most cases,
I think when people perform su1c1de,
they... they are shaky,
and they will also put the left hand
around the barrel,
and do it like this.
And then there will be typical blood spots
or soot deposits here,
as you can see in this picture, here.
So, I think I've never seen a case
without any blood spots on the hand
when they have performed
su1c1de like this,
or... or like this, or against the head.
I think from the scene investigation,
there were blood spots all over the roof
and the walls and...
But not here.
And that's difficult to explain.
It's a total picture
that is very suspicious.
Well, I think, uh,
homicide cannot be excluded.
[Lars] Was it a homicide?
But why?
And how?
The only thing we know is
that this was definitely the g*n
that k*lled her.
[man speaking Norwegian]
[Lars] In order to look closer on this,
I decided to reconstruct the crime scene.
I consulted criminal experts.
These two guys are really experienced.
[Per in Norwegian] It's strange
that there's no blood on the hands.
But there's no blood on the w*apon either.
We're sure that this w*apon was used?
There's no doubt about that.
There would have been blood
on her chest, on her clothes.
Uh... If nothing was blocking it.
If a person is on top of her
and is holding her hands.
I would have been sitting with my knees
on top of her arms.
And then…
Is this what you usually do
when you investigate?
Yes. Then I would have pushed...
my hand over her face.
Maybe a bit backwards,
so her head is in the right position,
and then fire.
[Lars] Would it not be natural for her
to fight back?
There was no clear evidence of a fight.
But could she have been
unconscious earlier?
Could she have been drugged?
She wouldn't be able to resist.
That could be the issue.
Um...
To my knowledge, they didn't test that.
I have the toxicology report.
They only checked for alcohol.
[Per] It's easier to explain
that someone else did it
than her doing it herself.
[Lars in English]
To understand what happened in the room,
I decided to do something I often do
when I work with stories.
I decided to draw a timeline.
And it was a very easy timeline to...
to draw,
because the key card registers
every time you use the key card
to enter the room.
Not when you exit the room.
So, we could see
every time someone had entered the room
with a key card.
Jennifer entered her hotel room
for the first time
Wednesday evening at 10:44.
[lock beeps]
[lock beeps]
[lock beeps]
Because she wasn't
entering the room many times,
the police theory was that she had spent
most of her time in her hotel room,
preparing for her su1c1de.
But then when I filled in the information
from the witnesses, from the hotel maids,
that gives us
really interesting information.
We know that when the two maids
visited the room
at a little before 1 p.m. on Thursday,
the room was empty.
That means there were no one in the room
until next morning
when Jennifer's key card is used again.
So, that is a gap of 20 hours.
So, well, where was she?
[child cries]
[murmur of conversation]
[motorcycle engine roars]
Did she know someone in...
in Oslo, after all?
Was she together with someone else?
Did she wander around in Oslo
for a full day and a full night?
Why was she in Oslo?
What... what was the reason for her visit?
Why... why did she have a g*n?
Maybe this could be
a drug-smuggling thing.
Could she have been
a top-class prost*tute?
Could this woman be a... a secret agent
from some sort of intelligence service
from one or another country,
or that she might have been an assassin?
The Plaza Hotel was
Oslo's top luxury hotel at the time,
and it had been the place for several
international top political meetings.
And it was one of the places
for the secret negotiations
between Israel
and the Palestinian authorities.
These meetings were kept totally secret
because of
their internal political affairs.
And after
the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks,
Norway was involved
in many peacekeeping negotiations.
[Ola] I was a leader of a section
in the Norwegian Intelligence Service.
Mainly working in areas
with w*r and, um, crisis.
In Middle East, and in Balkan,
and in Africa as well.
It was not James Bond,
but it was a kind of spying.
Of course it was.
It was collecting information,
having people to say things
they don't... want to say
about what's going on.
[in Norwegian] The one thing
that I still think is strange
is that she must have been
incredibly lucky
to have been able to stay incognito
for so many years.
I think it's curious.
There are no answers.
It's bizarre.
Everything is bizarre in this case, but...
I think it's very unlikely
that this is a su1c1de.
[in English] From my point of view,
this is a very good...
carried out intelligence operation.
And what... what exactly happened there,
it's very hard to say,
but I have a feeling
that she was ex*cuted.
The first thing was that...
more or less impossible
to sh**t yourself in the head.
[in Norwegian] The registration number
was removed from the w*apon.
This is typical,
to remove it in a way that is--
[Lars] An illegal w*apon.
[Ola] The number has been removed
in a professional way.
Investigations will always reveal this.
The original number
is very deeply ingrained.
Professionals would know how deep to go.
[in English] Then I saw that all the marks
from her clothing was taken away.
That's normal procedure
in the intelligence service.
All intelligence services are doing that.
You are going to have a cold operation
because you don't want the police
to track this back to some places
or to a country or something like that.
So, that's, uh... that's common procedure.
She had been absent from the hotel
for a long time.
That's very common as well.
To have a second place to go to
if something should happen.
That's very common.
That the door was... was locked
from the inside means nothing.
Professional intelligence organizations
have no problems with open doors.
It's no closed door for intelligence.
It's very hard to find out
if they have manipulated it,
I can tell you.
They are very good in that.
It's a part of the game.
[in Norwegian] That's why
I think it was a professional operation.
All evidence was removed.
Someone cleaned up the case afterwards.
No family members asked after her.
There were no traces left of who she was.
[in English]
If she was an intelligence agent
and was k*lled in that way,
both sides will be quiet, very quiet.
And they will go to the family, maybe,
and say, "You have some money here.
Keep... keep quiet.
Your daughter is a hero."
Something like that.
And, uh... the government
will take care of that family
for the rest of their lives.
That's very common as well
for professional
intelligence organizations.
[in Norwegian] If not intelligence,
what would it be?
I can't imagine
that it could be anything else.
[Lars in English]
It's interesting to hear Ola's theories,
because he's obviously very experienced
in intelligence and secret operations.
It's still a mystery to me
how she was able to check into the hotel
without any sort of identification.
And she had, uh, many clothes
for her upper body,
but nothing from the waist and down.
There were so many strange
and peculiar things
with this... this story.
Is there anything more, anything new,
that could be... be done?
And then, suddenly, I got an idea that...
So, today, there are completely different,
new technology
that didn't exist in, uh, 1995.
One thing that we didn't have
was the DNA of the dead woman.
Uh, because in '95, the use of DNA
wasn't common within the Norwegian police.
They had kept a blood sample of the woman,
but that was destroyed a year after,
when they buried the woman.
Then they also decided
to destroy all evidence in the case,
because this had to be a su1c1de.
And the only way
to be able to find the DNA
was, of course, to... to open the grave.
The day of the exhumation was really wet
and cold and gloomy in... in Oslo.
We were really anxious
about what we would find.
We were hoping
that after more than 20 years,
we would find some traces
that could help us identify her.
[suspenseful music plays]
A bit, um, surprised that, uh...
it was so much left of her.
And this was 24 years ago she was buried?
Twenty-five years?
[Lars] We found everything we needed.
And it resulted in a full DNA profile.
The police sent the DNA for analysis.
And if we are able
to find out who she was,
that would probably
also be able to tell us
what happened in that hotel room.
And, uh, the result came back.
This deceased woman was
of European heritage,
and according to the police reports,
one of the front desk operators says
that she spoke German
with an eastern German accent,
so, she might either be
from the eastern part of Germany,
or at least that
she might have been living there
some part of... of her life.
Unfortunately...
the police haven't been able
to identify her through the DNA
because there are
no matching DNA profiles.
That is because
no one has reported her missing.
When we didn't succeed with the...
with the DNA,
we had to try other things.
I was wondering,
are there any other ways to...
to determine her identity?
On her registration card at the hotel,
she claimed to be 21 years old.
At the autopsy,
the doctor in charge landed on 30 years,
plus or minus five years,
which, uh, gives us a gap of ten years.
I was wondering if we could determine
her age a little more precise.
And then, um,
I was talking with a Swedish professor
and forensic expert,
and he mentioned that there is another way
of determining age of deceased persons.
And I realized,
"Oh, this is really interesting,"
because this was a method
I had never heard about.
Basically,
the principle is that during the Cold w*r,
between 1955 through 1963,
there were above-ground
nuclear test b*mb detonations
across the globe.
[rumbling]
All these detonations above ground,
they created an increase
in the C-14 levels in the atmosphere.
And certain structures,
like the enamel in the teeth...
will incorporate the C-14
that was in the atmosphere at that time.
So, we can use the teeth
to birth-date an individual
by looking at the C-14 content
compared with the atmospheric levels.
[electrical buzzing]
We came up with a result that, uh...
she most likely was born 1971.
Which makes her 24
at the time of her death.
[Lars] We are closer to a solution
about this big mystery.
So, now we know that she was probably born
between 1970-72.
And there is reason to believe
she had her childhood
and youth in... in Germany.
And that limits
the range where she might have been from.
Then I decided to work
with Europe's largest newspaper,
the Bild-Zeitung in... in Berlin.
They have a reach
of ten million people daily.
We were hoping
that someone might recognize her.
That was our best sh*t so far.
We received, uh,
many tips and information.
But, uh, nothing
that has helped us solve this story yet.
[distant horn blows]
I think it's important for society
to try to solve cases like this.
And I also believe
that this woman deserves
to have her name on a gravestone.
[train horn blares]
I think, after all these investigations,
I actually think
that the only thing we can...
that can help solve this case
is if someone recognizes Jennifer.
I'm absolutely positive
there are people out there
who knows who Jennifer is.
So, that is what we are hoping for.
That's the only thing
that can solve this mystery.
[suspenseful main theme plays]
02x02 - A Death in Oslo
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Documentary format to profile real-life mysteries and featured re-enactments of unsolved crimes, missing persons cases, conspiracy theories and unexplained paranormal phenomena (alien abductions, ghosts, UFOs, and "secret history" theories).
Documentary format to profile real-life mysteries and featured re-enactments of unsolved crimes, missing persons cases, conspiracy theories and unexplained paranormal phenomena (alien abductions, ghosts, UFOs, and "secret history" theories).