Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries

The Confessions of Thomas Quick (2020x41)

Air date: Jul 27, 2020

Thomas Quick was Sweden’s worst, most infamous serial killer. He confessed to historic crimes against both men and women again and again and was repeatedly convicted of murder. Except Quick, who now goes by his birth name Sture Bergwall, was entirely innocent of the 39 hideous crimes he confessed to while incarcerated in a mental institution. His confessions were false. It’s the most extraordinary story told here in gripping detail by many of those involved in the scandal, principally Bergwall/Quick himself. The fantasy began when Quick fell under the influence of therapists who believed unwaveringly that serial killers were the victims of repressed childhood trauma. So, Bergwall says, out of loneliness and the need for his therapists’ approval, he read about unsolved murders in newspapers, even taking details from Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, and then confessed. Despite any supporting evidence, he was prosecuted and convicted.