The Norway Town That Forgave And Forgot Its Child Killers

In 1994, in Trondheim, five-year-old Silje Redergard was beaten to death by two little boys. Today, the girl's family still suffers and one of the boys is in trouble again – the echoes of the Bulger case are clear. So why has the public reaction in Norway been so startlingly different?


On the afternoon of 15 October 1994, three young children, a girl aged five, and two six-year-old boys, were playing on a football field covered in freshly fallen snow. Their parents were neighbours who did not know each other, but the children had played together before. The three had been making "snow castles", until the fun stopped. Nobody knows why. A childish disagreement? A tantrum, perhaps? Whatever it was it triggered a reaction in the boys that devastated a family and the community. At some point while playing, the boys turned on the little girl, punching and kicking her and beating her with stones before stripping off her clothes. Then they ran away, leaving her to die in the snow.


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