It is important to learn to let go of the past, but sometimes life entangles us in a web of responsibilities and circumstances so inescapable that, without finding a resolution, it becomes impossible to move on. After all is said and done, the question arises whether getting closure is worth sacrificing everything. Netflix’s Swedish crime drama, The Breakthrough, an adaptation of the real-life saga of one of Sweden’s most heinous, longstanding criminal investigations, that of the Linkoping double homicide case in 2004, contemplates this in an emotionally heavy, sympathetic way. The four-episode miniseries takes a few liberties to increase dramatic flair by establishing interpersonal connections, heightening emotions, and adding individual arcs for the leads in conjunction with the theme of the narrative, but by no means undercuts the gravity of the real-life tragedy through any such additions. The basic investigation and all its ensuing intricacies, emotional investments as highlighted in the series, don’t break new ground, but sometimes keeping it simple is just what the doctor ordered.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Did John Sundin Become Obsessed With the Linkoping Double Murder Investigation?
Set in the city of Linkoping, Sweden, the beginning of The Breakthrough brings viewers to the Abbas household, where Saad teaches his young son, Adnan, how to read time from the wristwatch he has gifted him. The eight-year-old kid shares a strong bond with his father as he listens intently to Saad explaining how a day ends with the completion of a time cycle, not having the faintest idea that just a day later, on 19th October, 2004, his son will be welcomed to a new day for the final time in his life.
The next day, Adnan gets late while leaving for school, and while walking down the usual trail of the parkside road in Asgatan, the boy gets brutally stabbed to death by an unknown male assailant. Gunilla, an elderly woman who witnesses the harrowing event transpire, tries to stop the killer, only to get stabbed multiple times herself—and eventually succumbs to her injuries later. A middle-aged cyclist, Karin, who happened to move through the area on that particular day, witnessed Gunilla getting assaulted but was unable to stop the killer as she froze in sheer nervousness and panic. However, she was able to catch a glimpse of the culprit’s face before the killer bolted from the scene. Detective John Sundin of the Linkoping police department is assigned to the case, and as a first-time expecting father, he is deeply shaken by the nature of the crime. John visits the families of the victims, Gunilla’s husband, Samuel, and Adnan’s parents—Saad and Elena—and empathetic to their miserable plight, he promises to do justice by their departed loved ones. Soon enough, John’s dedication to the case started hampering his personal life; the more he allowed himself to be consumed by the investigation, the more he unknowingly distanced himself from his wife, Anna, and his newborn son, Charlie. John had made the case personal by getting emotionally invested in it; the desperation and helplessness felt by Samuel, Saad, and Elena got to John as well.
Why Did The Investigation Hit A Dead End?
What makes the investigation tricky from the get-go is that there was no apparent connection between the two victims except for the fact that both of them followed the same route every day to reach their destination. A racial angle was considered, as Abbas was an immigrant from Lebanon, and given that Gunilla taught Swedish to immigrants, some racist nutjob might have targeted both of them. But neither of the victims had any past personal experience of being a victim of a hate crime. Although the Abbas family received hate mail sent by racist members of their neighborhood on an occasional basis, which didn’t stop even after the tragic incident, it was impossible to narrow down possible suspects through this angle. As an expert detective, John was well aware that the first few days were most crucial to crack the case, and the fact that the culprit’s DNA was found along with the murder weapon was quite an encouraging factor for the success of the investigation. However, despite hundreds of people volunteering for DNA profiling, no match was found.
Now the obvious thought that comes to the mind of the viewers is, despite having Karin, an eyewitness who was present at the crime scene when the murders took place, why did the investigation drag on for so long? The thing is, either due to the shock of the traumatic events or guilt from being unable to do something to prevent them, Karin’s mind had failed her as she found it impossible to recall the facial profile of the culprit, even though she was eager to assist the authorities by any means necessary. John took a desperate measure as he sought help from a hypnotist to pry out the information from Karin’s subconscious, obviously with her consent, that is. Karin was able to remember vague details about the person—and from the clues shared by her, a rough profile of the killer was presented. A man in his twenties, with a possible history of sociopathic behavior, racial prejudices, and prone to violence, and a sketch was put together from Karin’s description, which was super vague. The profile and the sketch were circulated around the city, and narrative focus occasionally shifted to a member of a local football club, Ante, whose demeanors matched the culprit’s traits, and whose increasingly shady behavior presented him as a possible suspect. One of Ante’s teammates/friends suspected his possible involvement as he didn’t volunteer for DNA profiling, but didn’t inform the authorities about his suspicion.
With no further clue available, and without a facial profile and DNA match, the trail quickly went cold, as there is only so much that can be achieved by traditional copybook police investigation. Months passed, and the investigation came to a standstill. John was extremely meticulous with his investigation, leaving no stones unturned in his pursuit of the truth, and even considered the possibility of the culprit repeating his actions in the near future—but the investigation had truly hit a dead end. It was almost as if the killer didn’t exist in the first place. The families of victims who were clinging on to John’s promise of justice had lost their morale. Saad and Elena moved away from their home with their elder daughter, Maya, in order to escape from the painful memories of Adnan, and old Samuel was left alone at his home bearing the pain of the loss of his wife. John lost himself in the investigation, completely ignoring his family life, and Anna eventually separated from him.
Stina Eriksson’s Involvement
The media becomes aware of the fact that Linkoping police are facing trouble with the investigation, and an over-enthusiastic young journalist, Stina Eriksson, approaches John to get a scoop regarding possible details of the investigation. Stina appears to be sympathetic towards John, and beyond her journalistic integrity, she seems to be keen on seeing justice served to the victims, which is why John makes the mistake of sharing how the investigation affected his personal life, and how he even considered the possibility of stepping down to share the responsibility with someone else. Stina twisted John’s words to get a sensational headline about how the police had been negligent with the investigation, much to the detective’s dismay, and this brought bad press to the investigation.
Months turned to years; eventually, sixteen years had passed, and John was still fixated on the investigation, which seemed to progress nowhere. John’s superior officer, Miran, had informed him that the higher authorities had decided to cut off the funding and abandon the case altogether, and John now had only two weeks to solve the case. During this time, John, living a solitary life, has tried to mend the estranged relationship with his son Charlie, to no avail.
Per Skogkvist Joins The Investigation
At this point in time, John becomes aware of the Golden State Killer investigation of California police, which the authorities were able to solve by catching the culprit using the latest DNA genealogy tracing techniques, four decades after the crime. John wasn’t really aware of how different this technique was from general DNA profiling, but he was aware that with little to no time to spare, he had to try anything and everything at his disposal to crack the case, which had taken a major part of his life away. John comes across genealogist Per Skogkvist and seeks his help to nab the killer using DNA tracing.
Per worked as a self-described ‘Biological Historian,’ providing suggestions regarding the way DNA genealogy mapping works. As per remarks, genetic identity is the most distinctive marker for each individual and needs to be recorded in order to create a DNA map. This allows the tracing of the ancestry of each individual through public records available and tracking the family tree of their ancestors to create a thorough linkage between past and present generations. Although this is not a hundred percent foolproof method, as errors from infidelity and family ties are not taken into account in it, still, this is as close to perfect identification as it gets. Per laments how the revolutionary DNA genealogy procedure, which allows people to learn more about their past to make sense of present and, to some extent, future events as well, is not taken seriously by people who approach him. Which is why Per quickly agrees to take on John’s case, as it will allow him to use his expertise in a more meaningful way and open up new possibilities to solve problems through DNA mapping.
According to Per, he is quite confident about being able to identify the killer through his DNA mapping procedure. However, things don’t go as smoothly as initially expected, as the DNA of the killer appears to have been corrupted over time, and too many missing links in the genetic profile might end up jeopardizing the investigation by taking the search in the wrong direction. John is desperate to get results by any means possible, and he continues to challenge Per’s directive and tries to elevate the matter to higher authorities with vague and insufficient data. There are also legal issues to be addressed, as scouring through public records for investigation purposes is considered a violation of the Data Protection Act, but without searching through ancestry and family trees, genealogy tracing will not work at all. For the time being, John and his superior Miran decide to keep the judiciary in the dark about the proceedings and bend the law to achieve results. Per leaves the investigation on one occasion after being extremely irritated by John’s constant attempts to establish his authority and his tendency to rush, and John eventually manages to convince him to return by acknowledging his mistakes. There is also another issue as Stina Eriksson learns about John taking help from a DNA genealogist and also about the legal intricacies regarding using public records in investigation. She starts pressuring John to give her a scoop, or else she will jeopardize the investigation by sharing the confidential news with the public.
Fortunately for John and Per, a better DNA profile of the killer is formed through the blood samples found on leaves at the crime scene, which were well preserved in the evidence archive of the police department. However, even with a well-made DNA profile, Per needs more DNA samples to examine the linkage to find a connection with immediate family members. The anxiety and pressure of the investigation get to Per as well. However, on one occasion, Per learns about his daughter, Klara, who suffers from social anxiety and is going through a tough situation, and he asks John’s permission to continue his search from home. Initially unwilling to let Per go at the crucial juncture of the investigation, John realizes how his mad pursuit of the truth has cost him his family, and unwilling to let Per make a similar mistake, John asks him to return to be with his family when they need him. It should be mentioned at this point that Ante’s friend decides to approach the authorities and share his suspicion after all, but Ante’s DNA doesn’t match with that of the killer’s, which proves his innocence.Â
How Did John And Per Capture The Killer?
The final and most substantial clue in the investigation comes from Stina Eriksson of all people, as the culprit turns out to be related to her. Previously, Stina continued to pursue John for an exclusive interview with Per, and the genealogist agreed to her demand in exchange for having her DNA sampled. To Per and John’s absolute surprise, the centimorgan unit count of Stina’s DNA results in a high match with the culprit, and looking into her immediate family living in Linkoping, the authorities are able to deduce a possible suspect in her cousin, David Nilsson—a loner with a history of mental issues who matches the profile previously created by John and his team. Taking permission from higher-ups, John is able to convince the department to send a tactical unit, and they manage to capture David, facing no resistance at all. David’s DNA completely matches with the recovered samples, identifying him as the killer, and he himself confesses his crime during the investigation.
The most perplexing aspect of the case, which also resulted in so much confusion and prolonged investigation in the first place, is how random the nature of the crime was—as David confesses he had no definite motive behind taking the lives of Adnan and Gunilla. It was the voices in his head that directed him to do so, and it becomes pretty apparent how dire his need for psychiatric treatment was. Whether John and his team faced trouble from the legislative and judicial departments for breaching data protection law isn’t addressed in the series, but after successfully closing the case, which was the second largest investigation in the country’s history, I don’t think it will matter that much. Stina is unsurprisingly not so enthusiastic about getting a scoop any longer; she and her family had failed David, as his actions can be attributed to his miserably lonesome existence to some extent. Stina later meets up with Per; as afflicted with guilt, she wants to learn more about genealogy tracing to thoroughly learn about the past and write a book regarding the experiences of the investigation and her connection with her cousin—possibly as a way to absolve herself.
In The Breakthrough’s ending, John is able to keep his word to the families of the victims, who share their heartfelt gratitude with Per and John. Saad hands John the wristwatch he had gifted Adnan, as a remembrance for his son, and it is revealed that he and Elena had named their youngest daughter Gunilla, honoring the memory of the kind, brave soul who had tried to save their son and sacrificed her life. John tries to reconcile with his son Charlie, now that he has let go of the emotional burdens that had shackled him, and will dedicate his time to his family to make up for the lost time. Per, who found himself deeply moved by the investigation as well and found a greater purpose, now includes the importance of genealogy tracing in criminal investigation procedures during his lectures and will surely collaborate with the authorities in the future if such need arises.
