The Gift Mystery: The Secret in the Box

The Gift Mystery: The Secret in the Cardboard Box Petter (11) learned nothing about his parents' dramatic past – until he opened a box of old newspapers in a shed. – I remember mother's face best. She became quite pale. In the mid-1970s, 11-year-old Petter Voss is in the dark in a shed in the family's house. In front of him stands a dusty cardboard box. Full of old editions of Nå and Aktuell – the biggest weekly newspapers of the time. As Petter flips through the pages, he freezes. From the yellowed pages, the faces of his own parents stare at him. Petter Voss is the only son of Christian and Eva Voss. Christian is a physician and gynecologist. Eva is a midwife. Christian Voss is about 60 years old when Petter is born. He was married once before and has a daughter who grows up with her mother. Eva is almost 25 years younger than Christian. The small family lives in a large villa on the outskirts of Hamar. The Secret Shed On the second floor there are two bedrooms and a large shed. In the shed, there are blankets and rugs and stacks of cardboard boxes. It is exciting to play hide-and-seek there. Petter also knows that it is a hiding place for Christmas gifts. The curious boy opens a box he has never examined before. Petter grabs some newspapers and runs down to his mother Eva. – I remember her saying: "Oh, you found them now. It wasn't meant to be." According to Petter, his mother said they intended to tell him the whole story when he was a little older. And then, the 11-year-old hears the truth about the drama that shook Norway in 1963. When we go back with Petter to the childhood home, he has not been there for many years. The shed is still there. The Drinks That Tasted of Metal Several years before Petter was born, in late October 1963, Christian and Eva are visited by Lillemor, Christian's niece. It is a regular evening until Christian gets a bottle of Highland Queen whisky to mix drinks. Eva and Lillemor toast. But as they swallow, they immediately notice that something is terribly wrong. The liquor stings and burns in the mouth. It has a strange metallic taste. Shortly after, sirens blare through the streets of Hamar. The two women rush to the hospital in a hurry. Both survive, but questions arise quickly: Who was in the house? The night before, Christian and Eva were sitting in front of the fireplace in the living room with their drinks from the exact same bottle of whisky. Neither of them felt any discomfort. After they lay down, the bottle and the two glasses remained on the low living room table. Was anyone in the garden and spying on them in the dark? Did anyone break into the villa that night? Christian believes that one of the cellar windows was broken. A Village with Poison But the whisky is only the tip of an iceberg. Throughout the summer and autumn of 1963, frightening things have happened near the couple. Several guests have been hospitalized with high fever, severe nausea, and heart palpitations after visiting. The culprit turns out to be a bottle of port wine. Christian is unsure where the bottle came from. At that time, it was not unusual for doctors and midwives to receive gifts. They could also be anonymous. It repeats several times: - The Whisky: A colleague becomes seriously ill from half a bottle delivered anonymously to Christian's office. - The Liqueur: Eva becomes very ill from a bottle she thought was a gift from a satisfied patient. - The Fruit Salad: Christian himself becomes acutely unwell after just one spoonful of a portion of fruit salad that someone puts in front of him at his office. When the police finally analyze the contents of the bottles and food, they make a horrifying discovery. Everything contains arsenic in lethal doses. Worst of all is in the bottle of whisky that Eva and Lillemor drank from. The amount of poison in it was enough to kill a small village. Christian gradually develops a concrete suspicion about who is behind it. The Woman in the Grey Volvo In the nine years following, Christian has felt pursued by a woman. She calls him all day. She patrols his neighborhood in a Volvo Amazon. Sometimes she stops outside his house and refuses to move. The woman's name is Aasta Midtbø. Like Christian, she is a doctor. But what is the story between them? Aasta Midtbø moves to Hamar in March 1955. She is 44 years old, beautiful, elegant, quick-witted and lightning intelligent. As an unmarried, childless, and experienced general practitioner, she is an exotic figure in the small Mjøsbyen. A foreign bird. The Party in Hamar A medical congress is organized in Hamar that autumn. On Wednesday, October 6th, there is a big party. Aasta is constantly watching the dance floor with the handsome physician Christian Voss. The evening ends with Aasta and Christian going home to her. In the time that follows, the two doctors will see different things about most things. But they agree on this. Also the date. Three months later, Aasta writes a letter to Christian. She is pregnant. She also reminds him of the promise he made: That he would marry her if "something" happened. Christian's reply deeply shocks her. He does not want her. He writes that he is already bound to another woman – who is also expecting a child with him. Secret Abortion and Deep Shame The drama escalates behind the scenes at the hospital. The other pregnant woman is a young nurse in Christian's own maternity ward. One night in March 1956, the physician performs an abortion on the other woman he is expecting a child with. This he tells Aasta in a letter. He writes: "I would rather you hear it from me than from anyone else." Aasta's handwriting is clearly trembling when she replies to Christian that he has committed "the deepest of all crimes". Yet, she still reassures him about marriage. There is a reason why she is so desperate. Then suddenly, there is silence. For almost two years, written contact stops completely. No one knows what happened to Aasta's pregnancy. – It's becoming unbearable In January 1958, the conflict explodes again. Christian reports Aasta for telephone terror. The police in Hamar find the matter embarrassing. The two involved are the most famous doctors in the city. The police chief tries to reason with Aasta, but the harassment increases in intensity. Aasta curses Christian on the street, at the hospital, and in his neighborhood. One late February evening, the police must raid the physician's villa. Aasta has stood outside his door for several hours and refuses to move. She is brought to the police station. There she gives a shocking accusation. She is asked several questions during the interrogation. Christian dismisses everything as pure fantasies. The forensic doctors support him: It is almost medically impossible to perform an abortion as Aasta describes when a woman is seven months pregnant. A few weeks later, she changes her story. She now claims that she actually gave birth to a baby girl in June 1956, and that the baby was adopted by a couple in Sweden. When Christian hears this, he does something surprising: He withdraws all complaints. It is silent for several years. Only when Christian finds love again does the storm reignite. The New Woman In late winter 1963, Christian marries the 25-year-old midwife Eva Larsen. The correspondence starts again, and both Aasta and Christian use strong words. It is then that the poisoned bottles begin to appear. New Year's Eve 1963 brings the police to light. Aasta is arrested. When they search her small apartment, they find a sharp pistol, a corkscrew – and a newspaper clipping of Christian's engagement advertisement. In addition, they find a receipt from a pharmacy in Arvika in Sweden. The amount matches the withdrawal of a dangerous substance: Arsenic. The Evidence That Was Missing The police believe they have a watertight case against Aasta Midtbø. But beneath the surface, the investigation cracks. They have not found a single trace of arsenic at her home. To secure evidence, the police take Aasta across the border to Sweden. At the pharmacy Älgen in Arvika, she is put in a witness confrontation with five other women. All the employees point to Aasta. She was the one who bought the deadly poison. Kripos also delivers a crushing report: The corkscrew from Aasta's apartment perfectly matches the marks on Christian's broken cellar window. Aasta is forcibly admitted to Gaustad hospital. After half a year, the country's leading psychiatrists conclude: She is insane and dangerous. An Extraordinary Trial On December 1st, 1964, all of Norway turns its attention to Hamar. The indictment against the female doctor is shocking: Five attempted murders with lethal poison, break-ins, threats, and years of stalking. The result seems predetermined. Aasta risks being imprisoned indefinitely. But Aasta has chosen one of the country's most prominent defense lawyers: Alf Nordhus. Nordhus is known for his unconventional methods. He has spent months on his own private investigation of the Hamar police. And he is ready to turn the case around. Were the evidence planted? In the witness box, Aasta drops a bomb. She claims that the corkscrew, the pharmacy receipt, and the newspaper clipping must have been planted in her apartment by someone else. The day after, a sensational news story breaks in the newspapers: The premises and the small apartment Aasta rented had previously been occupied by physician Christian Voss. Nordhus lets the police work. The exposure he uncovers is enormous. - No fingerprints: The police have not secured a single fingerprint from the poisoned bottles or glasses. - Missing analyses: The contents of the two poisoned women were never analyzed. - No evidence of poison: The police cannot actually prove that the women ingested arsenic that night. Speculations fly in the newspapers and newspapers. Could someone have tricked arsenic into the whisky bottle after the women were in the hospital, to target Aasta? Had the women in reality only ingested a harmless but potent laxative? The suspicion is once again directed at the physician himself. The Wardrobe Trap Now the prosecution plays its strongest card. The employees from the Swedish pharmacy enter the witness box. Those who were previously sure that Aasta was the customer. But under Nordhus' intense cross-examination, the employees begin to hesitate. There is one word that repeats in their testimonies: Wardrobe. The woman who bought the arsenic was wearing an elegant wardrobe. Then Nordhus asks the decisive question: How many of the six women in the police witness confrontation were wearing wardrobes? The answer shakes the courtroom: Only Aasta. The other five women in the lineup were wearing ordinary indoor clothes. Aasta had frozen and asked to keep the coat on. The employees had in reality never properly looked at her face – they had only recognized the wardrobe. The evidence falls into dust. Eleven ordinary people against the experts The forensic psychiatrists explain themselves behind closed doors. They assert that Aasta suffers from paranoid psychosis and is dangerous to the physician couple. In the 1960s, such a declaration is almost equivalent to a guilty verdict. But her fate lies in the hands of a jury consisting of eleven quite ordinary craftsmen, housewives, and farmers from the Hamar district. On December 14th, 1964, the verdict is delivered. It sends shockwaves through legal Norway. Aasta is acquitted on almost all counts. The jury finds that it is proven that she called Christian so much that it was obviously bothersome. And in a historic overrule of expertise, an unanimous jury declares that the two forensic psychiatrists are wrong: Aasta is not insane. The Most Peculiar Court Document in Norwegian History The judges rage at the acquittal and still demand her detention. Outside the courtroom, a car stands ready to drive her back to Gaustad, but angry residents of Hamar have gathered to block the way. They demand that the popular female doctor be released. The solution becomes dramatic and completely outside the box. On a yellow sheet, torn in a hurry from a lined notepad, an agreement is written in red pen: "I, Aasta Midtbø, hereby promise to leave Hamar by 6 pm today. I will never return to Hamar without consulting the Hamar police chief." The case remains one of Norway's greatest unsolved mysteries. No one is ever convicted for the deadly poisonings. The Missing Child Immediately after the acquittal, the case is kept out of public view for 60 years. Parts of the trial went behind closed doors, filled with sensitive and deeply personal information about the two doctors. One of the biggest mysteries remains the story of the alleged baby girl Aasta was supposed to have given in June 1956, and who was adopted by a couple in Sweden. Documents in the National Archives show that Christian Voss spent a lot of time looking for this child in the years that followed. He never succeeded. Two Parallel Lives After the dramatic legal settlement, the paths of the two doctors are separated forever. They live two very different lives, but the story never fully leaves them: - Aasta Midtbø: Moves to Kongsvinger and works as an X-ray technician. She never marries. Later she moves back to Toten with her twin sister Margrethe, and runs a private practice until she is 80 years old. She dies in a nursing home in the year 2000, at 90 years old. - Christian Voss: Lives in Hamar. During the tense trial, his wife Eva is pregnant. In the autumn of 1965, the son Petter is born. Christian would prefer never to talk about Aasta or the trial again. He dies in 1996, at 91 years old. The Shadows in the Garden But even if Christian and Aasta never meet again, the paranoia does not disappear from the villa in Hamar. It is very noticeable to the son Petter in his upbringing. – When I got older and more curious, I asked my father about the trial and about Aasta Midtbø, but he didn't want to say anything about it. The phone rings in the house sometimes. – When I was old enough to answer the phone at home, it was a bit fun to say: "Hello, it's Voss." Then it happened that there was complete silence on the other end. The fear that someone was in the dark and watching them never let the parents rest. In the middle of time, they suddenly pulled back the curtains in the living room. They thought someone was outside spying on them. There is a huge stone in the garden behind which it is possible to hide. The Pistol in the Nightstand Drawer The fear that someone is after him sits deep in physician Christian. The final confirmation comes to Petter one day when he is alone at home as a 14–15-year-old. He sneaks into his parents' bedrooms – a room that was usually a strictly forbidden area. – I knew that father's nightstand drawer was usually locked, but that time it wasn't. Petter pulls out the drawer. There, among ordinary everyday objects, lies something that burns itself into his memory. There was a sharp pistol. When Petter later confronted his father with the frightening discovery, the physician's answer was short and blunt: – He had it for safety. You could never know.