Further Reading for Anders Breivik & The Freeway Phantom
One of Us: The Story of a Massacre in Norway — and Its Aftermath
Episode: 19
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Anders Breivik also known by his pseudonym Andrew Berwick, born 13 February 1979, is a Norwegian far-right terrorist who committed the 2011 Norway attacks. On 22 July 2011, he killed eight people by detonating a van bomb amid Regjeringskvartalet in Oslo, then shot dead 69 participants of a Workers’ Youth League (AUF) summer camp on the island of Utøya. In July 2012, he was convicted of mass murder, causing a fatal explosion, and terrorism.
Breivik was arrested as a juvenile and rejected from the Norwegian Armed Forces. At the age of 20 he joined the anti-immigration/right-wing Progress Party, and chaired the local Vest Oslo branch of the party’s youth organization during 2002. He left the Progress Party in 2006 and went on to join a gun club and the Freemasons while also founding a company which he used to finance his planned terrorist attacks.
On the day of the attacks, Anders Breivik electronically distributed a compendium of texts entitled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, describing his militant ideology. In them, he stated his opposition to Islam and blamed feminism for a European “cultural suicide.” The text called for the deportation of all Muslims from Europe and Breivik wrote that his main motive for the attacks was to publicize his manifesto.
Two teams of court-appointed forensic psychiatrists examined Anders Breivik before his trial. The first team diagnosed Breivik with paranoid schizophrenia but after this initial finding was criticized, a second evaluation concluded that he was not psychotic during the attacks but did have narcissistic personality disorder.
His trial began on 16 April 2012, with closing arguments made on 22 June 2012. On 24 August 2012, Oslo District Court delivered its verdict, finding Breivik sane and guilty of murdering 77 people. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, in a form of preventive detention that required a minimum of 10 years incarceration and the possibility of one or more extensions for as long as he is deemed a danger to society. This is the maximum penalty in Norway. Breivik announced that he did not recognize the legitimacy of the court and therefore did not accept its decision—he claimed he “cannot” appeal because this would legitimize the authority of the Oslo District Court. In 2016, Breivik sued the Norwegian Correctional Service, claiming that his solitary confinement violated his human rights. Subsequent court ruling found that his rights had not been violated, despite an earlier ruling, and in June 2017, Breivik filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights, which dismissed his case in June 2018.
Since his imprisonment, Breivik has identified himself as a fascist and a Nazi, who practices Odinism and uses counter-jihadist rhetoric to support ethno-nationalists.
The Freeway Phantom is an unidentified serial killer who was active in Washington, D.C. from April 1971 through September 1972.
The Freeway Phantom case has seen a myriad of investigators and garnered much interest over the years. Numerous investigative tips came from the general public by a telephone hotline operated by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPDC) and information also came by way of the mail. All these leads were investigated to their logical conclusion. Some leads were easily proven not to be viable, while others required substantial investigation. The investigation was conducted by a law enforcement task force that included Detectives from the MPDC Homicide and Sex Squads, investigators from Prince George’s County and Montgomery County, Maryland, Maryland State Police, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).