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00:003-3, go ahead.
00:11They are now all on the hard shoulder on the northbound.
00:15The collision itself took place in lane 3 at the southbound.
00:20So they were trying to get back across the carriageway and they've been struck.
00:26I'm not a doctor. She has been knocked down by...
00:27Is she the one that speaks English or the other one?
00:29Yes. The other one, she's going to run it.
00:31Oh, no! Shit!
00:35Oh, Jesus!
00:37Swedish twins Sabina and Ursula Eriksson were causing mayhem on the motorway.
00:42Can you see all my organs, you bitch?
00:45They were on some kind of suicidal mission.
00:50Help! Help!
00:53At this point, nobody could have predicted the events that were going to unfold.
00:57What started as a horrific incident, then led to the brutal stabbing of an innocent man.
01:08Why would she stab him?
01:10All I know is he was trying to help her.
01:14They said she was suffering from folio de, which I've never heard of.
01:19Folio de is a very rare psychiatric condition.
01:24A French term meaning the madness of two.
01:28It's almost as if you would consider it being contagious.
01:32How ridiculous.
01:34How can someone catch a mental illness of somebody?
01:36On social media, you have people posting their own theories.
01:44And various colourful opinions about what happened took on a life of their own.
01:49Tell you what I thought.
01:50I thought it was drugs.
01:51Basically a theory that they were lab rats.
01:53One of the officers described her as having inhuman strength.
01:56Senior officers to the scene.
01:58I think we've got two possible fatals.
02:18After the incident on the M6, where they were running into oncoming traffic and causing mayhem on the motorway.
02:26Sabina Erickson was convicted and sentenced to one day in custody, which she'd already served.
02:40So she was released from the magistrate's court and sent on her way.
02:47After Sabina was released from the courthouse,
02:51she was seen wandering the streets of Fenton.
03:01Sabina bumps into Glenn Hollinshead and Peter Malloy,
03:04who had been drinking at the Royal Oak pub.
03:07It was time to go home.
03:13Started walking up Chrysler Street.
03:16And as we were walking up, there was a woman.
03:20She stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of the street.
03:24Wearing this big bubble jacket with all her stuff in a plastic bag.
03:29She seemed a little distressed.
03:36Lost, certainly not very focused.
03:39We started a conversation.
03:41My sister was in hospital.
03:43And she was trying to find her.
03:46And she said, I need to find her a bed and breakfast.
03:48And Glenn said, well, like, there's nothing around here for you to stay at.
03:56Come back to mine.
03:57We'll have a bite to eat and then try to locate your sister.
04:01We'll find you somewhere to stay.
04:02I can see how somebody with an outside lens looking in on this might think,
04:14what on earth would they do that for?
04:17But Stoke-on-Trent's not a big city.
04:19It is a place of working class people, largely.
04:24People who take pride in being friendly and approachable and welcoming to everyone.
04:32Glenn, I suppose, was a rebel of the family, but in a nice way.
04:42We grew up in the Air Force as a group of five boys, brothers.
04:47We were very close-knit.
04:51Glenn followed in my father's footsteps.
04:54He joined the Air Force.
04:56He was a medic when he left.
04:58And they went to join Mitchell in making tyres in Stoke-on-Trent.
05:06When he settled in Stoke, it wasn't far from where I live.
05:10He was coming round all the time.
05:13He helped out with my mum.
05:15Yousef fascinated my mother by telling her stories, you know, history stories and stuff.
05:19She could sit there all day listening.
05:21Spent a lot of time together.
05:22We'd come up the house, we'd have meals.
05:25He loved cooking curry.
05:27So, really hot.
05:31We used to meet up and take the dogs out.
05:34He had a real soft spot.
05:37He would do anything for you.
05:39If he had ten pence and it was his last, he'd give it to you.
05:43It was really good that way.
05:46And if he saw anybody who needed help, he would offer help.
05:54Glenn offered Sabina a place to stay for the night, fed her, made sure she was comfortable and looked after her.
06:02But when they were in the house together, her behaviour was a little alarming.
06:13She seemed quite open and warm.
06:16But then, in the quiet moments, she was getting quite paranoid and pulling the curtains to one side.
06:23I'm looking out and then quickly just snatching them back.
06:29I responded a little bit unsettled by this.
06:32I'm looking at Glenn for reassurance.
06:34And he's like, it's all right, it's all right.
06:38Sabina, she'd had a pretty traumatic few days.
06:41She'd been injured on a motorway.
06:44She'd spent time in a police cell.
06:46She'd seen that her sister costed off in an air ambulance.
06:51And she was in a strange country.
06:53These are sort of events which can only feed into somebody's existing paranoia.
07:00If that paranoia is already there.
07:03There was this growing fear inside of me, thinking, who is this woman?
07:07She's hiding from someone.
07:11She gets out of the cigarettes and she offers them around to myself and Glenn.
07:14And then we take one and just as we were about to light up,
07:20she just snatches them quite furiously and says,
07:24they might be poisoned, you can't have them.
07:26I was taken by by that.
07:28Like, what?
07:29Your cigarettes are poisoned?
07:31And this was a pack of cigarettes that she'd been smoking from all night.
07:36This is beyond weird now.
07:37Something's not right about this woman.
07:40Glenn was, he was quite relaxed and comfortable with it.
07:43And I think he was just dismissing it off as quirky.
07:48I personally just wanted to get out of that situation
07:51as quickly and as calmly as possible.
07:57Peter was clearly suspicious of Sabina's behaviour and left the house.
08:03But Glenn was helping her.
08:06And Sabina stayed the night.
08:17In 2008, I was working at the Royal Infirmary in Stoke,
08:22in the A&E department as a nursing assistant,
08:24which is why Glenn rang me and told me that he's got this Swedish woman at his
08:32and told me, you know, she's got nowhere to go, so I'd better stay here.
08:36And she's got a sister who's in the hospital who had been in a car accident.
08:42So when I rang Glenn back, I said,
08:45I've found out that she's been admitted, been operated on,
08:50and that's all they can tell me.
08:53And that's what I told Glenn.
08:55And I said, if you want to lift up there, I'll give you a lift up there.
09:02When he'd come back and he said, no, she doesn't want to go.
09:05I said, oh, OK.
09:07Well, if you change your mind, let me know, but I'll give you a lift up.
09:12And that was that.
09:17If I'd have known the story about the M6, I could have warned Glenn
09:22that what she's told you isn't what happened.
09:28Oh, Jesus!
09:30Yeah, I could have warned him.
09:32Something goes through straight.
09:33No, it's going to happen to you, too.
09:34She's very dangerous.
09:35Careful.
09:50After Sabina stayed the night in Glenn's home,
09:55people in the local area saw Sabina and saw Glenn
10:00in the house or through the window.
10:03And at one point, Glenn gave one of them a thumbs up.
10:09Sabina asked Glenn for a cup of tea.
10:12He was caught sure because he didn't have any tea to give her.
10:15So he went to a neighbor to see if he could borrow a teabag.
10:18Glenn was just trying to make a cup of tea for Sabina.
10:31That's when everything kicked off.
10:36Neither Glenn or Sabina ever got to drink their cups of tea.
10:41It turns out that Glenn had gone inside the house after speaking with his neighbor
10:48and using his kitchen knife, Sabina attacked Glenn, stabbed him three times in the chest and one time in the throat.
11:01And she stabbed me, she stabbed me.
11:05And they said, yeah, look after me dog.
11:07I said, I'm going to just come in now.
11:09And I said, yeah, I'll look after you dog for you.
11:13Sabina fled the scene at the house and was acting in a very erratic manner.
11:22She had somehow got hold of a hammer.
11:25This good Samaritan stopped and tried to help her.
11:29Well, as we were pulling up to the exit onto the roundabout,
11:33I just glanced and saw a woman in the corner of my eye.
11:36I looked again and saw her smashing herself on the head with a hammer.
11:42I just felt a sickening feeling in my stomach.
11:45And I do remember seeing lots of blood on her head.
11:48And it was proper tunnel vision.
11:51And I was just completely like zoned in on the hammer.
11:54Just put my hands straight on the hammer and lowered it.
11:57She hit me on the back of the head with something.
12:01The last thing I saw was her run across the roundabout, the road,
12:06followed by two paramedics.
12:09The paramedics from Staffordshire Ambient Service had been called to a stabbing incident.
12:14And the crew, as they were going en route,
12:16came across an individual who had been hitting her head with a hammer.
12:21Quite concerned about her safety.
12:23The hamburgers stopped to try and help.
12:27The paramedics saw Sabina as she then made her way to a high row bridge nearby.
12:34She's got nowhere to go.
12:38So instead of handing herself in, Sabina jumps from the bridge onto the road.
12:48The paramedics who were going to the stabbing are now dealing with the scene on the A50.
12:53And when I approached the incident, I was quite surprised.
12:59It was actually the same lady that we'd attended to on the motorway.
13:02She jumped a distance from approximately 30 foot onto a hard road surface.
13:18She appeared to have sustained a head injury and also an injury to a leg.
13:24When I approached her, she was actually conscious, but she was quite aggressive, abusive, shouting and screaming.
13:31Very similar to her presentation when I'd come across her on the motorway.
13:35I did an initial assessment of Sabina, determined there was no obvious life-threatening injuries.
13:43The paramedic crew that were on scene were obviously managing her.
13:47And then I was aware of the stabbing incident in the locality.
13:51So I left the scene.
14:01As I approached the scene, there were a number of police officers there.
14:05One of the police officers waved me down and advised me to stop.
14:10And I was basically told that life was extinct.
14:14This was now a crime scene.
14:21I was working at the daily newspaper in Stoke at that time, the Sentinel.
14:29And I found out there'd been a stabbing in Duke Street.
14:35So I travelled to the scene to speak to some neighbours and get some more information about what happened.
14:44They told me Glenn came out of the house severely injured.
14:49He had been stabbed.
14:50He told his neighbour he had been stabbed.
14:53And she stabbed me, she stabbed me.
14:56And then the other guy went, that was it.
15:00I've seen everybody die before.
15:01It was a very brutal stabbing of an innocent man in his home.
15:10The day after I'd spoken to Glenn, I went up to the corner shop to get a packet of cigarettes.
15:26On the counter was the Sentinel newspaper.
15:29And I looked and I thought, I recognise that picture.
15:31It was Glenn's house.
15:37It was cordoned off.
15:39And I thought, what's going on here?
15:41And I don't think I even bothered reading it.
15:43So I went back to my car, drove down there, parked up.
15:50And the policeman says, oi, you can't park there.
15:53You'll have to move that car.
15:56I said, well, your brother lives here.
15:59All right, here.
16:02Can you just stay here and I'll get someone to come and talk to you?
16:04I waited and waited.
16:06No one was coming.
16:09And eventually they came up to the house.
16:13I had to inform the rest of the family.
16:17It's hard to say to somebody, your brother's dead.
16:29It still gets me there.
16:32I still find it hard to talk about.
16:34After I finished work, I was asked by my wife, in an urgent way, to phone Paul, my brother.
17:01He just told me that Glenn had died.
17:05And then, obviously, it opens up a whole barrage of questions.
17:11Trying to piece the whole thing together in your mind is pretty difficult.
17:17But my whole focus was being concerned with my mother.
17:20I couldn't tell her.
17:22I had to get my neighbour to tell her.
17:25I couldn't get the words out.
17:26She couldn't take it in.
17:27You know, she couldn't believe it.
17:30You know, my mum, she just kept saying,
17:34What?
17:35Glenn's dead?
17:36And I thought, sorry, I'm getting upset now.
17:40I've still got to get over that they could never bother to inform us.
17:46So I thought the first thing the police did in a thing like that is inform the family.
17:53And to read it in the papers wasn't very nice at all.
17:58In the immediate aftermath of the stabbing, it was a very confusing picture.
18:08We were trying to piece together.
18:10It's a shocking moment when you realise the relationship between the M6 and the stabbing and the A50.
18:18What's going to happen to you two?
18:20Fucking hell!
18:21Calm down, calm down, calm down.
18:23After she jumped onto the A50, she was transported to the emergency department at Royal Stoke University Hospital.
18:33With a head injury and quite significant leg injuries, she appeared to have sustained an ankle fracture.
18:44While Sabine Erickson was in hospital, she was arrested for the murder of Glenn Hollinshead.
18:53In 2008, I was instructed by the Staffordshire branch of the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute Sabine Erickson for the murder of Glenn Hollinshead.
19:16After Sabine Erickson jumped off the bridge, she remained in hospital until the 11th of September of 2008, receiving treatment for her serious leg injuries and a wound to the abdomen.
19:35And the doctor who examined her formed the view that the wound had been caused by a sharp object such as a knife.
19:47So this raised the possibility that Sabine had been stabbed.
19:53The question then was, by whom? Was it by Glenn Hollinshead?
20:02Glenn tended to be a little bit rebellious.
20:08I would say he did not like authority.
20:14He was always looking for direction.
20:18He tended not to have a clear purpose in life.
20:21He was focused on drinking. He used to drink a lot. He always has.
20:25At one point he did lose his way.
20:31So I don't know what it was with his smoking.
20:34You know, he was asking for more money and stuff like that.
20:39And I got to the point where I said, I can't do this anymore.
20:43End off, you know.
20:45And then he went on a methadone program.
20:50Now I used to say to Glenn, be careful who you play with,
20:55because he had some characters in his life that I wouldn't have entertained.
21:00But that was his nature.
21:03It was irrefutable that Sabine Erickson's hand had held the knife
21:17with which Glenn Hollinshead had been stabbed.
21:21But did she act in self-defense?
21:24What was her state of mind at the time that the stabbing took place?
21:30The defense indicated that they would instruct a psychiatrist to examine Sabine Erickson.
21:41They said she was suffering from polioderm.
21:45And apparently it's a condition where you can catch a mental illness of somebody.
21:51You know, how can someone catch a mental illness?
21:54The incident was a mental illness.
21:55The incident was a mental illness.
21:56In the days and weeks leading up to the trial, I looked through all the evidence.
22:12And one of the extraordinary features of the case was in relation to the incident on the M6.
22:19six here was an example of quite extraordinarily bizarre behavior
22:31by sabina and ursula ericsson
22:34understandably there were suspicions that the twins had been high on drugs or under the influence
22:55of something yeah of course yeah jesus christ i watched her go under the arctic yeah she ran off
23:06they're both they're both high yeah very the other ones just fought us
23:14both sabina and ursula provided blood samples and in both their cases the samples were negative
23:23for the presence of drugs both lawful and unlawful and for alcohol there's going to be a big
23:31investigation about this where are you from are they irish swedish swedish stop stop it
23:41fucking
23:56three days later sabina jumped from the parapet above the 850. again she was negative
24:04for drugs and alcohol her behavior was bizarre so it was inevitable sabina ericsson's mental state at the
24:17the time of the killing might well be an issue in the case the defense instruct a psychiatrist to
24:28examine sabina it's absolutely usual if a defendant produces a report that the prosecution will also
24:38obtain a report in 2009 i was instructed as a consultant psychiatrist to prepare a forensic psychiatric
24:50report in the case of sabina ericsson do you suffer any mental health problems or from depression
24:58the defense expert felt sabina was in fact suffering from a serious mental health issue
25:18and that sabina ericsson's behavior was due
25:21due to the presence and the influence of her sister
25:30and their diagnosis was folia due a french term meaning the madness of two
25:37folia due is a very rare psychiatric condition typically it happens when the two people involved
25:46spend quite visible time together and are highly isolated one person would have what we call the
25:52primary diagnosis of a true mental illness and then because of their intimacy they could convince
26:02that other person to think just as they were thinking it's almost as if you would consider it being
26:09contagious in the case of these sisters there was an indication that ursula was the primary patient
26:21folia seemed to be a very convenient diagnosis of what was going on between sabina and the sister
26:29no i i i don't believe there's any any woo-woo type mysticism where one girl is transferring her
26:37thoughts to another girl even though twins are very close just please check out the whole picture please
26:43with my sister i lost the subject okay no problem all right
26:50there's now quite a lot of evidence which shows that folia due does happen because it's been recorded
26:58it's possible for two people to share the same deletion but it's extremely rare and that's what makes this
27:04case very interesting there were two diagnoses one by each of the medical experts i wanted to meet with miss erickson
27:18i'm curious to know what was happening in the weeks days hours and even in the minutes leading up to the event
27:28because prior to meeting with her sister there was no evidence of any previous issue with mental health
27:53conversations with people who grew up with the twins in sweden have revealed what
27:57their childhoods were like the twins grew up with an older brother and sister
28:07their fathers disabled with only one arm and had problems with alcohol
28:12their mother was believed to have challenges of her own
28:20the children were generally left to their own devices
28:23school friends remember ursula having a cleft palate but disfigured and scarred her entire face from the
28:28forehead down and was bullied for her disfigurement
28:33the twins had an extremely close relationship with each other but didn't spend time with other friends
28:39sabina and ursula decided they would have a better life if they left sweden
28:43there are so many unanswered questions around this case
28:54when they arrived in liverpool they spoke to police to raise some concerns about the safety of sabina's
29:01sons
29:03police we understand at that stage actually made contact with her partner back in court
29:10and discovered that he was concerned for sabina's whereabouts for her safety
29:16and there was nothing to cause alarm with their two sons
29:21but why did they travel to liverpool
29:23why were they so worried about sabina's children's safety back in ireland
29:33when they stopped at kail services why would they not put their bags back in the hold of the coach
29:40why were they both trying to run in front of traffic on the m6
29:49yeah we need mike alpha we need the lot here now
29:52what was causing this extreme behavior
30:04and indeed the day after the questions continued it's inevitable when people are interested in
30:14something their minds try and piece together the the confusion of it all today's podcast we are
30:23going to delve deep into the story and the crimes of sisters ursula and sabina ericsson oh my god
30:30this case it's giving me a headache i think the case of sabina and ursula ericsson has captured
30:35people's imagination in part because of the lack of official information that's available to the
30:40public and where information is missing conspiracy theorists will rush in once the news coverage of
30:47this story caught the interest of social media it just snowballed and various colorful opinions about
30:54what happened took on a life of their own so let's quickly talk about some theories shall we tell you
31:00what i thought i thought it was drugs conspiracy theories suggest sabina and ursula had either taken
31:05or been given pcp it is an illegal drug that can cause hallucinations paranoia and the belief that
31:11one has superhuman strength often pcp is laced in cigarettes so this theory definitely seemed plausible
31:18because it could explain why sabina was concerned about glenn and peter smoking her cigarettes however
31:25pcp is one of the drugs the police test for so this isn't something that would have been missed during
31:30their examination for the isu's guys that they're on a coach whether they've just come in we don't
31:36know but they're very protective of the bags and wouldn't let the coach drive put them down below
31:40and he says with the way they're acting could they be mewling there was also a theory that the twins
31:46were drug smugglers the reason for this theory is just the way that they were kind of acting with their
31:51bags on the coach how they were like clutching them and just acting really weird and the twins had
31:56multiple mobile phones with them that could support the fact that there were drug smugglers there were
32:01no drugs found in their system and no drugs or drug paraphernalia found in their backs there are
32:09theories out there but we can't prove any of this it is purely speculation what on earth happened in glenn
32:20holland's head's house i made an appointment to meet with miss erickson i felt that i did not have
32:39enough information to do a comprehensive diagnosis prior to what had happened to mr holland's head
32:54it seemed that she was having persecutory delusions hearing voices thoughts that she was in danger
33:04and this was made clear to her by ursula and that is when she was convinced that they needed to seek refuge
33:19apparently they were walking down central asia kissing
33:24they considered escaping together one way or the other like a pact
33:30what was said to me by miss erickson was that they were both convinced that they had to act in this
33:41way and that by dying together that would be one way of escaping whatever perceived danger that they had
33:51imagined
34:05after the incident it appeared that sabina
34:09continued suffering from a paranoid delusion thinking that someone is out to harm her
34:15when mr holland's head went out to speak to his neighbor
34:24it is possible that she might have felt they were plotting in some way
34:32if she was having persecutory delusions it would give her a sense of fear
34:37a feeling that she needed to escape to protect herself and also to protect her sister
34:49i was able to understand more about what her life was like
34:57sabina and her sister ursula they led a fairly frugal existence in sweden
35:04and there was some insinuation of difficulties within the household
35:16although there was no overt sign of mental health difficulties
35:24sabina and ursula both had a shared traumatic childhood we know now that people who've had some
35:31type of adverse experience particularly some kind of trauma in their childhood are much more likely
35:38than other people to develop a form of severe mental illness some form of psychosis or another
35:49there were two diagnoses
35:52the defense believed that it was polyoderm
35:55of her sister but in my opinion she was suffering from acute polymorphic psychotic disorder
36:06where the person's mind simply takes leave of reality it could have lasted days and the presence
36:17and influence of her sister was more the final straw that caused her to have a psychotic
36:25break in the end it did not matter who made what diagnosis the important thing was whether we felt
36:36that she was operating under the influence of a mental disorder at the time of the incident the
36:44the conclusions of both expert were the same
36:54dr mcdaniel's report was only available at lunchtime on the day that the trial was due to commence
37:05we discovered that she too had come to the conclusion that savina's responsibility was
37:12substantially diminished by her mental state at the time of the killing
37:19we would accept the plea only if any suggestion of self-defense was abandoned
37:29right stay with me
37:31i can't see any reason why glenn would stab her
37:34i don't think you're going to make someone a cup of tea and then just turn around and stab them
37:41if glenn had seen sabina trying to harm herself in any way he would try to prevent it
37:48it's how he is he wouldn't just stand there and watch
37:52calm down calm down sabina for whatever reason was quite happy to place herself at serious risk of
38:01harm and when anybody tried to stop her she was prepared to resist violently
38:13it seemed to me that the overwhelmingly probable inference was that sabina was in the process of
38:22using the knife of using the knife to injure herself when glenn hollingshead came back into his house
38:29that he tried to stop her and that she took possession of the knife and stabbed him
38:35the defense considered their position overnight
38:56there were various court hearings most of them seem to be adjourned
39:00so it's been a long time coming but we'll see what happens and then finally there was the trial
39:08we're there as brothers waiting to see what was going to happen sabina's change of plea made
39:14headlines and i remember it being reported prominently on bbc news tonight a swedish woman
39:22who ran into the path of oncoming traffic on the m6 motorway and later killed a man
39:27has pleaded guilty to manslaughter
39:37the judge's sentence had been at her five years minus the time she had served on remand
39:46i was disappointed with the sentence that was passed down
39:50but i didn't think it would bring glenn back no matter how long she got in prison
39:57in my eyes it should have been preventable after what she'd gone through on the m6
40:14the m6 being knocked unconscious then waking up and fighting with police people trying to run into
40:22other traffic on the other side of the m6 now to me that is not normal behavior and there was a
40:30mention of 136 where you put under the mental health act well 136 if she is well she needs to be for
40:40if nothing else for going on the carriageway and uh for her own safety one of the policemen that was
40:46there said that she should be sectioned they could have kept her under observation they could have
40:53brought in psychologists psychiatrists i don't hold sabina responsible although she physically was
41:00responsible for my brother's death i think that the police are far more culpable sabina i don't have any
41:08malice against in the case of miss erickson she showed intermittent signs of psychosis sabrina come and
41:23sit in the car there were times when she acted bizarrely and there were times when she acted normally
41:30what job are you doing oh i just find found a crappy job but because of the fluctuating nature
41:38of the illness then things sort of slipped through the net
41:50the police had no way of telling exactly what was going to happen next i think in the moment they
41:57probably thought they were doing the right thing by sabina but there are lessons to be learned from this
42:17i think the world has moved on in terms of our understanding of mental health conditions
42:40and our awareness of it we need to foster a better understanding of what these disorders are
42:54and the fact that there's not two species of people the sane and the insane but that we're all to some
43:01extent on that spectrum and the earlier we can intervene the sooner we can get to people who
43:09are developing psychotic symptoms then the more likely we are to be able to prevent the tragic deaths
43:15of people like glenn holinshead
43:21my mother was never the same glenn i think was the apple of her eye it broke her heart and she ended up
43:30falling apart i still picture him laughing joking with me
43:35laughing at me yeah yeah i miss him oh god do i ever i miss him
43:52laughing at me yeah
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