Nine-year-old Emma lives in the area and is here with her family. She places a red rose at the fence of the house and lights a candle on which she has written a greeting: “You were always the fun and kind people.”
It was mom who told me that something bad had happened, she says.
Busy with uncertainty
Helen Larsen walked past the memorial site with her daughter Melina earlier in the day. The uncertainty is the hardest part, she says.
There's a lot on the internet. Everyone's talking about it. We can only speculate. We don't even know who they are. Maybe it's someone you recognize.
They are not alone in wondering what happened and how it could have happened. The police have been silent and the atmosphere has been tense since Tuesday in Hörby, which is a small municipality where many people knew the woman and child, says parish priest Olof Sandström.
It's hard to take this in, he says.
A steady stream of both adults and children have come to the church to light candles since Tuesday. Sandström testifies to grief and shock.
There was, and is now also when you meet people, a tense atmosphere around this that has affected us all.
Denies crime
When the child did not come to school on Tuesday morning, the police were contacted. The child, who is under 15 years old, and a woman were found in the home.
Hörby's municipal director Linda Strand said with tears in her eyes during a press conference on Wednesday that the child was a student in Hörby and that the woman worked within the municipality.
The suspect was arrested the same day and later detained as a reasonable suspect, which is the lower level of suspicion.
His position is that he denies the crime, says prosecutor Hans Harding, who is leading the preliminary investigation.
The prosecutor does not want to go into what relationship the man had with the victims. Defense attorney Eric Jernryd does not want to give any comments at all.
The municipality's crisis support has been activated and schools have invested in extra preparedness and extra staffing to be able to meet the children's concerns.
