Death of Silje Redergård

Silje Marie Redergård, a five-year-old girl, was found dead on 15 October 1994 in the Rosten area of Tiller, near Trondheim, Norway. According to the original account, two boys, aged five and six, were alleged to have beaten, kicked, stoned, and stripped her before leaving her in the snow, where she died of hypothermia. Because Norwegian law does not permit the punishment of children under 15, the two boys were not charged; instead they were directed to undergo psychological evaluation and ongoing counseling and monitoring by child protective services until age 18. Their names were never publicly released.

The initial theory of the crime treated it as possibly sexually motivated or connected to a parental figure, partly because Redergård's clothing had been removed and her body was found near her family's home. Her parents learned the identity of the alleged perpetrators from the mother of the boys before police themselves determined this. No definitive motive was ever established, though one of the boys reportedly told a detective during the original investigation, "We beat her till she stopped crying."

The case prompted broader public debate in Norway about the influence of violent children's television. On 18 October 1994, the pay television channel TV3 suspended broadcasts of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles amid concern about the effect of fictionalised violence on children. Then Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland publicly commented that Norwegians should reconsider allowing such commercially broadcast violence.

In 2021, the case underwent renewed scrutiny. According to this review, police in 1994 had not followed up on statements from the five-year-old and six-year-old that a group of older, "rampant" teenage boys had been responsible for Silje's death — statements that were said to match separate witness reports which police also did not pursue. A Kripos forensic expert, Per Angell, stated that children's bootprints found in the snow could not be connected to the three young boys implicated in the death, and that no forensic evidence tied them to the killing. Police officer Asbjørn Rachlew noted that the small boys had been interrogated in a manner that led them to alter their accounts over time and under pressure. The review also found that no forensic testing had been done on fingerprints, clothing fibres, or bootprint patterns on the body or in the snow. A four-part NRK television production examined these investigative gaps and characterized the case as a miscarriage of justice.

The case has drawn comparisons to the killing of James Bulger in the United Kingdom, which occurred about twenty months earlier. One of the boys originally implicated in Silje's death is reported to have struggled with drug addiction and homelessness later in life, which has been attributed in part to his association with the case.