Several photos of Christer A are known, some of which were taken relatively shortly before and after the murder. We did not show these to witnesses, and that was a conscious decision.
We have spent many years investigating the CA lead. Of course, we would be happy to see some proof of his guilt or innocence. But showing images to witnesses forty years after the murder is not the right way to go. Sure, it is not impossible that witnesses might claim to recognize CA when shown the photos. It could definitely lead to spectacular headlines. However, for us, facts come first. One such fact is that no “identification” by witnesses after almost 40 years has any evidential value. The reliability of recognition after such a long period of time is very low. Numerous studies conducted by legal psychologists and memory experts are very clear on this.
In addition, such a confrontation should be conducted in a controlled manner, in which the witness is also shown several images of other people who resemble the perpetrator, and it is pointless if the witness has already seen photos of CA, because this creates a bias that influences the result.
There are many known cases of people who have been sentenced to long prison terms for crimes they did not commit, based on so-called witness identifications. These were often identifications that took place shortly after the events, not almost 40 years later. In some cases, the witnesses or victims had looked the perpetrator straight in the eye for several minutes. Yet, they picked out someone else.
Even now, the Palme case is plagued by many conflicting witness statements. This is one of the reasons why we interview two legal psychologists in The Lost Trail about the reliability of witness observations in criminal cases. The best thing you can do is compare images of the suspect with the statements made by witnesses shortly after the crime. At that point, memories were still fresh and possibly not yet contaminated. And that is what we did in The Lost Trail.