Betrayal: A Friend, A Murderer
Image Courtesy of The Review Geek
By Madeleine Gregg
I like to believe that most people in the world are genuine and well-intended. However, most people unfortunately encounter narcissists, master manipulators, and two-faced people at some point in their lives. We cannot read minds, so we never know who is genuine and who is fake.
A Friend, A Murderer is Netflix’s most recent true crime docuseries that premiered on March 5, 2026. It examines the impacts of a series of attacks on teenage girls from 2016 to 2023. In the seemingly safe, tight-knit community of Korsør Denmark, a 17-year-old girl disappeared on her way home from a party one fateful summer night in 2016. Her body was found months later, but the search for her killer took well over eight years!
On November 8, 2022, the killer attempted to kidnap a 15-year-old girl in Sorø, near Korsør, although this case was not immediately connected to the 2016 case. On April 15, 2023, he kidnapped a 13-year-old girl in Kirkerup, also near Korsør. She was found alive a day later, and the perpetrator was arrested. Police were able to conclude, with evidence from his car, that he was responsible for all three crimes therefore was given a life sentence.
Three of the killer’s closest friends were interviewed for the docuseries. They felt deeply betrayed when they learned that the person they thought they knew so deeply was capable of such evil. One of them, Amanda, stated, “For years, I feared the perpetrator was still out there and that I could be the next victim. When I realized it was one of my closest friends, my world shattered.”
His three friends knew him as a person who “was capable of ‘partying and having fun.’” Unbeknownst to them, he got away with murder and crime in between the moments they shared together. He did not show any red flags that suggested that something was off, and they were astounded by how good he was at hiding his dark side for years.
Despite the lessons on trust that the docuseries conveys, it does raise some ethical questions. The families of the victims object to the timing of its production, given that people are still healing from the case, which only closed three years ago. However, a local priest, Anna Helleberg Kluge, said that despite the lingering effects on the community, “[she has] seen small signs that the community can find its way back—that people can support one another and slowly move forward after the unimaginable.”
The docuseries conveys that the people who seem normal and who are closest to us can be the most dangerous types of people, not only physically, but also psychologically.
