February 28, 1986

He had sent the bodyguards home that afternoon. It was a Friday and he and Lisbet had decided late to go to the cinema with their son Mårten and his girlfriend, to see a Swedish comedy at the Grand on Sveavägen.

They came out after eleven and said goodnight to the young people, and walked south down Sveavägen toward the Tunnelbana at Rådmansgatan. They had no car and no guard. This was not thought remarkable; the Prime Minister of Sweden walked home.

At the corner of Tunnelgatan, at about twenty past eleven, a man came up behind them and shot Palme once in the back at close range and Lisbet once across the shoulder, and ran east up the steps toward Malmskillnadsgatan. Two young women reached Palme within seconds. He was pronounced dead at Sabbatsberg Hospital just after midnight. He was fifty-nine.

The investigation that followed is the largest in Swedish history and is taught as a case study in how not to run one. The scene was not sealed. The murder weapon has never been found. A man was convicted in 1989 and acquitted on appeal the same year. More than ten thousand people have been interviewed and one hundred and thirty-four have confessed.

In June 2020 the chief prosecutor named Stig Engström, a graphic designer who had been at the scene and who killed himself in 2000, and closed the case without charges because the suspect was dead. A great many Swedes do not accept it.

The street corner has a plaque set into the pavement. People still leave roses on it.