THE unanswered questions surrounding the tragic death of Annie Borjesson have haunted her family for over a decade.
Police ruled the 30-year-old Swede, who had been living in Edinburgh, had taken her own life when her body was found on a beach 80 miles away in Prestwick on December 4, 2005.
But her relatives and friends have always refused to accept this verdict.
Now a new BBC Three documentary, called Body on the Beach, explores the mysterious circumstances around her death that have sparked a raft of conspiracy theories.
Led by journalist Hazel Martin, whose grandmother lived near the beach, the show pieces together the strange sequence of events in the days before Annie was found dead - and the bizarre discrepancies in the evidence records.
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Annie had been living in Edinburgh for over a year, having moved there in 2004 after falling in love with Scotland during a brief trip.
On the day her body was found by a dog walker under a sea wall, she had been due to fly home from Prestwick Airport to Tibro in western Sweden for Christmas.
The day before she had made a call to her hairdresser booking an appointment for the following week, and Annie had also paid the next month's rent on her flat.
CCTV footage picked up Annie walking through the airport, alone, before exiting and heading towards the beach area.
In a letter from the Scottish authorities to the Swedish embassy, it says a witness statement indicated someone fitting Annie's description was seen standing at the water's edge looking out to sea at 4:30pm.
However, the witness has since said he didn't say that.
From the moment Annie was found face-down on the shore - her bag and jacket beside her, along with her wallet and passport - there have been questions raised about the way Annie's case was handled.
Forensic questions
In the documentary, the dog walker who came across Annie's body, David, says he reported it to the police who arrived within 10 minutes and took his details.
As their only witness, David says he was shocked that afterwards, he "never heard from them again".
"They said they’d get in touch with me if they needed me," he recalls. "I thought I would hear something, that they’d contact me and get a bit more detail… it was surprising that they never."
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They said they’d get in touch with me if they needed me. I thought I would hear something, that they’d contact me and get a bit more detail… it was surprising that they never.
David, witness
Within 100 minutes of her body being found, Annie was moved to a mortuary - something Detective Michael Neill, who was on duty the morning she was discovered, says was due to a "race against time" with the tide.
Dr Keri Nixon, a consultant forensic psychologist, says it seems "unlikely that everything that needed to be done was done forensically".
A document dated December 5, 2005 reveals the Scottish police told the Swedish authorities that they suspected the cause of death was suicide. However a post-mortem was only carried out on the body three days later, at Ayr Hospital.
The autopsy recorded no significant injuries or evidence of trauma, and the doctor recorded death due to drowning. But questions were raised when Annie's body was returned to Sweden.
Gun Daneberg, who has worked in the funeral industry for 38 years, says she opened the coffin and was struck by "finger marks around her neck" and extensive bruising on her body "like someone had hit her".
“I have never experienced anything like this before. You don’t forget," she says. "I think the family were in a state of shock... she couldn’t have caused all those bruises herself."
Ms Daneberg also says Annie's long hair - seen in the CCTV footage of her in her final hours - had been roughly cut short, and there was a bald patch on her head "as though someone had grabbed it and just pulled it out".
Mysterious bruising
In the documentary Hazel discovers Annie’s body was handled by another undertaker in London, who collected Annie’s body before it was sent to Sweden.
In a letter, they state the condition of her body was “extremely poor”, adding that Annie “did have significant bruising to her body which for reasons I cannot explain, I believe were not included in the autopsy report”.
It added: “I find this to be quite unusual considering the circumstances of her death.”
Tests on Annie’s body found microscopic creatures that appear to have come from a freshwater environment, not salt water - odd, given the coastal location where he she was found.
A freedom of information request submitted by Hazel for the photos taken during Annie's first postmortem is refused due to them not being "in the public interest".
I have never experienced anything like this before. You don’t forget. I think the family were in a state of shock... she couldn’t have caused all those bruises herself
Gun Daneberg
Hazel says Annie's family have also previously requested them and been denied because it wasn't deemed to be "in the family's interest".
Annie's best friend Maria Jansson, who was preparing to host her during her trip, is convinced Annie's death was not suicide, and that she was "murdered".
Her family, who took photos of the bruising, believe she was beaten and drowned, with her body then placed on the beach to look like suicide.
Hazel also questions why Annie would travel to a beach 80 miles away from her home, where the water in the bay is so shallow you have to walk out half a mile to reach a depth where you can no longer stand, to end her life.
However, retired detective Michael Neill points out a lot of families "can’t accept their loved one has taken their own life".
"There was never anything at all in the whole investigation to indicate that there was any criminality involved in Annie’s death," he says.
Rugby player mystery
Delving further, Hazel hears from Annie's friends about a rugby player she'd met in a nightclub not long before she died.
He told her his name was Martin Leslie, a Scottish-capped international originally from New Zealand.
However, when Annie claimed to have met him, the real Martin Leslie was back living in New Zealand.
The man she spoke to - who Annie described as very "full-on" to the point where it made her feel "uneasy" - has never been tracked down.
Annie told her family she feared the man was a "sexual predator", after he turned up at her local swimming pool in the days before her death, and said she planned to cut off contact.
Suspected 'CIA cover-up'
Another mystery surrounds Annie's phone records. Police claimed she had received no calls in the three days before her death.
But her mum called her on December 1, concerned for Annie's well-being.
A friend of Annie's from Scotland insists the call "did happen", as she was in the room, and claims she heard her tell her mum: "You have to respect this, I have to take care of myself."
Fellow journalist Robert Mulhern says there are elements of Annie’s case that make him “uneasy”.
Two days before her death, Annie called her family in Sweden from a payphone to say she was worried someone was listening to her mobile phone calls.
If you have nothing to hide here, then show us everything you have
Robert Mulhern, journalist
Annie, whose middle name was Kristina, shares her name with an Emmy-award winning US journalist called Kristina Borjesson, who built a reputation on investigating the secret services in America.
During the war on terror, US intelligence secretly flew terrorist suspects around the world.
At the time that Annie was found dead, it was reportedly an “open secret” that the American government were relocating prisoners from the Middle East, through Prestwick Airport, to prisons like Guantanamo Bay.
Mr Mulhern says Kristina was a “thorn in the side” of the CIA to the point that she was “run out of really high profile jobs”.
He adds that people have put two and two together and suspect Annie was killed in a case of mistaken identity by agents of the US State.
'State secret'
In a final twist, Hazel discovers Mr Mulhern asked to see correspondence between the Scottish and Swedish government regarding Annie’s death.
But he was refused, as they claimed releasing any material relating to Annie could “harm their relations with a foreign state”.
The Swedish government has marked Annie’s case as a "classified state secret".
“Classified documents in relation to a straightforward drowning? That doesn’t add up. Why mark them top secret?” Mr Mulhern asks.
“If you have nothing to hide here, then show us everything you have.”
'Mental health issues'
While Annie's friends from Sweden describe the keen singer as a "happy go lucky" character, witness statements from Annie’s flatmates in Scotland paint a different picture.
One claimed she got the impression Annie was depressed because she couldn’t get a job, and was “very lonely”.
Another flatmate said she’d had to move out because “Annie became too much” and it had become stressful to be with her because she was so “pushy and intense”.
Another flatmate said Annie told her she had made “a decision that would change her life” three days before she was found dead.
It led police to suspect Annie struggled with mental health issues, and that her life in Scotland was not as she’d described it to her family back home.
Hazel’s findings have been passed to The Scottish Fatalities Investigation Unit. She says: "Regardless of Annie's state of mind in the lead-up to her death, these big questions remain unanswered, and they need to be addressed."
A representative of Police Scotland said: “We understand how distressing this must be for family and friends. Annie Borjesson’s death was fully investigated at the time and has also been subject of review.
“There is no information or evidence at this time to suggest that there is any criminality surrounding Annie’s death.”
Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie? is available to stream now on BBC iPlayer.
