Story analysis
Who Is Amanda’s Creepy Teacher in The Åre Murders? Everything You Need to Know
Lasse Sandahl is not Amanda's killer in The Are Murders. Here is what he actually did to Ebba, why he became the prime suspect, and who really killed Amanda.
Spoilers below for all five episodes of The Are Murders, including the identity of Amanda’s actual killer.
Lasse Sandahl (Fredrik Soderholm) is not Amanda’s killer. That is the answer the second episode of the Netflix series works hard to delay. What Lasse actually did to Amanda’s best friend Ebba is a separate crime, and understanding that relationship explains why Amanda crossed paths with him in the first place and why she sent him a warning message on the night she disappeared.
Who Is Lasse Sandahl?
Lasse Sandahl is a teacher at the local high school in Are where both Amanda Halvorsen (Freddie Mosten Jacob) and her best friend Ebba Niemi (Frida Argento) studied. Swedish actor Fredrik Soderholm plays the character across three episodes of the five-part first season.
What Lasse Did to Ebba
Lasse built a private text relationship with Ebba that escalated to him requesting intimate photos of her. Ebba sent them. From that point, he used the photos as leverage: threatening to distribute them among other students at school unless she continued seeing him. By the time the series begins, this constitutes active blackmail.
Amanda found out at the party on the night she disappeared. Ebba told her what had been happening. Amanda responded by sending Lasse a direct message: end things with Ebba, or she would report him to the authorities. That message puts Amanda in direct conflict with Lasse and connects him to her last known movements.
Why Lasse Becomes the Prime Suspect
Episode 2 stacks three pieces of evidence against him. A vehicle rented in connection with the case traces back to Lasse. He was also seen parked outside Ebba’s house at 2 AM on the night of the party. Then, at a Christmas market, he approaches Ebba in daylight, tells her “we’re in this together,” and physically steers her into his car against her will, touching her face before driving off.
Hanna Ahlander (Carla Sehn), a suspended Stockholm detective investigating alongside local officer Daniel Lindskog (Kardo Razzazi), pursues the Lasse lead despite Daniel initially dismissing it. The episode ends with officers heading to Lasse’s home while he is there alone with Ebba, which functions as its central cliffhanger. The combination of the rental vehicle, the nighttime surveillance of Ebba’s address, and the forced removal from a public space makes him read, on the available evidence, as a credible suspect.
Is Lasse Amanda’s Killer?
No. When officers reach his home, Lasse is threatening Ebba: he tells her he will release her photos to everyone at school if she speaks to police. Officers intervene before he can carry that out. In interrogation, he admits he was angry about Amanda’s message but states he returned home after leaving the party area without following her. The timeline he provides cannot be disproven.
His arrest closes the blackmail case. The murder investigation moves elsewhere.
Who Actually Killed Amanda?
The killer is Bosse Lundh (Robin Stegmar), the husband of Annika Risberg (Moa Gammel), who owns the cleaning company Fjallstad. Bosse publicly runs a Missing People charitable foundation as cover for a scheme that exploits migrant workers through both operations.
A cleaner named Zuhra (Diana Gardner) was trapped in debt, unable to leave because Bosse withheld her passport. To raise money, Zuhra had been taking small items from clients’ homes. Amanda discovered this and, rather than reporting her, sold the stolen items and sent the proceeds to Zuhra’s family. On the night she disappeared, Amanda went to Bosse’s home to confront him about Zuhra’s situation and recover her passport.
Bosse offered to drive Amanda home. He took a different route. When Amanda refused to stay silent about what she knew of his operation, he strangled her. He left her body on the ski lift where the series opens. The third episode ends with Bosse apprehended after a confrontation in which he bursts in on Hanna and Zuhra armed with a gun. The weapon discharges twice during a struggle with Hanna before he flees; Daniel intercepts him at a police roadblock. Bosse then confesses to Amanda’s murder.
The Connection Between the Two Storylines
Lasse Sandahl and Bosse Lundh share a structure the series places in parallel: both are men in formal positions of trust (a teacher, a charity director) who exploit people who depend on them. Ebba was a student. Zuhra was an undocumented worker without her travel documents. Amanda intervened on behalf of both, and in both cases that intervention put her in direct conflict with the person doing the exploiting.
The series clears Lasse of murder while leaving his conduct fully on the record. His arrest for what he did to Ebba runs as a separate thread from the homicide case. That Bosse, not Lasse, killed Amanda does not make the Lasse storyline a detour. The series frames both threads as showing how institutional authority protects abusers until someone like Amanda refuses to look away.