A tight-knit community in Denmark is left with lasting trauma after a series of horrific crimes goes unsolved for years. When the perpetrator is finally caught, it’s a welcome relief — but for three of his former friends, it’s the beginning of a nightmare: The person they thought they knew is responsible for violent crimes against three girls.
“For years, I feared the perpetrator was still out there and that I could be the next victim,” one of the culprit’s ex-friends, Amanda, says. “When I realized it was one of my closest friends, my world shattered.” In the three-part documentary A Friend, a Murderer, director Christian Dyekjær takes viewers through the near decade it took to bring a killer to justice.
Those interviewed in the documentary include three former friends of the perpetrator, a local priest, a volunteer search coordinator, a journalist, and the founder of a Danish Facebook group about people who’ve gone missing.
The true crime docuseries tells the story of three cases that gripped Denmark over the last decade. Each of the cases, which took place between 2016 and 2023, involved attacks against teen girls. After the third incident, police found the perpetrator: a 32-year-old man named Philip Patrick Westh. The series details the harrowing cases and their aftermath on the rural community in which they took place, as told through the lens of the perpetrator’s former friends and those close to the case.
“I have seen how the local community was struck by fear, grief, anger, and suspicion,” says local priest Anna Helleberg Kluge, who’s interviewed in the documentary. “No one knew who they could trust, and many lived with a quiet, constant fear in their everyday lives. But I have also seen small signs that the community can find its way back — that people can support one another and slowly move forward after the unimaginable.”
Westh pleaded partially guilty to charges related to the 2023 abduction, but pleaded not guilty to the earlier incidents. Westh was found guilty in a jury trial and sentenced to life in prison in June 2024. Although his lawyer initiated an appeal, set to take place in fall 2025, Westh ultimately declined to follow through with it. He’s currently serving out his sentence in Denmark.
