district court of ravnkær case no. 2026-r-0041 the state v. jens møller

transcript of proceedings — direct examination of the defendant, jens møller, called by defense counsel marie degn.

degn: mr. møller, how long did you know erik bredahl?

møller: twenty-two years. since we were young men. we played football together in the ravnkær fc reserves, back when — well, back when we still thought we’d make the first team.

degn: and when did you go into business together?

møller: 2014. i had the farm, he had the contacts. he was always good with people. better than me. we thought — you know, agricultural supply, it serves the whole area. it made sense.

degn: was it a good partnership?

møller: it was for a long time, yes. we had good years. the first five, six years, things were steady. we knew our roles. erik handled sales, customer relationships. i handled logistics, the physical side. it worked.

degn: and when did things change?

møller: probably… mid-2024. the market shifted. a lot of the smaller farms consolidated or went under. our customer base shrank. we were both stressed about it. erik more than me, i think. i had the farm to fall back on. he had the business and nothing else.

degn: let’s talk about january 14th. when did erik arrive at møllergården?

møller: around half past eight. i was in the kitchen. i heard his car on the gravel. he came in through the back door, didn’t knock. he never knocked.

degn: what was his state when he arrived?

møller: he’d been drinking. i could smell it on him the moment he walked in. his eyes were — you know when someone’s had enough that the focus is gone? he was there. not falling down, but not right either.

degn: did that surprise you?

møller: no. not lately. erik had been drinking more over the past few months. i didn’t say anything about it. it wasn’t my place. but i noticed.

degn: what happened when he came in?

møller: he sat down at the kitchen table. i offered him coffee. he waved it off. he started talking about the business right away. said he’d been looking at the numbers and it was bad. worse than i thought, he said. he wanted to talk about what we were going to do.

degn: and what did you discuss?

møller: i wanted to take a loan. bridge us through the slow season. i’ve done it before on the farm side. erik said no. said we were bleeding money and a loan was just — his word was “bandage on a corpse.” he was dramatic that night. more than usual.

degn: did it become an argument?

møller: it did. we raised our voices. i’m not going to pretend we didn’t. erik said we needed to face facts, and i said the facts were that we’d survived worse. he said i was being stubborn. i said he was being defeatist. it went back and forth like that. ten, fifteen minutes.

degn: was it physical at any point?

møller: no. never. i have never laid a hand on erik bredahl in twenty-two years. we argued, yes. sometimes loud. but we’re — we were — grown men. we shouted. we didn’t fight.

degn: how did the argument end?

møller: erik sort of… ran out of steam. he got quiet. sat there for a bit. then he said he wanted to go check the silo. said the grain had been sitting too long and he could smell it from the kitchen.

degn: could you smell grain from the kitchen?

møller: no. that’s ridiculous. the silo is sixty meters from the house. you can’t smell anything from there. but erik was drunk and he’d decided, so i wasn’t going to talk him out of it. you didn’t talk erik out of things when he’d decided.

degn: did you try to stop him?

møller: i said something like “it’s dark, leave it till morning.” he said he’d be five minutes. i let it go.

degn: did you go with him?

møller: no. i stayed in the kitchen. i made a sandwich.

degn: what happened next?

møller: i was at the counter — maybe twenty-five minutes had passed, i wasn’t watching the clock. and i heard… a shout. short. cut off, like someone started to yell and then — just stopped. and then a sound. a heavy sound. like — i don’t know how to describe it. like something hitting the ground that shouldn’t have been falling.

[witness pauses]

møller: i knew. i didn’t know what had happened exactly, but i knew something was wrong. i ran out. no shoes, no jacket. i ran to the silo.

degn: what did you find?

møller: erik. on the concrete at the base. on his back. his — his head was… there was blood. his eyes were open. i got down next to him and i said his name. i said it over and over. he didn’t respond. he wasn’t breathing. i tried to feel for a pulse but my hands were shaking too much to tell.

degn: what did you do then?

møller: i called 112. i told them my friend had fallen from the silo platform and i thought he was dead. they told me to stay with him and not move him. so i sat there on the concrete next to him until the ambulance came.

degn: the emergency call was logged at 22:15. erik left the kitchen around 21:15 or 21:20 by your estimate. that’s roughly an hour.

møller: i know how it looks. i wasn’t keeping precise time. i made the sandwich. i ate it. i was at the table going over some of the numbers erik had been talking about — writing things on the back of a feed invoice. trying to think about what he’d said. and then i heard the sound and i ran.

degn: did you run straight to the silo?

møller: yes. straight there. i could see… i could see him from about twenty meters away. the yard light reaches that far.

degn: did you go up to the platform?

møller: no. no. i went to erik.

degn: mr. møller, i want to ask you about the insurance policy. bredahl & møller held a key-man insurance policy naming you as beneficiary. 2.4 million kroner. were you aware of this?

møller: i mean — we set it up in 2014. when we started the company. the lawyer said it was standard for partnerships. if one of us died, the other could buy out the estate’s share and keep the company running. i signed the papers and honestly forgot about it.

degn: did you think about the policy at any point before erik’s death?

møller: no. i don’t think i could have told you the amount. i knew it existed somewhere in the paperwork, but that’s it. it’s like asking if i know what’s in my pension agreement paragraph by paragraph. i don’t. i signed it twelve years ago.

degn: mr. møller, if erik had dissolved the partnership, what would have happened to you?

møller: i would have lost the equipment. the sprayer, the seed drill, the trailer. all financed through the company. i’d still have the farm, the house. i’d have had to figure something out. lease equipment maybe. i don’t know. it would have been hard. but the farm is mine. the land is mine. i wasn’t going to starve.

degn: would you have killed your friend of twenty-two years over equipment?

prosecutor: objection. leading.

the court: sustained.

degn: mr. møller, how would you describe your friendship with erik?

møller: he was the best friend i had. i don’t have a lot of people. i have the farm and i had erik. he was the person i called when the tractor broke down and when my mother died and when i didn’t know what to do about anything. he drove out here at midnight once because a calf was breached and i couldn’t manage alone.

[witness pauses]

møller: i didn’t do this. i sat in my kitchen and i let him go out there drunk in the dark because i thought — i thought he’d just look and come back. and he didn’t come back. that’s what i have to live with. i didn’t stop him and he didn’t come back.

degn: no further questions, your honor.

[transcript continues with cross-examination in a subsequent filing.]