Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie? True story of mystery Scottish beach death of Annie Börjesson

True crime investigative documentary Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie? follows the shocking death of Swedish woman Annie Börjesson in Scotland, and the conflict over accounts of how she came to die.

BBC Scotland journalist and reporter Hazel Martin, whose grandmother lived in the town where Annie’s body was found, fronts the four part documentary series. 

Throughout the documentary, the official account of Annie’s death is questioned and the cold case is revisited with new information from Annie’s friends and family, as well as documents released more than a decade after her death.

Who was Annie Börjesson?

Annie Börjesson was a 30 year old Swedish woman from Tibro who had been living in Edinburgh for a year at the time of her unexpected death. 

On the day she died, on 4 December, she was supposed to have flown back home to Sweden to spend the Christmas period with her friends and family, but instead her body was discovered on a Scottish beach by a dog walker.

Her death has been the subject of conjecture and conspiracy theories for the last 18 years, and questions over the official explanation have been fuelled by apparent concealment by the authorities.

How did Annie Börjesson die?

Annie’s body was found face down under a sea wall on Prestwick Beach, Ayrshire, about 80 miles from Edinburgh and her bag with her passport inside was found nearby. 

She was believed to have been travelling to Prestwick airport to catch a flight to Sweden on the evening of 3 December. 

Her death was confirmed to have been the result of suicide but her family believe that she was killed. Several factors surrounding Annie’s death seem to contradict the official course of events. 

For instance, the day before she died, she had booked an appointment with her Swedish hairdresser for the following week, she had also paid the next month’s rent for her flat in Edinburgh.

Annie’s body was taken back to Sweden where it was examined by a mortician who informed Annie’s family that bruises on her body were consistent with strangulation.

Alternative theories as to how Annie died include the belief that it was a CIA gone wrong in a fatal case of mistaken identity.

The BBC four-part documentary, Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie?, is hosted by Hazel Martin, who revisits the case in a renewed search for answers.

Over the course of the documentary Hazel learns that Annie had become increasingly concerned with people tracking her computer usage. Annie had also spoken about meeting a man who had claimed to be international rugby player Martin Leslie, but it was later found that this was not his true identity as the real Leslie was on the other side of the world at the time. The man posing as Leslie has never been traced.

Authorities have been reluctant to share information from the case - Scottish police have not permitted photos from Annie’s autopsy to be released, and her mother, Guje Borjesson, was told that there were no calls logged in Annie’s phone records in the four days before her death - even though Borjesson claims to have spoken to her over the phone. 

Heavily redacted documents from a 12 month investigation into Annie’s death were released in 2020. Now, almost two decades on from her death, much of the vital information that may help to explain the event have been kept from the public.

A 2020 Sky News podcast, What happened to Annie?, claimed that the details of Annie’s death are a classified secret, and that Scottish authorities have concealed certain information due to the nation’s diplomatic relationship with Sweden.

All four episodes of Body on the Beach are available to watch now on BBC iPlayer