A Death in Oslo: The Curious Death of "Jennifer Fairgate"
As seen on Netflix's Unsolved Mysteries, this open-ended case will leave you baffled and go down a hole so deep, the bottom can't be seen. This is the story of a lonely death shrouded in mystery. Who was the elegantly clothed ''Jennifer Fairgate'' and why did she die? Mostly, we would like to find out her real name and the reason for her fatal visit to Oslo in 1995.
CASE
On May 22, 1995 a lady called to the Radisson SAS Plaza Hotel and requested to book a room for two nights. A few days later, on May 31, she called again to inform that her plans had changed and she will be arriving that night, and accompanying her would be one Lois Fairgate, who she requested be added to the booking. The hotel made all the changes, however this time the conversation was in fluent German, with a Eastern German accent.
As May 31 rolled around, an elegantly dressed woman appeared at the Plaza Hotel reception, around 10.40pm, rolling behind her a compact roller suitcase. She was wearing a long, black jacket, mini skirt and had short, black hair and piercing blue eyes. The hotel was very busy that night, as the last three flights arrived to Oslo, and there was a long queue of people waiting to be checked in.
The woman identified herself as Jennifer Fairgate, and she was given a registration card to fill out. The receptionist had pre-printed the reservation names: Jennifer and Lois Fairgate. Then he marked that she should fill out her details, mark payment form and sign on the line. Jennifer filled out her date of birth as 29.08.1973, nationality as Belgian, and her address as living in Verlaine, Belgium. The payment method was cash. No credit card details were given, no passport number was filled out. At the same time, she also did not provide any identification with the registration.
This is very curious how identification and credit card details were overlooked as the Plaza Hotel was known to be one of the swankiest hotels at the time in Oslo. It was the first skyscraper to be erected in Oslo, standing at an impressive 117 meters. It has 673 rooms across 37 floors. It is still considered the second tallest building in the country. It's five star rating and reputation attracted the crème de la crème of clientele: millionaires, celebrities, politicians, and other noteworthy people.
When Jennifer checked in to the hotel, there was two receptionists working at the time that remember seeing her. Both have different accounts of the story. One recounts that she arrived alone, and the other says that there was a man that was standing slightly behind her. Nobody can verify if Lois did ever come to stay at the hotel room, or his name was just added to reservation.
After two days, the reservation was extended. It was then that the receptionist, Evy Tudem Gjertsen, realized that there was no credit card provided and the hotel required payment for the few days that the room was booked already. The hotel staff used the in-house messaging system, through the room television set, to send a reminder to Jennifer to come down to reception to sort out the issue. A few messages were sent, and eventually to one there was the reply of OK. However, nobody came to the front desk to pay anything.
The room that was assigned to the couple, 2805, was located in the ''Tower'' portion of the hotel. It had beautiful views of the Oslo centre, and a hefty price tag of 330$ per night. The receptionist also did some digging and discovered that the room had not been cleaned since Thursday, so this also prompted her to send a security guard to the room to check what was going on. Soon enough, security guard Espen Naess arrives to the room 2805. He knocked on the door, and immediately heard a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot. Fearing that one of the guests turned on the other and shot them, the security guard ran and hid in a small alcove and waited it out. He did not inform any other staff of what happened, fearing that there was an active shooter in the hotel, and he did not want to cause any panic.
He left the floor and went to the Security office where the Head Security Officer was immediately notified. The room was left unattended for 15 minutes. The police were also called. Naess' superior made his way to the room, and tried to get a response to his knock. However, nothing could be heard from the room. He tried to get inside the room, and found it to be double locked. As security usually have a special tool to open doors, they were able to get inside. When they entered the room, a strong, acrid smell hit their noses. It was putrid, and smelt of propellant and body fluids, it was described as the ''smell of death''.
The room was dark, but he could make out the shape of a woman. She was lying on the bed, in a very unnatural pose. He called out, but silence reverberated back to him. When the security man realized she was dead, he stepped out of the room and waited for police to arrive. They came at 8.55pm, which was about 50 minutes after the body was found.
After examination of the crime scene, the police found that the woman died of a single gunshot to the head. There was significant blood spatter around the room, also on the bed. However, there was no blood found on the gun head and her hand. The gun, a Browning 9mm, was still resting in her hand. It was found in an awkward position, with the thumb on the trigger.
It had been fired two times, once in a pillow that was overturned, as a test shot. And, the other time, in the young woman's head. While forensics searched the room for clues, and acquired witness statements, it was becoming painfully clear that this may have been a sad case of suicide. The room was locked from the inside, both key cards were inside the room, and the victim was alone. There was an open window, but the room was 28 floors above ground, so it was highly unlikely that someone would climb down or up to the room.
All parties, including police, hotel and medical staff agreed that it was 99.9% sure that this woman committed suicide. But (and this is a huge BUT!) there were many oddities that cast huge shadow of doubt on this verdict. For example, there was no gun residue or blood found on her hand, although the whole room and bed was covered in blood. The serial number of the gun was removed with acid, deep enough to have been done by an expert. She had a bag with 25 rounds of ammunition, and nothing else. The tags of her clothes have all been removed. There was no toiletries or makeup found in her room, even though there was mascara on her eyes at time of death. Akin to the cases of the Isdal Woman and Somerton Man, nobody could identify who this woman was.
There was no identification found in her room that could give the police a clue where she came from. There was no passport, no driver's license, no identification card. Nothing! She mentioned on her registration card that she lived in Verlaine, Belgium. However, there she gave a number of the street that doesn't exist, and the phone number that she provided was close to the numbers from that area, but was still incorrect. She claimed to have worked for a company called ''Cerbis'', but this does not exist. The only link to Belgium was that she made two phone calls to areas close to Verlaine, but they were wrong numbers and this could suggest that maybe she wrote the wrong number down.
Going to the weapon, a Browning 9mm pistol is very powerful and loud. There was too much ammunition, with 32 bullets in total in her possession, for a suicide. Was she planning to commit a crime or did that ammunition and gun belong to someone else? The test shot in the pillow could indicate that she wasn't familiar with the pistol and tested it out first, before she turned it to herself. Of course, on the other side, it could be that someone shot her with the first shot, and made the pillow shot to scare the security guard away. Also, we have to note that guns are not a popular choice for women to commit suicide. Women mostly use poisons or overdose as choice method.
There was no fingerprints found on the gun. One possibility is that the gun was wiped clean, if she met with foul play. However, it is also very difficult to lift fingerprints from a gun because of the way it is built. There are a lot of sharp edges and rough surfaces, so there is better grip. The best places to get prints from are the gun magazine and any unspent shell casings. The trigger is not a good place at all because it is rough, small and sharp edged.
The labels that were removed from her clothing were expertly cut away. They were removed from all her clothing and even her shoes. There was only one label left, on her jacket, with the brand Rene Lezard. This could not be removed without ruining the lining. Her luggage also had the brand on it left. Both were made in Germany.
The autopsy did not reveal much information. It showed that her age was between 25 to 35 years old, not 21 years as she wrote on the registration form. She had short, black hair and blue eyes. Her height was 160cms and her weight was around 66kgs. She had extensive dental work done on her teeth, from porcelain and gold, which was quite expensive and was done in the style you would find in US, Denmark, Germany or Switzerland. No dental matches were able to be made, as well as no fingerprints were able to be matched to anyone. There was no alcohol found in her system, but there was no tests done for drugs. There was also no sexual assault tests done from her nether regions or under her fingernails, to see if she had been sexually assaulted.
Even though everyone was sure that this was a suicide case, the Assistant Chief of Police assigned five homicide detective to the case. He wanted to know who this woman was. Even after three weeks, they were very hesitant to declare it as suicide.
Talking to the staff at the hotel, they discovered that the woman made a mistake with her surname, signing it as ''Fergate'' upon checking in. She was staying in her room for most of the time, but was out of the room for an extended period from 12.34am on June 1 to 08.50am on June 2, 1995. What she was doing in this time is not known.
One of the hotel maids remembers admiring a pair of shoes while doing the day cleaning. Later on, that pair of shoes was missing from the items that were found in the room. To be honest, police thought a lot of items may be missing since the victim had a weird collection of clothes. For example, there was four jackets but one blouse and one sweater. She had no trousers or skirts. There was some pajama pants, four bras, pantyhose, but no underwear. The clothes also would not fit in the Travelite bag found in the room. When she arrived one witness said she was wearing suit jacket with a skirt, and dragging a wheeled suitcase, and it gave the impression that she was an air hostess. None of these clothes were found in the room.
Her body was held at the police morgue for one year, in hopes that family could be sought and the body released to them. However, no one came to claim the body, and on June 26, 1996, four policemen volunteered to be pallbearers. After two months, it was ordered that all evidence including her jewelry, luggage, clothes and gun be sold or destroyed. The gun was the only one that survived, being found in 2017 to have been kept by the forensics department.
The gun was found not to be an authentic, Brownings 9mm. The barrel was genuine but the rest of the gun was made up of different parts that the experts believe originated in the 1960s or 1970s and it was most likely a military weapon.
Another line of the police query found that on her death, Jennifer Fairgate ordered room service to be taken to her room. The attendant made a mistake and delivered the meal to room 2804 instead of 2805. After the mistake was cleared up, the food was delivered to the correct place. Jennifer paid for the meal in cash and gave an unusually large tip of 50 krona. This was interesting because in Room 2804, there was living a ''Mr F.'', who was also from Belgium.
''Mr F'' as he was named was interesting because he was very hesitant to speak to reporters about his stay at the Plaza Hotel. He was also asked if he knew about the death of the victim, and he said that he was asked at reception if he heard anything about this suicide. But, it was found later on that he checked out of the hotel many hours earlier than the so called suicide, so the question remains how did he know? After he was asked this question, he stopped cooperating with reporters immediately and retreated into anonymity once again.
The meal, bratwurst and potato salad, was found to have been barely touched, despite it being the last meal of the victim. The above mistake was interesting because it meant that police knew there was a guest living in the opposite room. There was a newspaper also found in the deceased's room, which was part of the free newspapers that were given by the hotel. However, this newspaper belonged to Room 2816, not for 2805 or 2804, for example if the newspaper was mixed up. There was a fingerprint found on the plastic bag of the newspaper and sent to Interpol. This fingerprint could not be traced to anyone.
In November 2016, the body of Jennifer Fairgate was exhumed and bone and dental samples were taken for analysis. They found that her origins are likely from Germany, and as well her extensive dental work could be traced to the same country. As we remember, her clothes and bag were also a German brand. They were also able to confirm that she was born in 1971 and was 24 years old at the time of her death. From this new evidence, we can surmise that the victim was likely German, and not Belgian as previously stated on her registration form. She may have some knowledge of Verlaine and that region, but there is no evidence that she ever lived there.
THEORIES
This is a puzzling and sad case. To die in a hotel room by yourself, and nobody knows who you are and how to contact your family.
There are many theories floating about as to why Jennifer Fairgate died and who she really was. I will highlight some below and offer my perspective on each.
- THEORY 1: She was a spy - Sure, this is plausible because of the fact that her clothes had the labels missing, the gun and the too many bullets. It could be that she was working as a secret service agent for some country, and was based in Belgium from Germany. Or, based in Germany and using Belgium as a cover from where she was truly from. It could be that her handler, or company, thought that she was compromised and decided to terminate her. As they would be professionals, the clean up would be spotless.
- THEORY 2: She was a traffic victim - The fact that there was no bottoms found in her clothing while police were looking through her belongings is strange. She could have been a sex trafficked victim, or some other form of imprisonment against her will. Certainly, the fact that she was maybe seen with a man when they were checking in could be that was her overseer or kidnapper. The police didn't do any rape or assault tests, so there is no way to know if she had any sexual relations in the time before her death.
- THEORY 3: She committed suicide - The official cause of death. I don't find this believable because the only evidence that points to this, the door double-locked and the cards inside the room, is not enough to be believable. Extra cards can be obtained from reception upon request, and double locking the door from outside or opening it has been show that it is easily done.
- THEORY 4: She was an assassin - This goes in the same vein as the spy theory. Her clothes, gun and ammunition point to the fact that she was trying to hide her identity and maybe she was on a job.
CONCLUSION
Whatever the real reason is, I agree with others who looked into this case that the hotel has some fault. How she managed to get registered with no identification, payment or questions is beyond me. The Plaza was a well-known, expensive hotel. Things should have been followed to the letter! And, I found it strange that the guard did not call back-up or police straight away but abandoned the scene for around 15 minutes to get his boss. The hotel was either in on it, or they were incompetent.
Hopefully we will find some new answers in the near future and we can update you with more details.
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