Knud Brix recounts stalker’s overnight visit to his home

Knud Brix says a woman who had stalked him for months entered his home at night and was found holding his dog. DR reports that the incident is the basis for the Ekstra Bladet editor-in-chief’s upcoming novel, Paranoia.

Brix and his partner, Mathilde, were woken by their dog barking shortly before dawn. Their two-day-old baby was in bed with Mathilde, who asked Brix to go downstairs and see what was happening.

Wearing only his underwear, Brix cautiously walked down the stairs. He says he then saw the woman, whom DR calls Edith, sitting beside the barking dog and holding it.

“Then she looks up. It is a look I will never forget,” Brix says in the latest episode of DR’s news podcast, Genstart.

Edith is not the woman’s real name, but DR knows her identity. She had sent Brix countless text messages and emails, alternately declaring her love for him, criticising him and apologising.

Brix is currently editor-in-chief of Ekstra Bladet. Next year, he will move to Kenya to work as DR’s Africa correspondent. His novel Paranoia is due to be published on Tuesday and is inspired by his experience with Edith.

The contact began when Brix was hosting Genstart, which launched in March 2020. He had recently divorced and contracted coronavirus when he received a message from an unknown number.

The woman praised his work on the podcast, and Brix says he was flattered. He replied that he could easily remember her. A few days later, they agreed to meet at his home in Amager, Copenhagen.

When Edith arrived, coffee was replaced by wine. Brix says they had good chemistry and that the meeting had a flirtatious atmosphere. They discussed the media industry, and Edith praised his radio programmes and diction.

“I can’t deny that I basked in that,” Brix says.

They arranged to meet again the following day, but Brix changed his mind. Edith initially accepted his decision, but then began asking questions and said she was very interested in him.

Brix rejected her several times, but she continued contacting him. The messages became increasingly angry, and he began to fear what she might do. After he blocked her number, she contacted him by email and used new telephone numbers to send further messages.

Brix eventually went to the police. He was told that the situation was not serious enough for a restraining order. An officer later called Edith and spoke to her firmly, which stopped the contact for a while.

The messages resumed later. During a barbecue at Brix’s home with Mathilde and friends, he learned that a new teacher named Edith was due to start at his son’s school.

“I remember the feeling that the floor opened beneath me. I had to go upstairs, sat with my head in my hands and began sobbing,” Brix says.

He informed the school’s management, and Edith was not hired. The stalking nevertheless escalated, with messages again filling his inbox. Police told Brix not to respond because doing so could reduce the chances of obtaining a restraining order.

According to the Danish Stalking Center, up to 100,000 people in Denmark are subjected to stalking each year, and 35 percent of victims are men. The centre defines stalking as a systematic series of unwanted and persistent contacts or behaviours that are experienced as boundary-crossing and intimidating.

Since 2022, stalking has had its own provision in Denmark’s criminal code, meaning it can be punishable even when the stalker has not previously been issued a restraining order.

DR put Brix’s account to Edith. She wrote, among other things, that she had never had malicious intentions.