Olofsson was born into a home where both parents were alcoholics. When he was eight years old, his mother became a single mother, taking care of Olofsson and his two younger sisters. Her problems led to the three children being placed in foster care. When his mother regained control of her life, and started working in a shop, the children were returned to her care and they moved to an apartment in Hisingen, Gothenburg.
1960s–80s
For several petty crimes, sixteen-year-old Olofsson was placed in a behavioural institution for young offenders in 1963. Olofsson and two other boys escaped from the institution in August 1965 and entered the country estate of Swedish Prime MinisterTage Erlander at Harpsund, where they stole grapes, cucumbers and tomatoes from the greenhouse. They fled when the gardener discovered them. Three months later Olofsson assaulted two police officers in Eskilstuna. On 4February 1966, he was sentenced to three years in prison; this was his third sentence and his first real prison sentence. In late 1966, he made his first escape from the prison at Tidaholm. On 29July 1966, police officers Ragnar Sandahl and Lennart Mathiasson responded to a burglary at a bicycle shop at Skjutsaregatan in Nyköping. Sandahl was shot and killed by Gunnar Norgren. The other burglar was Olofsson, who became a nationally known criminal. Norgren was arrested on 16August that year in an apartment at Utåkersgatan 4 in Gothenburg and later confessed to the murder. The apartment belonged to a boyfriend of Olofsson's sister. Olofsson had escaped from the apartment before police entered and managed to elude them for two weeks until he was captured on 25August. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in the break-in, and Norgren was sentenced to twelve years. On 4February 1969, Olofsson escaped from prison and fled to the Canary Islands. He was later arrested in an apartment in Frankfurt. On 5August, two months before he was to be released, he escaped again from an open institution in Bohuslän. In the early 1970s, Olofsson was imprisoned at the Kumla Prison. On 2February 1973, he was arrested in the dining room of the Kurhotel in Ulricehamn. Police had received a tip from a cleaning-lady who had seen a gun in his hotel room. At the time of his arrest he had been on the run for seven months and had robbed a bank in Gothenburg. In May 1973, he was sentenced to six years in prison and transported to the Kalmar Prison.
In late 1973, Olofsson was incarcerated at the Norrköping Prison when bankrobber Jan-Erik Olsson took hostages at Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg, Stockholm. Olsson demanded that Olofsson be allowed to come to the bank. Olofsson was brought to the bank, where he spent the next six days with the hostages. This event subsequently led to the creation of the phrase "Stockholm syndrome." He escaped from the Norrköping prison on 20March 1975. In April that year he went into a bank in Copenhagen with a gun in each hand, fired a warning shot, and robbed the bank of SEK194,000. The podcast Criminal spoke with Olofsson about the Norrmalmstorg robbery in their episode "Hostage."
