Murder of Gunnar Tryggvason

Gunnar Sigurður Tryggvason (17 June 1925 – 18 January 1968) was an Icelandic cab driver who was murdered in the early mornings of 18 January 1968, in Reykjavík, Iceland. The murder has never been solved.

Murder
Gunnar's body was discovered by passersby in the early mornings of 18 January 1968, in the drivers seat of his Mercedes-Benz taxi, with a bullet wound on the back of his head. The engine was still running and the Taximeter was on. It was determined that he had been murdered between 5:15 and 6:00 in the morning.

Suspects
The murder weapon was a Smith & Wesson Model 1913, which had been stolen in 1965 from Jóhannes Jósefsson, better known as Jóhannes á Borg. In 1969, it was found in a car owned by another taxi driver who admitted having stolen it but denied having killed Gunnar. He was charged for the murder but found not guilty due to lack of evidence.

Several decades later, a witness came forward and claimed that when he was a child a friend of his mother, Þráinn Hleinar Kristjánsson, showed up at their house in 1969, while his mother was away, and showed him a gun, claiming he had used it to shoot Gunnar. In 1979, Þráinn was convicted of an unrelated murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

In popular culture
The murder case was featured in the 2007 book Morðið á Laugarlæk by Þorsteinn Bergmann Einarsson. In 2020, it was featured in the radio show Sönn íslensk sakamál. In 2024, the murder was featured in the TV show Íslensk sakamál on Síminn TV.