Spoiler warning: this article reveals the full ending of Blood Sacrifice Season 1, including the killer’s identity.
The person behind the murders in Blood Sacrifice is Peter Johansson, a former police officer who turns a personal betrayal into a ritual killing spree aimed at the force that abandoned him. Below is the full breakdown of who he is, why he does it, what the painting Midvinterblot has to do with any of it, and how the Swedish thriller closes its five-episode case.
Blood Sacrifice — original Swedish title Blodsoffer — is a Netflix limited series from George Kay, the writer behind Lupin and Hijack, directed by Kristoffer Nyholm (The Killing, Taboo). It landed on Netflix worldwide, including in the US, on August 20, 2026, and runs five episodes set during a Stockholm summer when the sun barely sets. Detective Thomas Berg (Jakob Oftebro) and his estranged father Alfred Berg (Peter Andersson) chase a murderer who hunts police officers. Here is how it all resolves.
Who is the “112 killer” in Blood Sacrifice?
The killer is Peter Johansson, a disgraced ex-cop. Throughout the season the press and the investigation nickname him the “112 killer,” after 112 — the pan-European emergency number, the equivalent of calling 911 in the US — because his crimes circle around emergency calls and the officers who answer them.
The series deliberately misleads viewers first. For much of the run the investigation fixates on the wrong men, and an innocent patrol officer is wrongly gunned down during an arrest before the team realizes it has the wrong suspect. That wrongful death hangs over the finale and sharpens the show’s real subject: not a lone maniac, but a police culture willing to sacrifice its own to protect itself.
Why Peter Johansson targets police officers
Peter’s motive is revenge for a partner the department left to die. Two years before the events of the series, his partner, Hugo Brankovic, was killed responding to a domestic disturbance. Peter had radioed for backup — repeatedly — and no one came. Worse, the department then altered the records to make it look as though he had never called at all, leaving Peter to take the blame for abandoning Hugo.
Ostracized by colleagues who believed he had failed his partner, Peter’s life came apart. The finale reveals that the officer who actually ignored the backup requests and then erased the evidence of those calls was Lucas Lind. In other words, the institution manufactured a scapegoat rather than confront its own failure — and Peter set out to force that failure into the open the only way he felt it could no longer be buried: by making the police bleed.
What the painting Midvinterblot means
The original title, Blodsoffer, translates roughly to “blood sacrifice,” and the killer’s logic is built on a real Swedish artwork. Peter fixates on Midvinterblot — “Midwinter Sacrifice” — a monumental painting by the Swedish artist Carl Larsson that depicts the ritual sacrifice of a king to end years of failed harvests and restore the community.
Peter weaponizes that image. In his reading, a corrupt institution can only be cleansed by a sacrifice, and he casts himself as the one forcing the police to give up a life to atone for the one it threw away. Each killing is staged as part of that ritual logic rather than as random violence, which is what makes the case so hard for Thomas to read until the pattern’s meaning becomes clear.
How Blood Sacrifice ends
In the finale, Peter kidnaps Alfred Berg to lure Thomas into a final confrontation, stabbing and shooting him in the process. It is a brutal climax — but not a fatal one. Thomas, Alfred, and Peter all survive their injuries, and Peter is arrested rather than killed, leaving him alive to answer for what he did and for what the department did to him.
The closing note is deliberately unresolved on a human level. Thomas and Alfred, a father and son the case forced back into each other’s lives, begin to reconcile, though the series is honest that the damage between them does not vanish. The institution’s rot has been exposed, a wrongful death cannot be undone, and the reconciliation is a start, not a clean bow.
Where to watch Blood Sacrifice in the US
All five episodes of Blood Sacrifice are streaming on Netflix in the United States. It is a self-contained limited series, so you can watch the entire story without waiting on a weekly schedule.
Frequently asked questions
Is Blood Sacrifice based on a true story? No. It is an original crime thriller written by George Kay. Its Swedish setting and Nordic-noir tone are grounded in real Stockholm geography, but the case and characters are fiction.
Who is the killer in Blood Sacrifice? Peter Johansson, a former police officer avenging his partner Hugo Brankovic, whose death the department covered up by faking the record of Peter’s backup calls.
Does anyone die in the finale? The final confrontation is violent, but Thomas, Alfred, and Peter all survive. Peter is taken into custody.
Will there be a Season 2 of Blood Sacrifice? It was built as a closed, five-episode limited series with a complete ending. Netflix has not announced a second season, and any continuation would likely follow a new case rather than pick up this one.
Do I need to speak Swedish to watch it? No. Netflix offers an English-dubbed audio track alongside the original Swedish with English subtitles, so you can watch it either way.
