[1] On 12 August, Anne's husband Per, a high-level official with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that there had been an attempt to ignite a propane gas tank in the stairwell of the Paust family's apartment block in the Skillebekk district of Oslo.
[2] Both assassination attempts received wide publicity and caused a media sensation, but no one was ultimately charged or arrested in connection with either of the two incidents.
[7] Hiding in the adjacent woods until nightfall, the assailant entered the house sometime between midnight and 5am by climbing on to the second floor porch and breaking the window on the veranda door.
[10] The killings happened just weeks after Anne Orderud Paust had voluntarily declined to be assigned close protection officers from the Police Security Service.
Because only a handful of people knew that Anne would be visiting at that precise time, the investigators concluded that the killer had the house under careful surveillance and acted upon seeing her car parked outside.
[7] On 22 June 2001, both Per and Veronica Orderud, along with Kristin Kirkemo, were found guilty on all charges and received sentences of 21 years in prison.
The murder of Anne Orderud Paust and her parents received media attention like that of no other criminal case in the country's history, with almost daily coverage in the month after the killings, and very intimate accounts of the accused individuals using their full names.
[16] Per Paust's death fourteen days before the Orderud murders, reportedly from cancer after short-term sickness, has been suspected by people close to him to in reality have been caused by poisoning.
[17] Per Paust had worked in Serbia during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, describing it in private as his most difficult task ever, balancing between the two sides in the conflict and attempting to stop illegal weapons smuggling.
[17] Kristin Kirkemo, who was convicted for co-conspiracy to the murders, had in turn established close ties to the Yugoslavian mafia in Oslo.
[17] In early 1999, Norwegian police took part in a European-wide crackdown on the Kosovo Albanian mafia, including Princ Dobroshi, which has been proposed as background for the murders, although no direct link has been uncovered.
[18] A cousin to Per Orderud claims to have been in contact with criminal sources in Oslo that alleged that two Yugoslavians from Sweden committed the murders in an ordered hit.
[17] Private investigator Tore Sandberg in 2009 produced the name of a suspected killer from Balkan who allegedly committed the murders along with two others.