The doctor showed up for his second date with Isabel Eriksson with strawberries and champagne.
Dr. Martin Trenneborg told Eriksson they were going to dinner with other doctors and their wives.
But the seemingly normal date turned terrifying when the doctor, then 37, drugged Eriksson with strawberries laced with Rohypnol, the date rape drug. Then, he used a wheelchair to cart her from her apartment to his car before driving her to a sprawling complex in a remote part of Sweden.
When Eriksson, then 30, woke up, she realized she was being held captive in a cramped, concrete, windowless room — one Trenneborg told her he’d spent years building as part of his depraved plan.
He told her he planned to keep her and other women captive for years in the cold, sparsely-furnished space, with no way to escape.
This is the basis of The Bunker, a shocking true crime docuseries that debuts on Thursday, Jan. 16, on the streaming service Viaplay, available as an add-on subscription to Amazon Prime.
The three-part documentary details Eriksson’s harrowing ordeal, including how she met Trenneborg while working as an escort, how she used her wits to survive her surreal captivity and how she miraculously managed to escape.
Part of what she went through is shown in this exclusive trailer below.
The horrors she endured still haunt her today. But the documentary details how she faced the severe trauma she suffered head-on by seeing a therapist who specializes in PTSD.
In The Bunker, Eriksson is seen undergoing prolonged exposure therapy when she returns to a bunker reconstructed to resemble the one where she was held captive.
Talking to PEOPLE about why she wanted to do a documentary on the chilling abduction and film parts of her sessions with her therapist, Eriksson says she wants “to show others that recovery is possible, even after the most horrific experiences, to raise awareness about trauma and its long-term effects and the importance of seeking help.”
She adds, “Everyone has so much strength in themselves. Maybe more than they realize.”
Even though the bunker was recreated for therapy, she admits she felt as though she were back in the actual underground chamber, wondering if she would ever leave there alive. “It was extremely painful,” she says. “But I knew it was part of the healing process.
Even so, when she is shown life-like masks that Trenneborg wore during her six-day abduction, she was still shaken to the core. “It was terrible seeing that,” she says.
The intense therapy helped Erikkson immeasurably in her recovery. “It’s getting better and better,” she says. “What the future holds looks brighter.”
Convicted in 2016 of kidnapping Erikkson and sentenced to 10 years in prison, Trenneborg, 47, was released in 2023. While Erikkson admits she was “terrified” at first, she says she quickly turned that thinking around. “I thought, ‘He has taken so much from me already. I am not going to let him take away my sense of safety, peace and happiness.’”
The Bunker, which debuted last year in Sweden, is available in the U.S. starting on Jan. 16, streaming exclusively on Viaplay, which offers premium Nordic and European thrillers, crime dramas and documentaries.
Erikkson also wrote about the nightmare in her 2018 book, You are Mine: Drugged and Held in a Secret Bunker. This is My True Story of Escape.
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