"The couple had planned to live together in her home but Swedish police insisted it could not be made secure."

"They wanted her to live in his tiny flat, in effect a 'closet' where he kept all the paintings no one would exhibit, [said a friend of the artist, a retired judge who] had been trying to broker an agreement between the couple and police. Now it is too late. [The artist's girlfriend] suspects excessive speed — it was normal for the police car to travel at 100mph on the motorway — may have killed her partner: she had often been 'quite scared' in the days when she was allowed in the car. 'I would grab Lars’s arm,' she said. But she never complained. 'I’m sad our last year was spent like birds in a cage, I alone here, he at his place,' she added, tears in her eyes. 'I miss him terribly.'"

From "Lars Vilks lived under police protection. Now the controversial cartoonist is dead/The man who drew the Prophet had been cut adrift by Swedish liberals before the car crash that ended his life" (London Times). 

And there's this, from another friend of the artist: "It was as if he had some disease... If you touched him, you got it as well — became a persona non grata or a pariah."