Lake Bodom murders

Lake Bodom murders

Lake Bodom in 2004
Location Espoo, Finland
Date Sunday, June 5, 1960
Attack type
 Murder
Weapons Knife, blunt instrument
Deaths 3
Non-fatal injuries
 1
Perpetrators Unknown

Coordinates: 60°14′30″N 24°40′30″E / 60.24167°N 24.67500°E / 60.24167; 24.67500 The Lake Bodom murders took place in Finland in 1960 on the shores of a lake by the city of Espoo. Two 15 year old girls and an 18 year old boy were stabbed and battered to death during the early hours. The victims had been sharing their tent with an 18 year boy, who was found in the morning at the scene, apparently unconscious. He had a jaw fracture and a knife wound to the forehead.[1] Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson made a full recovery, but provided only a fragmentary dream like account. Despite bloodstained shoe-prints at and leading away from the scene of the crime matching the soles of Gustafsson's footwear (found hundreds of meters away) he was seemingly not considered a prime person of interest for the original investigation.

More than forty years later, Gustafsson was officially questioned as a suspect following a re-examination of the evidence gathered in 1960. Police said the new forensic analysis of bloodstains pointed to Gustafsson being the killer. In October 2005, a district court found Gustafsson not guilty on charges of committing the murders. The prosecution decided not to appeal the verdict.

The murders

On Saturday, June 4, 1960, four Finnish teenagers had decided to camp along the shore of an elegant lake near the city of Espoo's Oitaa Manor. The lake was known as Lake Bodom (Finnish: Bodominjärvi, Swedish: Bodom träsk). Maila Irmeli Björklund and Anja Tuulikki Mäki were fifteen-years-old at the time; accompanying them were their eighteen-year-old boyfriends, Seppo Antero Boisman and Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson.[2][3][4]

Sometime between 4:00 AM and 6:00 AM (EET) during the early morning hours of Sunday, June 5, 1960, Mäki, Björklund and Boisman were all stabbed and bludgeoned to death by an unknown person or persons. Gustafsson, the only survivor of the massacre, sustained a concussion, fractures to the jaw and facial bones and bruises to the face, but lived. He stated that he had seen a vision of black and bright red eyes coming for them.[2][4]

At about 6:00 AM, a number of boys birdwatching some distance away had reportedly seen the tent collapsed and a blonde man walking away from the murder scene.[3][4] The bodies of the victims were discovered at about 11:00 AM by a carpenter named Risto Sirén. Upon his discovery of the bodies, he subsequently alerted the police, who arrived on the scene at noon.[3]

Initial investigation

The tent is being investigated right after the murders.

It was later found that the killer had never entered the tent, but instead had opted to attack the occupants with a knife and an unidentified blunt instrument through the sides of the tent. The murder weapons have never been located.[4] The killer had stolen several of the victims' personal items, including their wallets and some of their clothes. Some of these clothes, and Gustafsson's shoes, were later discovered partially-hidden approximately 500 meters from the murder site. Other items of the victims, for instance Seppo Boisman's leather jacket, were never located. The tracks of blood and footprints had shown that the killer was wearing Gustafsson's shoes.[4]

Björklund, Gustafsson's girlfriend, was found undressed from the waist down and was lying on top of the tent, and had suffered the most injuries out of all of the victims. She was stabbed multiple times after her death, whilst the other two teenagers were slain with less brutality. Nils was also found lying on the top of the tent.[4]

Suspects

There have been numerous suspects during the investigation of Lake Bodom murders, but these suspects are the most notable.

Pauli Luoma

Luoma was a runaway from a nearby work department. Police caught him soon after the murders and questioned him. They found out that he had a valid alibi. He was reportedly in Otaniemi at the time of the murders.

Pentti Soininen

Pentti Soininen, a maintenance man, was convicted of several violent crimes in the late 1960s. At the age of 24, while in jail in the county of Kuopio, he confessed that he had committed the Lake Bodom murders. On the fateful night, Soininen, aged 15, resided near the murder site. The police interrogated him, but his confession was not given much weight. Soininen was a psychopath who could be incredibly cryptic, especially while under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Soininen's long criminal record included theft, assaults, and robberies. In 1969, Soininen hanged himself at Toijala, in a prisoner transport station.

Valdemar Gyllström

One of the prime suspects of the murders was Karl Valdemar Gyllström, a kiosk keeper from Oittaa. He was known to have hated campers and behaved aggressively. He drowned in Lake Bodom in 1969, and while drunk he confessed the murders to his neighbor before his death. Gyllström filled the well in his courtyard a few days after the murders and therefore Gyllström's house and the courtyard were studied in depth. Nothing incriminating, however, was found. On the other hand, it is possible that all of the articles were hidden or destroyed. For example, Gyllström's relatives have said that the murder weapon is in the filled-in well. According to the police, Gyllström had an alibi for the night of the murders, which was given by his wife. Gyllström's wife said that she was awake the whole night and that her husband had not been away from home. However, the wife had said before her death that her husband had threatened to kill her if she told the truth.

Hans Assmann

Most suspicion has focused on the alleged KGB spy, Hans Assmann. On 6 June 1960, Assmann came to the Helsinki Surgical Hospital and exhibited particularly odd behavior. He appeared dishevelled, with black fingernails and his clothes covered in red stains. Assmann may have lied to hospital staff about the cause of his appearance. He also pretended to be unconscious and was aggressive and nervous. His clothing matched the description of the Lake Bodom murderer. Assmann cut off his longish blond hair after details regarding the appearance of the murderer were reported in the news. He lived within five kilometres of Bodom, which was only a short distance from the shore of Lake Bodom.

Assmann's behaviour could have suggested guilt at the time, especially as was noted by Surgical Hospital Curator Jorma Palo, as well as other hospital staff. The police had only a brief meeting with Assman, but found little since they did not want to cross-examine doctors and did not take Assmann`s stained clothing for examination; in spite of the fact that the doctors in attendance were certain that the stains were composed of blood. Later, Palo wrote three books about Assmann and the murders. Former Detective Chief Inspector Matti Paloaro also suspected that Assmann was responsible for five other murders. He has been linked to unsolved Finnish homicides such as Kyllikki Saari's murder in Isojoki and the Tulilahti double murder in Heinävesi.

Arrest of Nils Gustafsson

In late March 2004, almost 44 years after the event, Gustafsson was arrested by the police on suspicion of having murdered his three friends. In early 2005, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation declared the case was solved based on new analysis on the blood stains. According to the official statement, Gustafsson erupted in jealous anger over his feelings for Björklund, his new girlfriend. She was stabbed multiple times after the fatal blow, while the two other teenagers were killed less savagely. Gustafsson's own injuries, while notable, were less severe.

The trial started on August 4, 2005. The prosecution called for life imprisonment, arguing that the re-examination of the old evidence using modern techniques such as DNA profiling raised suspicion towards Gustafsson. The defense argued that the murders were the work of one or more outsiders and that Gustafsson would have been incapable of killing three people given the extent of his injuries. On October 7, 2005, Gustafsson was acquitted of all charges.[5] On his acquittal, the State of Finland paid him €44,900 for mental suffering caused by the long remand time.

See also

Further reading

Jorma Palo and Matti Paloaro wrote three books about the murders.

Notes

  1. ↑ Palo, Jorma. Bodomin arvoitus. Helsinki: WSOY, 2003. - p.8. - ISBN 978-951-0-27893-2.
  2. 1 2 "Lake Bodom Murders – We visited where everything happened |...". 2015-02-13. Retrieved 2016-09-05.
  3. 1 2 3 Vidani, Peter. "The Lake Bodom Murders". lakebodommurders.tumblr.com. Retrieved 2016-09-05.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The Lake Bodom murders". Retrieved 2016-09-05.
  5. ↑ Court finds Gustafsson not guilty of 1960 Bodom Lake triple murder Archived June 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.

References

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