55| Lake Bodom Murders
Two motorcycles flew down the highway on a crisp but comfortable Saturday night. On them were two teenage boys and their girlfriends, and as they wound down the roads toward their destination, the girls' smiles were wide and their hair flew freely behind them.
The boys driving the bikes felt on top of the world and in complete control of the weekend. The bikes beneath them fed into their energy and excitement as they approached a lake, and then rolled to a stop.
What started as a simple night of camping and fishing and being with good friends, would turn tragic as the summer sun began to rise. For in the morning, this simple night would lead to the most infamous unsolved murders in Finnish history.
Welcome back to tragedy with a view.
I am your host kayla and here we are with another free solo episode, and we are talking about the Lake Bodom Murders.
Lake Bodom in Espoo, Finland is located near the very southern tip of the country.
Lake Bodom is surrounded by perfectly groomed pine trees and many love the lake for fishing and swimming in the summer months. The area is known for its calm waters and peaceful ambiance.
Located in southern Finland, the lake is about 1 km wide, and 3 km long or .62 miles wide and 1.8 miles long. And while the area is surrounded by foliage and nature, the lake is not very far from civilization.
So close, in fact, that locals make a split second decision to stay and camp at the lake, or go home. And it was an area that was pretty well frequented by campers, fishers, swimmers, boaters, hikers - you get the picture.
While I saw notes of this place being unsafe, that just does not ring true to me based on the fact that it was such a popular area for people to easily go explore the outdoors and enjoy nature.
On Saturday, June 4th, 1960, 2 teenage couples decided they were going to camp in this very location.
Maila Irmeli Bjorklund (My-la) and Anja Tuulikki Maki (An-ya) were very best friends and were both 15, and they were dating 18 year olds Seppo Boisman and Nils Gustafsson. To be clear, Maila was dating Nils, and Anja was dating Seppo. Seppo and Niles were also friends and so this group decided to go camping as their summers were kicking off.
They arrived at the lake as the sun was getting low so they set up their camp and spent some time fishing and just having a grand teenage camping trip. The couples were happy and thrilled to be out there together, unsupervised. They had set up their tent about half way between the road and the water, so super close but also not very far from either.
The girls were giddy and the boys were smiling and laughing along with them. As the day transitioned into night, they watched as people left the area and Maila and Anja went into the tent to settle down for the night. Seppo and Nils, however, stayed up drinking and fishing and finally around 2am went into the tent as they settled in for the night.
None of them went to sleep with even the slightest idea that their lives were about to end.
The following morning, on June 5 a Sunday around 6 am, the sun slowly rose and people began to come to the lake. Two boys, Heikki Salonen and Kalevi Haalalinen, who were bird watching, noticed a collapsed tent near the lake, and a man walking away from the tent. From what they could see, it is unclear to me if they were using binoculars to look or if they just remembered these details, but the man had blond hair.
I can’t imagine that they had been looking through binoculars at the tent, because the scene about to unfold was a gruesome one.
Besides them, Martin and Ruth Koli were out on the water rowing with their daughter when they saw the tent around 7 am. From what they could see they thought that the campers had been in a fight and decided they didn’t want to go investigate because they had their young daughter with them.
It was not until about 11 am that the reason for that became clear. When Esko Oiva, a carpenter who was going to the lake to go for a swim. As he walked toward the tent he noticed stuff was everywhere, and then he noticed the pile the tent was in, with two bodies seemingly scrambled together on top. And then one of the bodies took a sharp breath in.
Esko had accidentally stumbled across the scene of all 4 teenagers violently beaten.
When investigators arrived around noon, they found the scene was more gruesome than they expected. It was clear that they had initially been attacked from the outside of the tent, and then Maila and Nils were pulled from the tent and laid on top.
Inside the tent, Seppo was found with his legs under Anja’s body. He had bruises on his knuckles, his left temple was busted in, his jaw was broken and he had a deep puncture from a knife in his neck.
Anja was found with her head under a blanket, and in addition to the blunt force trauma wounds to her head and neck, she also had stab wounds on her back.
They were able to determine that the attacks occurred sometime around 4 to 6 am.
The tent was in shreds from the slash marks of a knife further proving that a person attacked these 4 from outside of the tent.
From the injuries, they could see that they had been attacked with what looked to be a rock, due to the blunt force trauma injuries, as well as stab wounds from a knife. Reportedly, the wounds were mostly to their head’s and the neck’s which would lead me to believe that this person knew which way they were laying.
All of them had defensive wounds.
Maila, Seppo and Anja had all died from their injuries, but Nils was alive.
Maila, unfortunately was the most brutally attacked, and then after she was pulled from the tent and placed on top of it, her bottoms were removed indicating that she may have been sexually assaulted. She was also stabbed several more times after she died. And this could tell us that the attack was either targeted at her or she fought back enough that the attacker took out their rage on her.
Nils was found to have fractured bones in his face, the worst being his jaw, and he had a concussion which explains why he couldn’t remember anything about the night. He hadn’t even been aware that his friend and girlfriend had been killed. But he would later provide a clue to the killer - they were dressed in black and bright red - and I actually saw a couple of sources that said that he specifically saw bright red eyes.
As investigators tried to take in every detail they could, they found some interesting things were taken from the tent. For example: the keys to the motorcycles were gone, but the motorcycles were still parked nearby. This might indicate that the attacker knew that he had left one, or maybe at the time of their leaving the area, more than one of these teenagers was still alive. There might have been the consideration that if they took the keys, the teens who were still alive would not be able to either go after them, or go for help. After all, the best way to get away with a crime, especially in 1960, is to leave no survivors behind.
Other items that were stolen included Nile’s shoes, other clothing and money from their wallets.
So the police would make some vital mistakes in this investigation. For example, they did not block off the area, and as news spread, people began to come to the scene along with police and this contaminated pretty much everything. In addition to this, the police did not photograph, write down, draw a photo of the crime scene or do anything to preserve it.
Maila, while it seems pretty likely that she had been raped at some point in this attack, did not have any evidence recovered from her body. To be more clear, police never took any biological samples from her body, meaning that any seamen that might have been left on or in her, was not collected and therefore there was no DNA recovered.
Further, they called in reinforcements to help comb the area to look for clues and the missing items that might lead to some sort of explanation to who did this. But they didn’t set up any sort of search or grid system to search for these items - most of which were never located.
But Nils’ shoes were found about 500 meters away, partially buried near a bush. Which might indicate that whoever committed this crime was in a rush. After all, these murders occurred in the early morning hours and the lake was a popular area for people to flock to. It is no surprise that the rush was meant to try to cover their tracks.
This might also indicate that the attacker did not pre-plan their attack. Without a plan, and the sun just starting to peak over the horizon, there was likely some panic before they left the area.
Because of the police’s incompetence at securing the scene and not having a process to best lead to suspects, the actual cause of death for each person was never discovered and the weapons used were never identified or found.
However, the Finnish army arrived to search the area for clues, which is a big deal. The Finnish army is well trained and well equipped to handle the search for evidence. As they meticulously combed through the forest and dredged the lake, their hope for discovering something began to wane. Even they could not find the additional missing clothing, the wallets or any more clues that might help to identify who did this to these 4 teens.
With a lack of evidence and a poor police investigation, police have struggled to connect anyone to the crimes enough to be able to get a conviction.
Starting with Karl Valdemar Gyllstrom, police had received multiple complaints from campers that he was violent towards them, but no one had actually been injured from him.
Karl was considered to be mentally unstable and would cut down tents he found near the lake, he would also throw rocks at people when they were walking down the street he lived on, and some even claim that they watched him return to the scene of the murders, but they were scared that he would come after them so they never called the police.
In addition to this, Karl admitted to a neighbor that he did commit this crime while he was drinking one night, but would claim he never said that afterwards. But, days after the murders were committed, Karl was observed pouring concrete into a well that he had in his backyard garden, and may believe that this is where he hid the murder weapon. Police, however, would never investigate this.
His wife, though, would originally state that Karl had been in bed all night with her on June 4-5, giving him an alibi. But then, years later, she would retract that statement saying that Karl threatened to kill her if she didn’t cover for him.
However, shortly after the murders, Karl had been photographed and in this photograph he is shirtless. We know because all of these children had defensive wounds, that they fought back. In review of the photo, Karl didn’t appear to have any injuries, no scrapes, no bruises at all.
Karl committed suicide in 1969 by drowning in Lake Bodom.
Most of the public, though, had their eyes on Hans Assmann as the man who committed these murders. Hans was born in Germany but was a Finnish citizen, and he lived near Lake Bodom. And the public would think this because some odd situations would result from where he was. In fact there were 5 cases where Hans was a person of interest in, and in the late 1990’s on his deathbed, he would confess to one of them - but it was not the Lake Bodom murders.
Hans was reportedly a KGB Spy and potentially a former nazi, and the morning of the murders, he would arrive at the Helsinki Hospital and he was incoherent. He couldn’t form sentences, his clothing appeared to have blood on it and his hands and fingernails were very dirty. He was trying to be seen faster and so he pretended to faint at one point, and when the doctor tickled him, he reacted and then started getting angry towards the staff and other patients- and when they realized that Hans wasn’t really injured or sick or needing emergent medical care, they told him to leave.
So besides this, the group of bird watchers told investigators that they saw a blond man leaving the scene of the murders, and Hans had blond hair. Besides his behavior being very weird around this time, he lived near the lake, he had blond hair, which he shaved off after the information was revealed to the public, and his clothing that he wore to the hospital matched the clothing that the birdwatchers gave to the investigators, which included a light shirt or jacket that closed up the front, either by zipper or buttons, and dark pants.
This description of the clothing, though, contradicts what Nils said he saw the attacker wearing. In addition to this, Hans had been having an affair, and when his mistress was contacted, she confirmed that she had been with Hans the entire night and it was even confirmed by his mistresses brother who had stayed at the house too.
Pentti Soiniene, who was a known violent criminal, was the first true suspect that the police had, and Pentti even admitted to a cell-mate while incarcerated in the mid 1960’s that he was the one who killed the three and left Nils to die.
However, there was some pause given due to the fact that Pentti would be only 14 years old at the time of the murders, and they believed that he would not be able to overpower the 4 of them, especially with two 18 year olds. He was only 14 and already known to be violent and have a record.
Pentti, though, would also die by suicide on June 6, 1969, a day after the 9th anniversary of the triple-homicie, by hanging himself.
And we are going to circle back to a couple of these guys, but first we need to cover some other options first.
Then, there was, of course, Nils, the survivor. Nils would, 44 years after the murders, be arrested for the murders of Maila, Anja and Seppo. Based on DNA evidence they found blood from the 3 who died on Nils shoes, along with no blood inside the shoes. Their stance became that the killer had to have been wearing Nils shoes and ditched them prior to attacking Nils.
This was further confirmed with the fact that there were bloody fingerprints on the shoes, indicating that they had been worn during the attacks, and then removed after the killer got blood on his or her hands.
Unfortunately the blood had kind of soaked into the fabric of the shoes making it impossible to pull a fingerprint from.
To add to this, it didn’t help that Nils had blond hair.
To explain, they further theorized that Nils likely had been intoxicated, and became angry at Maila for some reason and attacked her. She was the one who suffered the most violent attack and the only one to be sexually assaulted. Nils then attacked Anja and Seppo to eliminate witnesses, and then left the scene with the motorcycle keys, money and a clean set of clothes to change into.
At some point, he must have decided that abandoning the scene would leave too many questions, and clearly lead to him. So he somehow got rid of the items stolen from the tent, saw he had blood on his shoes so he left those in a bush, stabbed himself and hit his own face with a rock, and returned to the scene, and waited to be discovered.
The trial started on August 4, 2005, and, while he was originally found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, in October, the court exonerated Nils - they just couldn’t see teenage jealousy causing someone to become this violent.
There is, then, one last unknown suspect. Shortly after the murders, Nils agreed to undergo hypnosis because he had seen the person who attacked them and while under hypnosis, he was able to provide a description of what the attacker looked like.
The man had a large forehead with a square shaped face, wide eye, large lips and a strong jaw. And then, someone was looking through the photographs taken during the funerals, and noticed a man who looked just like the drawings.
One little tidbit of information that I neglected to share at the appropriate time in this episode is that there was a piece of fabric found outside of the tent. Some sources say it is a towel, others call it a pillowcase, but no matter the police did one thing right in collecting and preserving this cloth.
Years later when DNA technology improved, they were able to pull DNA from the cloth, finding Maila’s DNA and the DNA of a 5th person. This DNA has not been matched to any of the suspects they originally had, except for Karl’s. They would have to match the DNA to Karl’s son, who continues to deny the tests.
One final theory that I have not seen discussed very much, though I am sure it is on the minds of those who look into this case is that this might not have been accomplished by one person.
Of course, it is more comforting to blame one person, and for that one person to either end up in jail or dead - which some of the suspected killers are there. But, the potential for this to have been accomplished by two people can not be dismissed.
To me, it is glaringly obvious that these teens fought back, and Nils and Maila potentially put up the biggest fight, first escaping from the interior of the tent and then with Maila having the most brutal wounds.
To me, this leads me to believe that two people may have descended upon the tents at the same time, violently bashing through the walls, before Nils and Maila escaped and began to fight back.
Nils, however, was bashed on the head, hard enough to knock him out but not hard enough to kill him, and in a fit of rage that these two attackers were unable to overcome the teens, they took their anger out on Maila who refused to back down.
But this really doesn’t fit well either with the rushed and decidedly unpremeditated attack. Two people being on the same page for the same attack, and both getting away with it for decades seems unlikely.
In addition to this, Maila appears to have been raped as she was naked from the waist down - which takes away the rush or the implication that whoever did this attack did so quickly and then left the area.
It also makes me wonder if or how said attacker wouldn’t have even more blood on themselves. Because first they had these violent attacks which absolutely would have resulted in blood and body fluids and potentially even tissue spraying outward from the victims.
But also, sex is also kind of messy.
To me, of course, it would seem impossible for someone to be able to walk away from this scene without it being clear that they had been involved in a brutal beating.
There are so many unanswered questions.
For decades these murders have weighed heavily on the families and locals. Some have even begun to refer to the attacker as a phantom - someone who will attack children who don’t behave while they are on the banks of the lake. And while I don’t love the lore of the unexplained, the truth of the matter is, that these murders may never have an answer.
The locals and those interested in unsolved cases and piecing the puzzle together may never know who did this, and after 65 years, many of the families and friends of the victims, suspects, police and investigators, locals and witnesses have passed away.
and because of this, These unanswered questions may never be resolved
Thank you for listening, be sure to subscribe on apple, spotify or patreon for access to the subscriber only episode that comes out the first Wednesday of each month.
Sources:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bodom_murders
https://www.heartstartspounding.com/episodes/lakebodom
https://screamfestla.com/blog/real-unsolved-murders-lake-bodom
https://www.discoverwalks.com/blog/finland/10-bone-chilling-facts-about-the-lake-bodom-murders/
https://www.historicmysteries.com/major-crimes/lake-bodom-murders/15725/
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