Murder on Lake Bodom: Finland’s Coldest Triple Homicide
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IT was like the opening act to a hollywood slashers four love struck teenagers arrived by motorcycle in a remote finish town for a weekend camping trip. IT was saturday, june fourth, one thousand nine hundred and sixty. School was out and summer was in the palm of their hand.

They pitched, ed, a tent on the shores of lake bottom, and I did, like, get away near as poo finland, a large city roughly thirteen miles west of hell, thinking the boys cracked beers and set up the campsite while their girlfriends skipped into the water, which, having quite warm from the cool spring, they scrambled out wet and shivering and developed into their boyfriend's arms for warmth. They'd all get good and drunk, sleep in the same tent and do what teens in the nineteen sixties did. All that was missing was a blood thirsty mask killer with a machete ti and bad deef.

But don't worry, this film's antagonist is lurking close by. The following day, two Young bird watchers got an early rise. They walked toward lake bottom where they spotted the campsite.

They were close enough to tell something was wrong, but too far to see what was happening. By the looks of IT, a Young man was lying a top, a collapsed tent. The site was in shambles, as if they tried to packing up and leaving quickly.

That's when they spotted a man walking away from the campsite. He was about thirty metres from the tent, looked between twenty and thirty years old and had bright blond hair, frightened the bird watchers left the area. They didn't want any part of whatever trouble had happened here.

Moments later, a carpenter from mass poo stumbled upon the scene. Lego, your hanson was out for his morning swim around eleven when he noticed the chaotic campsite, unlike the bird watchers, s go moved in for a closer look. That's when he noticed obvious signs of a struggle belonging strong, about IT and blood, so much blood that's when the boy lying a top, the tent, stared.

He took a sharp breath, looked up at esco and to muttered, help me. Then I fell unconscious, only to wake once more in the hospital later that morning. Eighteen year old niles gustafson was the sole survivor of fin land's oldest murder mystery, his girlfriend, his best friend and his best friend's girl were brutally buttered in the early morning hours of june fifth nineteen sixty.

But for some reason, the killer left knees alive. He wasn't stabbed like the others that we suffered a broken job and defensive wounds on his arms and hands. When police asked him what happened, he claimed he couldn't remember.

Ali recalled, was a figure in the night with bright red eyes. IT attacked them without mercy and fled as quickly as the assault began. For sixty plus years, police in the s.

Bo and greater health sinking area have tried desperately to solve the case. They questioned hundreds, if not thousands, of people. If you lived within twenty miles of lake bottom, there was a good chance.

Police, we're knocking on your door. At one point, they suspected the kgb had something to do with that. Then in two thousand, four DNA evidence broke the case wide open.

If the forensic evidence was true, then the keller had been sitting under their noses the whole time. According to the tests, there was no dark figure with red eyes. There was no masked man with a Michaeli.

There was no kgb agent stalking those teenage kids, according to the tests. Nails was the keller. That's why he lived to tell the tail.

Did he murder his friends that night? Or is the real killer still out there stalking like bottom, like the finish? Jason burke's.

Part one, Young love nails, gust ops son and sao boys. Men were lifelong friends. The eighteen year olds are just graduated high school, and we're grappling with the excitement and anxieties of adult od.

A weekend trip to lake bottom would be good for their mental health. At the time, suba was dating fifteen year old too. Lucky markey, her best friend, fifteen year old or meli barkland, fell for nails.

Even though the two couples had to only been dating for accumulative month, a weekend trip to the lake seemed like a great idea. The only person to object was too lucky's father, he didn't like apple. Or the idea of this lake trip call IT fatherly instinct or a good guess.

Either way, too lucky's dad knew something terrible was going to happen. Two motorcycles raced down the winding streets of estb. U nails drove one, sepper drove the other.

Their respective girlfriends SAT on the back, arms wrapped tightly around their waists. S bu is the second largest city in finland. Behind her sinking lake bottom is on the outskirts, surrounded by smaller towns and districts.

In the one thousand and sixties, these were close in communities. Everybody knew everyone, and outsiders were welcomed with skepticism. So when four teenagers rode through town on loud motorcycles, the locals couldn't help IT stare.

The kids stopped at a store where they bought food supplies and plenty of alcohol. From there. IT was a short ride to the lake shore, where nails had picked out a familiar spot.

He'd been there before to go fishing and recalled the sharp peninsula ler that stretched into the water they set up in a small clearing. They drank, ate snacks and watched others drive their boats across the lake. IT was all laughs and smiles until night.

But on lake bottom, when nails justice and awoke in the hospital hours later, his job was throbbing. Bright lights blind the desires, and doctors under police officers surrounded his bed. They all asked the same question, what happened on the lake? Nails could only give them the same answer.

Part two, I can't remember amnesia, and real life is not like the amnesia you see on TV. And in movies in general, those with amnesia struggle to form new memories. They don't simply forget everything about their past.

Head injuries resulting in a concussion can trigger confusion and memory problems. Nails a walk with a concussion in the hospital. Wings on his head suggested severe head trauma.

Though doctors couldn't tell what nails had been struck with, he couldn't remember anything about the attack except the dark figure with a glowing eyes. Such trauma has been shown a triggers permanent amnesia, but it's not the only cause this associated amenda occurs after intense emotional shock and trauma. For example, the victim of a violent crime may forget facts about the attack and small snippets of their personal life.

However, these doubts of ammonia sia are typically brief. Most people recover their memories. Nails wasn't like most people, so the police filled the gaps.

They told him how esco johanson found the bloodied campsite around eleven A M. To them, IT looked like the killer attack from the outside, using a blade to slash to the tent and mindlessly stab his victims. According to the police, all four of them had defensive wounds, suggesting they put up a fight as they died.

Nails girlfriend or Molly had gotten at the worst. SHE was naked from the waste down, and, according to some retailers, was lying to top the tent with nails. Nails was the only victim without any stab wounds.

Doctors believe he was struck with a blunt object during the attack, which would explain the amnesia and broken jaw. Back at the crime scene, police determined that the attack happened sometime between four and six A M. It's unclear how they reached this verdict.

IT was likely based on the early stages of decay, and the bird watchers who observed the scene from a distance around six thirty to this day, police have never recovered a murder weapon from lake bottom. They were looking for a knife and a large town. The former is likely at the bottom of the lake.

The latter might be mixed in with the thousands of similar sized rocks in the area. Police did find two pieces of evidence that proved to be quite strange nails, as bloody shoes were found about a quarter mile deep in the woods. He couldn't remember what happened, and the police couldn't figure out why or how the shoes got so far away.

StrAngely, the killer took the motorcycle keys, but never touched the bikes to the police, stealing the keys and not the bike seemed dead. The most mind boggling fact about the lake bottom case is how s poo officers fumbled the whole thing. They allegedly failed to secure the scene, thus allowing search parties and investigators to trample all over in.

According to some reports, police also failed to keep basic records of their findings due to their mistakes. Critical bits of evidence were likely lost or lost over what could have been an open and short case. Soon turned until a sixty year old who done IT by three, who done IT before two thousand.

Four police had three main suspects in the lake bottom murders. Two were legitimate, one with a stretch. Let's start with the stretch.

pt. Sinnin was a lifelong criminal and a volatile man in the one thousand nine sixty. While serving time from multiple crimes, he dragged to a fellows in made about how he committed the lake bottom murders.

Police question him only to learn that pty was between fourteen and fifteen years old. When the murders happened, he was a violent teen who'd run away from reform school at the time. And while he was in the area, police doubted that he could have overpowered two eighteen year old boys and their girlfriends.

Based on his criminal history, I would also have taken one of their motorcycles in a heartbeat. T ultimately killed himself in one thousand nine hundred and sixty nine. We may never know if he was telling the truth.

The next suspect was volt, our gill's um a grump y older man who hated children and campers on lake bottom. Older are owned and Operated a small key osc in the local community. Everyone knew he was a grouch, and they quickly suspected him.

After learning about the attacks, he allegedly confessed to the murders while drunk at a neighbor's house and was seen pouring concrete into a well in his backyard after the killings. Was IT a coincidence? Was he hiding the murder weapon again? We're likely never know.

Voldemar denied the former, and to police never followed up on the latter. His wife vouched for his wear outs on june fourth, claiming he was home in bed all night and into the morning. He would later recant the statement, claiming voldemar threatened to killer if SHE implicated him in the lake bottom murders.

Other locals claim they saw vult mr. Arriving home on the morning of june six, suggesting he'd been gone for some time. They were simply too scared to approach him because they knew vult ma was a violent man like painting void. More committed suicide years after the murders. As the story goes, vult mark confessed to another friend that he killed the dates on lack bottom.

His friend didn't believe him, so all the more asked that I, if I did kill those kids, what do you think I should do? His friend told him to drown himself because he'd spent the rest of his life in jail. Hours after this conversation, older are allegedly walked to the shores of lake bottom and drown themselves.

Was IT a coincidence or some kind of strange death bed confession will let you be the judge? Local politician and author oth johanson believes vult er, the grouch is the lake bottom killer. It's unclear if he's related to s go you hanson, who found the bodies in his book legend of bottom.

All rights have older mar, known locally as the key osc man, lived about eight hundred meters from the murder side every time he confessed to the killings, police voted off as the meaningless rambling of the village drunk. According to ov, who was a teenager in the bottom area when the mergers occurred, no local with dare camp near vult, mars. k.

He was known to cut the tent guards and hurl rocks at the sides. He saw himself as the boss of lake bottom. M eat, chase anybody away that moved in on his territory. In reality, voldemar was a mentally ill man with a severe drinking problem. According to local stories, valdemar once opened fire on some Young kids riding a moped, bolder our claims they were heading his way, so we grabbed his shut gun and pulled the trigger.

Local legend says he hid razor blades and apples because kids would steal them from his property, also had first hand experience with the key asked man he claims voldemar with, threw rocks at him and his friends as they wrote bikes on his road to older mark, his road was anything between his key osc and lake bottom to half and to many other s poo locals, the lake bottom murder are far from a mystery. They know of older or did IT whether they can improve IT or not. The final suspect gained traction for his song ki ise and unfortunate last name, hums.

Ashman's was a german born finished citizen, leaving a few miles from leg bottom. A rumor floated around claiming that ashman was A K, G, B spy. That's why many locals kept their distance and considered osman a recluse in the community.

His name entered the lake bottom conversation after he showed up at a hospital in hell thinky, with what looked like blood on his clothes and dirt under his nails. According to the staff, ashman was nervous and aggressive. Police investigated him as a suspect, but determined he had a rock solid alii.

According to police documents, thirty year old ashman was in held thinky on the night of the murders. He stayed with a female friend while doing a paint job on the neighbor house. This female friend, according to ashman's wife, was his mistress.

They spent most nights together. The affair was an open secret. He complained of heartburn that evening, and he and his lover went to bed.

Her sister and brother in law slept in the room. Across the hall, both doors were open all night. The residents claim ashman couldn't have left without them noticing.

They awoke around six on sunday morning to find him still in bed. By then, the teams on lake bottom were already dead, and the bird watchers had just seen somebody with blond hair walking away from the tent. While it's true that ashman had blunt hair, police do not believe that IT was him walking away from the crime scene.

But then there's the question of our asked, my god, blood on his clothes. What if IT wasn't blood at all? What if I was just paint? Funny enough.

Lake bottom wasn't the first time asma was implicated in a murder. Police linked him to the one thousand, nine and fifty three murder of ali. Sorry, the seventeen year old's death is among the most famous cases in finish history.

SHE was attacked on may seventeen, nineteen fifty two, while riding home on her bike. Police found her body and bicycle in october of the same year as man's wife implicated him in the sorry murder. He claims he and a friend were driving in the area that night.

He came home late with wet shoes and a missing sock. Days later, the two men left again, this time with a shovel on his death bed. Asma allegedly confessed to the murders.

He claims IT was an accident that his friend, despite being a good driver at the girl on the they covered IT up to make IT look like a murder, which is strange since it's typically the other way around. Like the lake bottom murder, the case of ali si remains unsolved as of twenty twenty four. One final piece of the osman puzzle comes from a hit nosis session after the murders to jog his memory.

Police took nails to see a hippotherapy during the session. Nails described the dark figure as best good an artist SAT in on the session and drew a composition sketch that resembled hands as men. IT wasn't impossible to ignore the large, wrinkled forehead and Sunny eyes.

Days later, a photographer of one of the victims funerals captured an image that allegedly showed, or someone who looked like a men in the crowd. Did assen happen to attend the funeral, or did the killer come back the best in his crime over the next forty years? The lake bottom case wont as cold as the winter water.

Then in the lady eighties and early nineties, DNA testing and genetic fingerprinting allowed police to reexamine old cases. Just because they couldn't test DNA back then didn't mean there wasn't a plus a on the scene. Unfortunately, vinland only had one forensics lab at the time.

They weren't able to test evidence from the lake bottom murder until two thousand four. Thankfully, nails, gustus's shoes were stone, nice and bloody. He awoke, won morning to police knocking on his door.

The sole survivor had just become the primary suspect. Part four under their noses, D N, A testing on nails is discarded. Shoes show that the blood belonged to all three victims. However, none of the tests came back positive for neil's blood.

That got police thinking, how did nail survive the attack, yet only get his friends blood on his shoes to them? The answer was obvious, nails killed his friends and staged the scene to make IT look like they were attack. But why? The following is the prosecutions version of the story.

Things were going smoothly on the lake until the boys began drinking heavily. A fight ensued between nails and supper, which LED to sepper punching nails lights out. Some believe nails was jealous of seo.

Others believe nails was excised from the tent when he tried to put the moves on erma borkman. Whatever the case, the bunch was hard enough to fracture nails. His job, drunk, angry and rising in pain. Nails grabs a knife and began stabbing the tent.

The teams fought back, but knows at the upper hand from outside the tent, IT was dark, so they likely couldn't see where the knife was coming from once his friends were dead, nails hit the motorcycle keys and staged the scene to look like a robbery. Then he walked deep into the woods and took off his shoes. Now he returned to the scene and inflicted several injuries on himself.

Then he pretended to be unconscious until someone finally found out. The prosecution leaned heavily on the DNA evidence, and the bird watchers who claimed to see someone walking away from the crime scene, nail's defense team claimed the theory was impossible if support did break nazis job and he would have been too weak to murder everyone, they also didn't think he'd be strong enough to walk half a mile round trip to hide his shoes. In the end, the jury acquitted nails cost of of all charges.

There simply wasn't enough evidence to prove he did IT beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution also failed to prove any kind of motive. They could claim nails in sep of fight, but nothing backed the story up, as if twenty twenty four, the lake bottom m case remains one of thin land's oldest murder mysteries.

That, of course, depends on who you ask. Those in ebbw believe the key osc man vulnera r. Gill's one did IT.

He couldn't live with the guilt, so we drown himself in the same lake. Others are convinced nilles guston killed his friends and got away with IT. He simply got lucky when the jury found a mini cent. The fact that nils's description of the killer looks exactly like hands, asma lead some to believe he did IT. It's unclear if nails or asthma had ever met before the hypnosis session.

Then there's the scary theory that whoever killed those teenagers are still out there theyd be well into their late seventies and early eighties today, assuming they were a teenager when they committed the crime and the older, and that means they're likely dead. The lake bottom case will never be solved, and these three murder teens will never receive justice. So if you ever find yourself camping by lake bottom, beware of what lurks in the darkness. If you're unlucky, you might see those murderous red eyes poking out from behind the tree.