FINNISH MURDERS: The Famous Lake Bodom Murders (PART 1)

In previous blog posts of the "Finnish Murders" series, we had a look at the tragic death of Kyllikki Saari, and the unsolved case of the Tulilahti double homicide. At the same time as the trial of Runar Holmström was happening, the horrific murder of the three teenagers in Bodom Lake shocked the already grieving Finnish public. 

In this two-part series, we will delve deeply in what is still a fascinating and troubling unsolved murder in Finland. This crime has inspired the name of a very famous Finnish metal band, the Children of Bodom, and has also inspired two horror movies and many other documentaries, podcasts and armchair sleuths. 

LAKE BODOM TRIP 

On June 4th, 1960, Maila Irmeli Björklund and her friend, Anja Tuulikki Mäki, set out on a camping adventure. Both girls were fifteen years of age and living in the town of Vantaa, Finland. Joining them would be Seppo Antero Boisman and Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson, aged eighteen-years-old. They were the girls' boyfriends. Their plan was to camp at a lakeside spot by Bodomjärvi, or Lake Bodom in English. This is located in Espoo, by the grounds of the old Oittaa manor. 

The boys' parents did not know that the girls would be spending the night with Seppo and Nils. They just thought that the boys were going fishing together. In contrast, the girls' parents knew of the plan, but were not happy at all about it. This was because Maila's and Anja's parents were worried for the two young women as the Tulilahti murders were fresh on their minds. 

Seppo and Anja were dating for one year and Maila and Nils were a fresh couple, just dating for three weeks. The group was celebrating Maila's upcoming 16th birthday, as she was born on 6th June 1944.

The four teens from L to R: Anja Mäki, Nils Gustafsson, Maila Björklund, and Seppo Boisman.

Before the trip, Nils and Seppo scouted the camping spot on their motorbikes. They wanted to make sure that they picked the perfect location! Before setting up the tent, the foursome stopped at a local kiosk to pick up some supplies and snacks. Then, they arrived at their destination in the sunny afternoon. 

The four teenagers set up their tent and laid out their things ready for the evening. They whittled some time away swimming and laughing, hanging out and doing some fishing. After the afternoon of fun, the tired teens went to sleep around 11pm. They tied the tent from inside as there was no zipper. 

In the night, tragedy struck!

ONE SURVIVOR LEFT AND THREE GRIZZLY MURDERS 

In the morning of the 5th of June, Sunday, between 4am and 6am the foursome were asleep in their tent. Some time before, in the early morning hours Seppo and Nils went fishing. However, they did not catch anything and returned to sleep besides their girlfriends. All of a sudden, the heavy tent fabric dropped on them and nearly suffocated them. An intruder had come to the campsite!

He started to slash and hit the teenagers and fatally wounded them. Maila, Anja and Seppo were bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Maila Björklund was hurt more than the others, as she was stabbed ten times and was found on top of the tent, next to her boyfriend. She was also naked from the waist down. 

Nils was barely alive when police found him. The attack left him with a concussion, broken bones and a fractured jaw. He had been hit three times in the chin with a heavy object and once at the back of the head. Since he was the only one to have survived, Nils Gustafsson had to recount his story many times during the investigation. 

Some of their belongings were also taken by the attacker. Things such as some money, leather jackets, the motorbike keys, a scarf, a towel, a bag and the victims' wallets. 

The scene was first spotted by two schoolboys who were bird watching from the other side of the lake from where the tent was perched. They said that they saw a blond man leave the campsite in the early hours of the morning on the same day as the murders.

A local maid also reported that she saw a man leaving the area around the same time. She was doing  laundry on the opposite end of the shore, so she did not pay much attention to him. 

The slashed tent of the victims

The crime scene was not found until 11am on the 5th June. An Espoo citizen by the name of Esko Johansson, stumbled upon the grisly scene and immediately alerted the police. He was at the beach with his two sons who wanted to go swimming. Upon seeing the caved in tent, he was curious and went to investigate. The family waited there until the police arrived on the scene around 12pm. 

The bodies were found strewn all over the campsite.

POLICE INVESTIGATION A FAILURE 

The police did not do a very good job in gathering evidence and investigating this crime. Criticisms arose as soon as they started. Firstly, the crime scene was not clear cut. As we said, the victims were stabbed and bludgeoned to death. The stabbings were attributed to a knife wounds, but the blunt object used to inflict blunt force trauma was not identified. The attack was frenzied. 

Some of the teens' belongings were also missing from the crime scene, in a way that was strange. The motorcycle keys had been taken, but the motorbikes were still at the campsite. Gustafsson's shoes were missing, and found about 800 meters, or half a mile, from the campsite. Some of his clothes were also found there. 

Nils after the attack. He survived but had very bad injuries. 

The press had a field day about the poor handling of the case from the police. This was riding on the back of shoddy investigations from the murder of Kyllikki Saari and the Tulilahti double homicide. Police forgot to cordon off the area, which meant that curious onlookers trampled over the murder scene and evidence so the crime scene was destroyed. On top of this, police didn't record official findings properly. They enlisted the help of the local army conscripts, but this further contaminated the murder scene, and most of the objects were not recovered. 

On the day of the murders being found, the police enlisted the help of divers and used metal detectors to scour the scene. However, they did not find anything. 

The case also received a lot of media attention and the police received countless confessions, tips and thousands of volunteers to help with searching for the killer. This created a lot of work for the police. However, it did lead to hundreds of arrests and enquiries as a large manhunt was started for the killer but nobody proved to be the right person. 

Police investigating the crime scene. 

ONE SURVIVOR BUT NO MEMORY?

While police was busy investigating the murders, Gustafsson was in critical condition in the hospital. The investigators were waiting impatiently for him to be stable so that they could ask him questions about the incident and get his statement. They were holding hope with baited breaths that he could point them on the way to finding the killer. 

He had severe injuries to his head, and it was suspected that he was suffering from brain damage. He was in the hospital for many weeks. As soon as he got better, he spoke with the police but Nils did not remember anything after he went to bed the night of the murder. The investigators were very disappointed. 

As they really didn't have many leads, and were no closer to finding the killer, the police decided to hypnotize Nils and another witness, Olavi Kivilahti. He was fishing in the area on the day of the killings, and said he saw a blond haired man with a light sweater pass by, about 50 meters away from him. As Kivilahti suffered from myopia, he was not able to see the man clearly. 

Gustafsson was hypnotized on the period of 2nd to 5th of July, 1960 for a total of three times. The records were not made public, but a sketch was released after the last session. Olavi Kivilahti was hypnotized five times, with the last session about six years after the murders. He also gave a similar description of the perpetrator as Nils gave out. 

The sketch that the two men gave of the perp under hypnosis

According to their descriptions, the man responsible was aged between 20 to 30 years old, height was between 170cms to 180cms, and he had blond to light brown colored hair. His hair was straight and combed back. He had a round face with spots on his cheeks and forehead. He had big eyes with a undetermined colour and a strong jawline and short neck. He was wearing some kind of a jacket or thick shirt with breast pockets on it. 

This did not help the police too much as it did not lead to any fresh information. They even offered a reward that would be equivalent to around 7000€, or 300,000 Finnish marks in old currency, to entice witnesses to give some fresh leads. The case went cold for a long time. 

In Part 2, we will have a look at some suspects that were linked to the Bodom Lake murders. There is one name that comes up in all our Finnish murders so far, Hans Assman. How is he connected to yet another gruesome crime scene but the crime remains unsolved? And what happens to Nils after he healed in hospital? Does he give any new information to police? We will explore all these and more in the next instalment!

References

• All That Is Interesting: The Lake Bodom Murders: Finland’s Most Famous Unsolved Triple Homicide
• Iltalehti: Helluntain vuonna 1960
• The Mystery Box: The Lake Bodom Murders Case
• True Crime Finland podcast: Episode 13 - Bodom Lake Murders