True Crime Time Hop ep. 27: the Bodom Murders

Hello all and thank you for joining me for another episode of True Crime Time Hop.

If you're on my website reading this, rather than listening to/watching me tell it on youtube, bare with the format of these blogs please. Not only is this a blog but it is typically the script I go off of when recording my series. Typing my scripts here as I do my research is just easier and then it allows those who are subscribed to my website the option to have it as a little not-so-light reading with their morning coffee if they so choose. I have the first 22 episodes typed as well, but my notes for those are much more messy, and less cohesive, as I typed them into a different platform. Eventually I may transfer them over here... maybe when those dates are relevant again next January if this little experiment survives that long. If you wanna see me stick around and bring you more true crime content please. Like, subscribe, interact, and let's get weird.

Today we will be traveling back to 1960. Our story also takes place across the globe to Espoo, Uusimaa, Finland. Forgive me in advance if I butcher the names of places and people in this story when attempting to pronounce them. I am in no way Finnish nor do I claim to be. But I digress.

Maila Björklund and Anja Mäki, who were both 15 years old, were camping with their 18-year-old boyfriends Seppo Boisman and Nils Gustafsson. They set out on June 4th into the woodlands along the shore of Lake Bodom where they pitched a tent and had a few drinks. The men couldn't sleep that evening so after their girlfriends turned in, they took their Vodka party out to the lake where they did some night fishing. They had a good time enjoying their surroundings until the wee hours of the morning. They made it back to their camp just before the sun came up and they went to bed.

There was a blonde man seen walking away from the campsite that morning but he wasn't scrutinized too heavily by onlookers because he was thought to be one of the campers. Unfortunately, none of the campers were fit to walk away from their site. A man named Esko Johansson was taking his son down to the lake for a late morning swim when they discovered the gruesome scene. There was a tattered tent, partially collapsed with a wet, dirty appearance. The two slowly made their way to it and as the image grew more clear they realized the tent was covered in blood. They were also able to make out that there were two bodies under what remained of the tent. There was also a figure later identified as 15-year-old Maila lying on top of the torn up mess. She was nude from the waist down and she had very obviously been killed. Her wounds were disfiguring. Both girls as well as Boisman were bludgeoned and stabbed repeatedly until they were butchered beyond recognition.

Just outside of the tent, Gustafsson laid fighting for his life with horrific injuries from being beaten and stabbed the same way the others were. He was leaking cerebral fluid out of his nose and had a gash so large and deep in the side of his face that his teeth could be seen through the open wound.

As Gustafsson began to regain his memory of the event, he explained what he remembered. They were in the tent when he looked up and saw a young man with blonde hair looking down at him through a hole in the tent. The killer then cut the ropes of the tent to ensnare the friends and began stabbing and beating them through the fabric until all of their struggling had stopped. Boisman was stabbed in the neck and his cause of death was later determined to be inhalation of blood. Maila had many defensive wounds and had a total of 15 stab wounds, some which are suspected to have been given to her after she already died.

The authorities formed a drag net and looked for suspects in the surrounding woods. Unbelievably enough, they found 88 wanted persons in the Finnish woodlands. Amongst these 88, the police were then able to isolate which ones were most likely to commit a crime like this and which ones fit the witness descriptions. They questioned each suspect but the perpetrator of the crime continued to go undiscovered.

During the search of the area, there were few clues found. Everything of value had been taken off the victims, and the murder weapons which were a rock and a knife were no where to be found either. Strangely of all was the rolled up pillowcase outside of the tent. It was held into that roll shape with an elastic band. I think in jail this particular apparatus is known as a fifi... It had blood and semen on it none of which matched the victims. They also found a pair of Gustafson's shoes sort about a hundred yards from the campsite.

The authorities never found the killer and this case is the first I've done in awhile that is still unsolved to this day. There are interesting backstories to the many suspects they extracted from the woods during their drag net operation and I invite you to do your own research if you're interested in knowing more about them specifically, but for the sake of keeping these stories at a digestible length, I won't be going into that here.

The case remained unsolved and went cold until 44 years later, when Gustafsson was randomly arrested. The case was reviewed with modern forensic technology and the shoes they found of his were discovered to have blood spatter from all 3 of the victims but not his own. The prosecution contrived a story for what they suspect happened and that was that he attempted to make sexual advances on Maila, he was rejected and Boisman beat him up for it. He left the campsite as his friends turned in and returned with a knife and a rock to exact revenge for the humiliation. It was believed that he put Maila on top of the tent and continued to stab her because she was the one that hurt his ego with her rejection. He was then accused of causing the injuries to himself to help cover up his crime. They didn't investigate the pillow case any further but the killing does seem to have a sexual component that was not touched on much in the investigation. That's just my opinion. But anyway, Gustafsson brought a good defense. His blood was found inside the tent along with that of his friends' which was just one of many sources of reasonable doubt. Ultimately, he was aquitted of the crime and won a settlement of 45k euros from the authorities for his wrongful imprisonment.

A few of the most probable suspects have since then passed on and as it appears right now, this case may never be solved which is so tragic. RIP to the 3 young lives lost to this senseless attack. So what are your thoughts on this? Should I do a deep dive on the suspects they found in the Finnish woods? Let me know in the comments. Thank you for joining me for another episode. I'm so glad you're here. Take care and stay safe.