Episode 2: The Finnish Camping Murders: Tulilahti Double Murder

Runtime: 1 hour 6 minutes

• For the blog post and images, see our Substack: https://nowayhomepod.substack.com/p/the-tulilahti-murders-a-finnish-summer?r=6389lt

We're staying in Finland for the case that had the Bodom parents properly worried. And no wonder. In July 1959, two young women set off on what should have been a lovely cycling holiday across Finland. Instead, they became victims of a crime so bungled by authorities that even we're getting frustrated, and we're just reading about it decades later.

Eine Nyyssönen and Riitta Pakkanen were the sort of sensible, well-prepared travelers who sent postcards home and packed sewing kits alongside their camping gear. They were also unfortunate enough to encounter someone with considerably less wholesome intentions at a remote lakeside campsite called Tulilahti.

This case features more suspects than a game of Cluedo: there's the gravedigger with the dynamite, the bricklayer who apparently didn't understand the word "no," the mysterious Moped Man, and those delightfully named Basket Boys who thought following strange women was peak romance. I guess it still happens now.

Naturally, our old friend Hans Assman makes another appearance because apparently no Finnish murder case from this era is complete without him.

We question the physics of moving heavy iron bicycles and two bodies through rocky terrain, whilst we both marvel at the police's decision to arrest a 5'3" Swedish-speaking man for crimes that propably required local knowledge and possibly more than one culprit.

This case is complete with possibly planted evidence, false alibis, and a justice system so desperate for a conviction they pinned it on a convenient scapegoat.

Two bright young women deserved far better than a monster lurking in the woods and a bungled conviction.

Content warning: Discussion of sexual violence and murder

Episode Keywords: Tulilahti murders, Finland 1959, cycling holiday murders, Eine Nyyssönen, Riitta Pakkanen, unsolved double murder, Hans Assman, bungled investigation, Finnish cold case, camping murders, cold case, true crime, true crime podcast, European true crime, international true crime