Lake Bodom massacre: Who killed Finnish teenagers on a summer night?

The 1960 Lake Bodom massacre of teenagers is one of the bloodiest and most mysterious crimes in Finnish history. Despite the fact that the police had enough evidence and several suspects, the case was not solved. The debate about who killed the young vacationers at the picturesque forest lake continues to this day.

On June 4, 1960, two couples in love – 15-year-old Maila Irmeli Björklung and Anja Tuulikki Mäki, and their 18-year-old companions Seppo Antero Boisman and Nils Vilhelm Gustafsson – went to Lake Bodom, 17 km from Helsinki. It was a popular holiday destination, especially in the summer. The teenagers had booked parking spaces and rooms at the Hastbergen Hotel in advance.

Despite the summer and excellent weather, there were few people at Lake Bodom. The guys left their things in the rooms, took a swim and went to the store for lemonade. At 19:30 the company returned to the lake. At this time there were even fewer people on the shore. The teenagers met a fisherman and a young couple who were getting ready to leave. They were the last people to see the guys alive.

The young people decided to spend the night not in a hotel, but in a tent that they brought with them. They pitched it on the shore, not far from the water. At first, the teenagers sat by the fire, and late at night they went to bed. The murder occurred between three and six in the morning. An unknown person attacked the sleeping people and began stabbing them with a knife and some blunt object right through the fabric of the tent.

At 6 a.m., local boys noticed a fair-haired man walking away from a tent lying on the grass towards the forest. This man was also seen by another boy who was fishing nearby at the time. It was only at 11 a.m. that they learned that a murder had occurred. A local carpenter noticed a fallen and cut tent on the shore and came to see what had happened. Seeing the bloody bodies, he immediately called the police.

Law enforcement officers arrived at Lake Bodom at midday. Mäki, Björklund and Boisman died instantly, while Gustafsson survived despite multiple injuries. Nils Gustafsson and his girlfriend Björklund were found lying on a tent. The girl was naked from the waist down and had suffered the most stab wounds of all – 11 stabs to the head, neck and upper chest. The bodies of Mäki and Boisman were inside the tent.

Gustafsson had multiple head injuries, but despite this, he was luckier than the others. The guy was taken to the hospital in serious condition. It should be noted that the police officers who arrived at the scene acted unprofessionally. They did not cordon off the crime scene, and strangers walked freely around the tent. Because of this, some traces and evidence could have been destroyed or lost.

The military from a nearby base were brought in to search for evidence. They began combing the area. The detectives noticed that some things were missing from the murder scene. Some items of clothing and the keys to two motorcycles were missing. But they only managed to find Gustafsson's bloody shoes, which for some reason were lying half a kilometer from the tent.

The police questioned more than 5,000 people, but were unable to track down the killer. The only witness who could shed light on what had happened was the wounded Gustafsson. Everyone was waiting impatiently for him to come to his senses and give evidence. But the investigators were disappointed. Due to a head injury, the guy partially lost his memory and did not remember the moment of the attack. He was sure that he had received his injuries in a motorcycle accident.

The first person to fall under suspicion was Karl Waldemar Gulström. He was the owner of a trading kiosk located near the lake. Despite the fact that his business was directly dependent on tourists, the man did not like visitors and often clashed with them. Gulström had a bad reputation among his neighbors, so many were happy to testify against him.

Several people said they had seen him near the tent. When the police asked whether the kiosk owner could have committed a crime, some of those questioned answered in the affirmative. Interrogating the man was difficult because of the language barrier. Gulström only knew Swedish, and communication with him was conducted through an interpreter.

The kiosk owner's wife insisted that her husband had been sleeping next to her on the night of the murder and had never left. But her words, as an interested party, meant little to the investigation. Nevertheless, no evidence was ever found against Gülström. He was held by the police for some time, but then released.

In 1969, Gülström drowned in Lake Bodom under strange circumstances. It was unclear whether it was an accident or suicide. Neighbors claimed that shortly before his death, the drunk Swede allegedly confessed to killing the teenagers. But it was no longer possible to verify this. Who was the kiosk owner - a murderer tormented by his conscience, or a victim of slander by neighbors who could not stand him for his quarrelsome nature?

The second suspect was Hans Assmann, a German living in Finland. On June 6, he was taken unconscious to a Helsinki hospital. He had apparently been involved in a serious fight – his head and body were bruised, and his clothes were covered in grass and dirt. The look and smell of his shirt suggested that Assmann had tried to remove stains from it with gasoline.

The drunk, beaten German would not have aroused any suspicions if not for his behavior. Assmann had a German magazine with him with an article about unsolved murders of women in the FRG. Having barely come to his senses, the man studied the newspapers with descriptions of the tragedy on the lake, and then radically changed his hairstyle. By the way, he was blond, like the unknown person who was seen near the tent.

The police became interested in Assmann. He was listed as a former Nazi and, according to rumors, worked for the Stasi, the secret police of the GDR. Distinguished by his explosive and conflicting character, he repeatedly got into various scrapes. In addition, Hans was listed as a suspect in another murder - that of 17-year-old Kyllikki Saari, which had occurred 7 years earlier.

The suspicious German, however, had an ironclad alibi. His mistress and several other people confirmed that he was with them on the night of the murder and never left. Just a year later, Assmann was again involved in a criminal case – this time he beat his wife. But Hans managed to escape to Sweden, and the police were never able to detain him.

In 1997, shortly before his death, Hans Assmann allegedly confessed to a Finnish journalist to the massacre of teenagers, as well as the accidental murder of 17-year-old Saari in 1953. However, this was only a private conversation with a drunken old man who was almost out of his mind. Therefore, the information did not interest the police.

Years and decades passed, the case remained open, but there was no significant progress in the investigation. And then in 2004, the police arrested... Nils Vilhelm Gustafsson. 44 years after the tragedy, the investigation suddenly decided that the only young man who survived that night could be the killer! New blood stain tests allegedly pointed to his involvement.

Suddenly, everything in Gustafsson's story seemed strange. He was the only one who had not received a single knife wound, only blows with a heavy object. His girlfriend Björklund had the most wounds on her body, and she, like Nils, was outside the tent. He did not remember anything, and the guy's shoes were found a long way from the crime scene. Could Gustafsson have stabbed his lover during an argument, and then removed the witnesses and staged an attack by an unknown person? The detectives decided that it was quite possible.

The police worked on this version for a whole year, but no new facts appeared in the case. In 2005, the court acquitted Gustafsson due to lack of evidence. As a result, law enforcement officers had to pay him a certain amount as compensation for his detention. The killer of the three teenagers from Lake Bodom has still not been found.

The Lake Bodom tragedy has left a deep mark on popular culture. Finnish melodic death metal band Children of Bodom took their name from the case, and their leader Alexi Laiho has called the murder “an inspiration.” The horrific incident has inspired books, documentaries, and even a feature film, Lake Bodom (2016), although the film’s plot is only loosely based on the true story.

The murder site still attracts tourists and fans of dark tourism despite its sinister reputation. For many Finns, the story has become something of a national nightmare – a reminder that even the calmest and safest places can hide danger. Locals, however, prefer not to remember the tragedy, but legends about the “lake spirits” live on.

The Lake Bodom murders continue to raise many questions. Millions of theories, from ritual murder to a random act of madness, continue to stir minds. Who do you think is behind this horrific crime – a local hermit, a mysterious and vengeful foreigner, or perhaps the surviving Gustafsson? Share your theories in the comments – perhaps you will notice something that has eluded the investigation.