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This Cold Case Is Absolutely Horrifying · The conspiracy

0:00
Speaker 1: On a quiet finished lake. In the early hours of
0:02
Speaker 1: a June morning in nineteen sixty a nightmare unfolded inside
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Speaker 1: a small canvas tent. Four teenagers had set out for
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Speaker 1: what should have been an innocent camping trip, but by
0:13
Speaker 1: sunrise it would become one of Finnish history's most horrific
0:17
Speaker 1: and puzzling murder investigations ever. And for over six decades,
0:22
Speaker 1: the Lake Bottom murders have baffled police, terrified locals, and
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Speaker 1: fueled countless theories. This is the Lake Bottom murders. Crime, conspiracy, cults,
0:32
Speaker 1: serial killers and murder. All things that I love to consume,
0:35
Speaker 1: and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful,
0:38
Speaker 1: intellectually minded break I went deep today, baby, But today
0:43
Speaker 1: we are talking about an extremely baffling case, one that
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Speaker 1: I was not familiar with at all. But now I'm
0:48
Speaker 1: all too familiar with it, and I'm gonna make you
0:51
Speaker 1: familiar with it as well, because these cold cases, man,
0:55
Speaker 1: they they eat at me. So without further ado, let's
0:57
Speaker 1: unbuckle our seatbelts, go mack find on the highways, lamb
0:59
Speaker 1: on the right, and must do this windshield into this
1:02
Speaker 1: puzzling finish case together. So before the tragic night at
1:20
Speaker 1: Lake Bodom. The victims were ordinary teenagers enjoying the start
1:24
Speaker 1: of summer. Mila Ermeli bjork Lund or Mala often called
1:29
Speaker 1: Malee or sometimes Ermeli, was just fifteen years old in
1:33
Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen sixty. In fact, she was only
1:36
Speaker 1: days away from her sixteenth birthday at the time of
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Speaker 1: the camping trip, and she was a resident of the
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Speaker 1: Helsinki suburb in Vanda. And Mala was by all accounts
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Speaker 1: a typical Finnish teenage girl. She enjoyed school break, spending
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Speaker 1: time with friends and looking forward to adventures in the outdoors.
1:53
Speaker 1: And she was dating eighteen year old Nil's Gustafson, and
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Speaker 1: the two plan to share this double date camping trip
1:59
Speaker 1: with another cup and the other couple was Anya tu
2:02
Speaker 1: Luki Maki, who was also fifteen years old and was
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Speaker 1: Mila's close friend. And the two girls were classmates and
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Speaker 1: neighbors in Vanda, and they decided to go camping together
2:12
Speaker 1: as a fun excursion to kick off the summer. And
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Speaker 1: she was dating the fourth member of the group Seppo
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Speaker 1: Boys Men and her father was initially against the trip,
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Speaker 1: but her mother was able to convince him to let
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Speaker 1: her go so in June nineteen sixty finished summer days
2:26
Speaker 1: were long and bright, so a very enticing time for
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Speaker 1: young teenagers like Anya to enjoy nature and with her
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Speaker 1: good friend Mala and with their boyfriends along, Anya anticipated
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Speaker 1: a night of laughter and memories by the lakeside. So
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Speaker 1: Seppo and Taro Boisman, who was eighteen years old, was
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Speaker 1: one of the two older boys in the group and
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Speaker 1: he was also from Vanta, and Seppo was best friends
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Speaker 1: with Nil's Gustafsson, so they were all really good friends
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Speaker 1: and the two men specifically likely bonded over school classes,
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Speaker 1: hobbies like motorcycles, and plans for the future. So at eighteen,
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Speaker 1: Seppo would have been either just finished with secondary school
3:05
Speaker 1: or about to enter military service, as was customary for
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Speaker 1: finished youths around that age, and physically, Seppa was a
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Speaker 1: very abled body teen and he actually worked as an
3:14
Speaker 1: apprentice electrician. And as the older boyfriend, Seppo might have
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Speaker 1: felt responsible for the safety of the group during this trip,
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Speaker 1: and he rode his motorcycle with Anya on the back
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Speaker 1: to the camp site, carrying gear and in high spirits
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Speaker 1: for the night under the stars. And Nils Gustafsson, who
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Speaker 1: was also eighteen years old, but slightly younger, is the
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Speaker 1: most complex figure in this story. At the time of
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Speaker 1: the trip, Nils was an athletic, blonde teenager from Vanta,
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Speaker 1: known to be popular, outgoing, and fun loving, and he
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Speaker 1: was Seppo's best friend, as we know, and Mila's boyfriend.
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Speaker 1: Nils had just reached adulthood at eighteen, and like Seppo,
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Speaker 1: he enjoyed riding motorcycles, so obviously the two men each
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Speaker 1: had a motorcycle which they used to ferry their girlfriends
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Speaker 1: to Lake botom A. Nils, by all appear pearances, was
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Speaker 1: also just a normal teen excited for a camping adventure
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Speaker 1: with his sweetheart and close friends. So these four teenagers
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Speaker 1: formed two couples and a tight knit friend group, and
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Speaker 1: everyone in the group got along and looked forward to
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Speaker 1: spending time together. In essence, this was a sweetheart's getaway
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Speaker 1: for two young couples, and the dynamic was likely typical
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Speaker 1: of teenagers joking around, a bit of flirting between the
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Speaker 1: couples and mutual trust, and there was no indication before
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Speaker 1: the trip of any serious tensions or conflicts among them.
4:28
Speaker 1: And it's important to note these positive relationships because later
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Speaker 1: on some theories would suggest some internal strife or jealousy,
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Speaker 1: but we'll get into that later. So at least at
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Speaker 1: the outset, all four seemed happy to be together. And
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Speaker 1: little did they know that this camaraderie and youthful adventure
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Speaker 1: would soon turn into a scene of unimaginable horror. So Saturday,
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Speaker 1: June fourth, nineteen sixty was the day the group set
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Speaker 1: out for their camping excursion, and the teenagers, as we know,
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Speaker 1: chose Lake Botom or in Finnish botom and Yarv, which
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Speaker 1: was a scenic lake about twenty kilometers west of Helsinki,
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Speaker 1: as their destination. So Lake botom located near the city
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Speaker 1: of Espo, was known to be a popular camping spot
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Speaker 1: among locals. It was just a place where campers could
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Speaker 1: pitch a tent, swim or fish, and just enjoy nature.
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Speaker 1: And it's described as a large, tranquil lake surrounded by
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Speaker 1: villages and forests of birch and pine. In other words,
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Speaker 1: an ideal setting for an overnight outing in the wilderness
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Speaker 1: without being too far from home. And the decision may
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Speaker 1: have been spontaneous or planned in advance, and sources aren't
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Speaker 1: clear on exactly who suggested it, but all four eagerly agreed,
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Speaker 1: and that's what we know for sure, and all of
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Speaker 1: them being from the city of Venta, a relatively short
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Speaker 1: distance away, made Lake Botom an attractive and convenient spot
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Speaker 1: for a quick getaway, and the boys, Niels and Seppo,
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Speaker 1: wanted to make use of their recently acquired motorcycles and
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Speaker 1: were excited to take their girlfriends on a ride and
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Speaker 1: camp adventure. So with parental permission sorted as needed for
5:55
Speaker 1: fifteen year old girls and their destination picked, the stage
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Speaker 1: was set. So the group packed light as typical for
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Speaker 1: overnight camping, and they had a single tent large enough
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Speaker 1: to accommodate all four of them, which emphasized the coziness
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Speaker 1: of their plan, roughing it if you will, together under
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Speaker 1: one canvas, so they were all staying in one tent,
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Speaker 1: and they likely brought sleeping bags, some food and treats
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Speaker 1: and other essentials, and because they were traveling by motorcycle,
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Speaker 1: everything had to be very compact, so we don't know
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Speaker 1: if they carried any weapons or protection like a hunting
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Speaker 1: knife for camping. Nothing of the sort is mentioned, so
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Speaker 1: it appears they did not anticipate any danger from people
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Speaker 1: or animals, and It's worth noting the natural phenomenon of
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Speaker 1: the white night in Finland, which they were set to experience,
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Speaker 1: because in early June at that latitude, the sun barely
6:46
Speaker 1: dips below the horizon, meaning nightfall is more of a
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Speaker 1: prolonged twilight, and one rider describes these white nights as
6:53
Speaker 1: having a strange grayish light, like someone dialed down the
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Speaker 1: brightness for a few hours, and it almost eerie silence.
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Speaker 1: So this ethereal atmosphere can be magical for campers, and
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Speaker 1: for our four teenagers, the never quite dark night was
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Speaker 1: probably part of the thrill, and upon arrival they would
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Speaker 1: have seen a very picturesque lake and beautiful natural surroundings,
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Speaker 1: and the area was also known to have a kiosk,
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Speaker 1: which is a small convenience stand run by a local
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Speaker 1: man and often hosted campers and hikers. And it's not
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Speaker 1: clear if the teens stopped at the kiosk or interacted
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Speaker 1: with locals upon arriving, but they proceeded to pick a
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Speaker 1: spot for their tent, and they chose a spot along
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Speaker 1: the shore for pitching the tent, a flat clearing not
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Speaker 1: far from the water, and by all accounts, their arrival
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Speaker 1: and set up went very smoothly, and Nils and Seppo
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Speaker 1: likely helped each other assemble the tent, while Myla and
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Speaker 1: Anya might have laid out sleeping bags and gathered firewood.
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Speaker 1: So with their camp established, the journey concluded and the
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Speaker 1: leisure began. So the daylight hours of June fourth passed
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Speaker 1: uneventfully and pleasantly for the group by all accounts. In
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Speaker 1: the afternoon was likely spent in typical camping pastimes, possibly
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Speaker 1: swimming in the lake's cool waters, lounging on the shore,
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Speaker 1: and exploring the woods, and according to later reports, nothing
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Speaker 1: unusual happened during that day. The friends enjoyed each other's
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Speaker 1: company and the freedom of being out in nature, and
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Speaker 1: the evening of June fourth was still bright due to
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Speaker 1: that white night effect, but eventually a gray dusk settled
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Speaker 1: and at some point the teens retired to their tent
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Speaker 1: for the night. And four people in one tent would
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Speaker 1: have been a very snug fit, and they likely arranged
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Speaker 1: themselves with the couples next to each other, and based
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Speaker 1: on diary evidence and witness accounts, the group did not
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Speaker 1: venture away from their own campsite to socialize that night,
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Speaker 1: at least not according to initial statements, So as far
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Speaker 1: as the teens were concerned, that night, they were alone
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Speaker 1: and secure in their campsite. Now allegedly there was mention
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Speaker 1: of the boys being drunk in Mila's diary, but they
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Speaker 1: would fall asleep and woke up around two a m.
8:53
Speaker 1: After which the boys got up for a bit and
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Speaker 1: the girls fell immediately back to sleep, and eventually they
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Speaker 1: were all asleep inside their tent. The night was calm,
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Speaker 1: with the lake waters gently lapping in the pale night
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Speaker 1: sky above, and it should have been a peaceful slumber
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Speaker 1: in a beautiful place. However, as the early morning hours
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Speaker 1: rolled around, an unknown terror crept toward the unsuspecting campers.
9:15
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Speaker 1: the channel. And let's get back to it. So at
11:43
Speaker 1: approximately four to six am on June fifth, an unknown
11:47
Speaker 1: assailant launched a frenzied attack on the four sleeping teenagers,
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Speaker 1: and the evidence indicates that the killer struck from outside
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Speaker 1: the tent, slashing and bludgeting through the tents fabric without
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Speaker 1: evering it. In other words, the perpetrator used the tent
12:03
Speaker 1: itself as a barrier, blindly sing and swinging at the
12:07
Speaker 1: victims through the canvas walls, and the weapon was most
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Speaker 1: likely a knife, possibly accompanied by a heavy blunt instrument.
12:15
Speaker 1: But these were extremely violent and swift, and the teenagers
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Speaker 1: were caught completely off guard because they were sleeping, and
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Speaker 1: you can only imagine the confusion and terror inside that tent,
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Speaker 1: with the sounds of the canvas ripping and screams of pain,
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Speaker 1: and the sudden realization that they were under attack. So
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Speaker 1: the tent itself quickly collapsed onto the occupants during the onslaught,
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Speaker 1: and much later, witnesses would recall seeing the tent in
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Speaker 1: a flattened state, as if it had imploded on itself,
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Speaker 1: and investigators believe the assailant first cut the tent's guidelines
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Speaker 1: or supports, perhaps to trap the victims inside the tent,
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Speaker 1: and then downward through the material, but all four teenagers
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Speaker 1: were injured in this gruesome attack, and three would not survive.
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Speaker 1: But despite the viciousness of the attack, none of the
13:04
Speaker 1: victims managed to escape or fully fend off the assailant,
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Speaker 1: and there are no reports of any of the teens
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Speaker 1: getting out of the tent to run or fight, indicating
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Speaker 1: how sudden and overwhelming the ambush was. And during the
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Speaker 1: frenzi one victim, Nil's Gustaveson, may have caught a fleeting
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Speaker 1: glimpse of the attacker, and Gustavuson would be the lone
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Speaker 1: survivor in this attack, and he would later claim that
13:28
Speaker 1: in a brief moment of half consciousness, he saw a
13:31
Speaker 1: dark figure dressed in black with bright red eyes looming
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Speaker 1: over them, and this eerie description red eyes as if glowing,
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Speaker 1: had become part of the legend of Lake Botom and
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Speaker 1: it's unclear if this was a hallucination, a distorted memory,
13:48
Speaker 1: perhaps the attacker had some reflective material, or it was
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Speaker 1: a product of trauma, or just a genuine detail, but regardless,
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Speaker 1: it was the only hint of the attacker's appearance by
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Speaker 1: any of the victims, and the assaults likely lasted only minutes,
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Speaker 1: but was absolutely devastating, and by the time the assailant
14:08
Speaker 1: was done, three of the four friends lay dead or dying,
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Speaker 1: and the lone survivor was unconscious and gravely wounded. And
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Speaker 1: the killer then left as mysteriously as he had arrived.
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Speaker 1: And at around six a m. Not long after the attack,
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Speaker 1: a pair of young bird watchers in the area reportedly
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Speaker 1: noticed something odd in the distance and they saw a
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Speaker 1: collapsed tent and a blond haired man walking away from
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Speaker 1: the camp site, and the sighting would later become a crucial,
14:35
Speaker 1: if ambiguous clue, so the birdwatchers did not approach the site,
14:39
Speaker 1: thinking perhaps that nothing was seriously wrong, And meanwhile, the
14:43
Speaker 1: murderer vanished into the early morning missed, and the crime
14:46
Speaker 1: was over in mere moments, but its repercussions were only
14:50
Speaker 1: just beginning. So the attacks aftermath for each of the
14:53
Speaker 1: four campers can be pieced together from the physical evidence
14:57
Speaker 1: and forensic reports, and tragically, Myla, Anya and Seppo all
15:01
Speaker 1: sustained fatal wounds, while Nils survived with serious injuries. So
15:06
Speaker 1: Mala suffered the worst fate of all victims, and she
15:10
Speaker 1: was found outside the tent, having been pulled or dragged
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Speaker 1: part way out during the attack, and disturbingly, Mala was
15:17
Speaker 1: undressed from the waist down when discovered, and whether the
15:20
Speaker 1: assailant removed her lower clothing or it was a result
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Speaker 1: of being dragged is uncertain, but the state of her
15:27
Speaker 1: attire suggested a possible s motive or grotesque staging. And
15:32
Speaker 1: Mala's injuries were also the most severe, and she had
15:35
Speaker 1: been dozens of times, far more than the others, and
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Speaker 1: forensic analysis indicated that many of her wounds were inflicted
15:44
Speaker 1: after she was already deceased, So it's kind of in
15:47
Speaker 1: line with just a very angry sounding like personal attack,
15:54
Speaker 1: like a vengeance he had just for Mala specifically. And
15:58
Speaker 1: also Mala's head had been extremely hard, causing shattering injuries,
16:03
Speaker 1: so this was just extreme overkill for Mila, and it
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Speaker 1: seems to be she was like the center of this
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Speaker 1: person's rage. But since Mila was Nil's girlfriend, the only
16:17
Speaker 1: survivor's girlfriend, some later theories speculated about personal jealousy or
16:21
Speaker 1: hatred directed at her, but we'll talk about that later.
16:25
Speaker 1: But in nineteen sixty, investigators could only note that she
16:28
Speaker 1: clearly bore the brunt of the killer's fury and Mala's
16:32
Speaker 1: body was also found lying on top of the collapsed
16:35
Speaker 1: tent canvas near Nil's, but there was no sign of
16:38
Speaker 1: her actually being speed in terms of confirmed evidence, but
16:42
Speaker 1: her being partially unclothed and the brutality left the possibility
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Speaker 1: in people's mind. So Mala would die at the scene
16:50
Speaker 1: from a combination of spoons and blunt force trauma. Now,
16:53
Speaker 1: Anya's body was found inside of the tent, and she
16:57
Speaker 1: was likely attacked and killed before she had any chance
17:00
Speaker 1: to escape. And Anya's injuries, while fatal, were notably less
17:05
Speaker 1: extensive than Mala's, and she had been stabbed and hit,
17:09
Speaker 1: but not to the excessive degree of her friend Mala,
17:13
Speaker 1: and it's possible Anya died quickly from her wounds as well,
17:16
Speaker 1: but there's no indication that Anya was moved or deliberately
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Speaker 1: posed either. She simply remained where she was attacked inside
17:24
Speaker 1: the tent, and Anya's cause of death was the multiple
17:28
Speaker 1: wounds and blunt force trauma to her head as well,
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Speaker 1: consistent with the same weapons that killed the others, and
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Speaker 1: the horror of all this suddenness meant Anya likely never
17:37
Speaker 1: even fully awoke before she was killed, and Seppa would
17:40
Speaker 1: also be found dead inside of the tent as well,
17:43
Speaker 1: so as the other man and the oldest in the group,
17:46
Speaker 1: and one might expect he'd have resisted the attack to
17:49
Speaker 1: some degree, but the situation gave him little chance, given
17:53
Speaker 1: the fact that he was asleep most likely, and Seppo's
17:56
Speaker 1: injuries included wounds and blunt force trauma as well, similar
17:59
Speaker 1: to as and there is speculation that Seppo might have
18:03
Speaker 1: awoken and confronted the attacker for at least a moment. However,
18:07
Speaker 1: at the crime scene, Seppo's body was found inside the
18:10
Speaker 1: tent with fatal wounds, indicating he did not get that
18:13
Speaker 1: far if there was any sort of scuffle. And notably,
18:16
Speaker 1: neither Seppo nor Anya were attacked post mortem like Mila was,
18:21
Speaker 1: so their killings, while violent, seemed straightforward by comparison. So
18:25
Speaker 1: at just fifteen years old, fifteen years old and eighteen
18:28
Speaker 1: years old, these poor teenagers lost their lives in what
18:32
Speaker 1: should have just been a safe camping trip. And then
18:35
Speaker 1: there was Nils, who was the sole survivor of this massacre,
18:39
Speaker 1: but he came exceedingly close to being the fourth fatality
18:43
Speaker 1: because he was found alive but unconscious, lying on the
18:46
Speaker 1: ground near the tents outside on the same side as Mila,
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Speaker 1: and Nils had severe injuries. His jaw was broken, he
18:54
Speaker 1: had fractured cheekbones, and a deep wound to his forehead,
18:59
Speaker 1: and he also stained a serious concussion and he was
19:02
Speaker 1: also covered in blood and initially responders thought he might
19:06
Speaker 1: die of his injuries because he was barely clinging to
19:09
Speaker 1: life when he was discovered. And Nils was found barefoot,
19:13
Speaker 1: and notably, his shoes were missing from the scene, so
19:16
Speaker 1: it appeared he had been inside the tent during the
19:18
Speaker 1: attack and somehow ended up outside of the tent, possibly
19:22
Speaker 1: staggering out or being knocked out of the collapse tent
19:25
Speaker 1: by the assailant, and he would collapse next to Myla,
19:28
Speaker 1: And there are differing accounts of his exact position when
19:32
Speaker 1: he was found. Some say he was on top of
19:34
Speaker 1: part of the tent canvas, others that he was just
19:38
Speaker 1: beside it, but in any case, he was within a
19:40
Speaker 1: couple of meters of the other victims. But despite his
19:43
Speaker 1: grievous wounds, Nils was still alive when help finally arrived
19:47
Speaker 1: several hours later, and he had no memory of the
19:51
Speaker 1: actual attack, likely a merciful side effect of the head trauma,
19:55
Speaker 1: and is mentioned only later recalled, and a fleeting image
19:58
Speaker 1: of the red eyed figure in black attacking them. So
20:02
Speaker 1: Neil's survival would have major consequences. It meant there was
20:06
Speaker 1: a witness, albeit with a shattered memory, and a victim
20:11
Speaker 1: who could later be scrutinized. But on that morning in
20:15
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty, Neils was viewed purely as a victim who
20:18
Speaker 1: narrowly escaped the fate of his friends, and he was
20:21
Speaker 1: rushed to the hospital as soon as rescuers came, and
20:24
Speaker 1: his injuries were documented as consistent with being attacked by
20:27
Speaker 1: the same perpetrator who killed the others. So the scene
20:30
Speaker 1: at Lake Bodom on the morning of June fifth, nineteen
20:33
Speaker 1: sixty was one of both confusion and horror, because the
20:36
Speaker 1: teen's tent had been collapsed onto itself, visibly torn and
20:40
Speaker 1: soaked with blood, and blood splatter and pools around the
20:43
Speaker 1: site made it clear a vicious attack had occurred, and
20:47
Speaker 1: the tent fabric had multiple slashes and punctures from the
20:50
Speaker 1: knife thrusts, and inside the tent was a disarray of
20:54
Speaker 1: sleeping bags and belongings that were drenched in blood as well,
20:58
Speaker 1: and the entire area was irreally quiet, in the early
21:01
Speaker 1: light of dawn, except for the distressing site at the
21:04
Speaker 1: campsite itself, and evidence would indicate that the killer had
21:07
Speaker 1: attacked from outside like we were talking about before, cutting
21:10
Speaker 1: the tent open and cutting downward. But remarkably, no murder
21:14
Speaker 1: weapon was found at the scene, so neither a knife
21:17
Speaker 1: nor any blunt instrument was recovered, and this meant the
21:21
Speaker 1: assailant took the weapons with them or disposed of them somewhere,
21:25
Speaker 1: and investigators later scored the lake and surrounding woods, but
21:28
Speaker 1: the murder weapons have never been located. And another baffling
21:32
Speaker 1: aspect was that several of the victim's personal items were
21:35
Speaker 1: missing or oddly displaced, like the keys to the teen's
21:39
Speaker 1: motorcycles were gone, yet the motorcycles were left parked near
21:42
Speaker 1: the camp site untouched, which spawed and wallets and some
21:47
Speaker 1: articles of clothing were also reported missing, and most peculiarly,
21:51
Speaker 1: Nils Gustafusson's shoes were nowhere to be found at the campsite,
21:55
Speaker 1: so this was strange because one would expect shoes to
21:58
Speaker 1: be left by the tents or inside, and an intensive
22:02
Speaker 1: search was launched for these missing items, and in the
22:05
Speaker 1: days to follow, some of the missing clothing and Neil's
22:07
Speaker 1: shoes were discovered about five hundred meters, which is about
22:10
Speaker 1: a half a kilometer away from the tent hidden. It
22:14
Speaker 1: was as if the perpetrator had gathered certain items and
22:17
Speaker 1: stashed or toss them while fleeing, and the shoes in
22:20
Speaker 1: particular would later become crucial evidence, but in nineteen sixty
22:25
Speaker 1: it was simply perplexing to find them so far from
22:28
Speaker 1: Neil's who again was found barefoot. So why would a
22:32
Speaker 1: random killer take the time to remove and hide a
22:35
Speaker 1: victims' shoes doesn't really add up or make sense. I mean,
22:40
Speaker 1: none of this makes sense, but that's particularly odd. So
22:43
Speaker 1: the crime scene presented investigators with a chaotic mix of clues,
22:48
Speaker 1: intense violence, missing belongings, no obvious motive, and also notable,
22:52
Speaker 1: aside from the birdwatcher's account of a blonde man walking
22:55
Speaker 1: away at dawn, there were no eyewitnesses to the crime itself,
22:59
Speaker 1: and the other camp in the area did not hear screams,
23:02
Speaker 1: or if they did, they did not realize what it was,
23:05
Speaker 1: and it's possible that any cries were muffled by the
23:07
Speaker 1: tent and the quick, incapacitating nature of the attack, and
23:11
Speaker 1: the scene was remote enough that help did not arrive
23:14
Speaker 1: until hours later, meaning the crime scene sat exposed to
23:18
Speaker 1: the morning and sadly, the way the scene was handled
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Speaker 1: get back to it. So, despite the attack occurring around
25:25
Speaker 1: dawn around four to six am, it would be several
25:28
Speaker 1: hours before the victims were actually found and help arrived.
25:31
Speaker 1: And the first people to notice something was wrong were
25:34
Speaker 1: the aforementioned, a small group of boys who were out
25:37
Speaker 1: birdwatching in the area around six am, and they continued
25:40
Speaker 1: on their way, not immediately realizing that they may have
25:43
Speaker 1: witnessed a murderer fleeing, and as a result, the crime
25:47
Speaker 1: scene remained unattended for several more hours, and it wasn't
25:51
Speaker 1: until eleven am that the bodies were officially discovered, and
25:55
Speaker 1: a local man named Resto Sren identified in some reports
25:59
Speaker 1: as a jogger or carpenter out for a morning walk,
26:02
Speaker 1: came upon the campsite and saw the carnage. And he
26:05
Speaker 1: saw the tent flattened and bloodied, and the unmistakable sight
26:09
Speaker 1: of bodies either on top or inside the tent, and
26:12
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how he felt seeing this, but luckily
26:16
Speaker 1: Risto immediately alerted authorities and he contacted the police, who
26:20
Speaker 1: arrived at the scene by noon on June fifth, And
26:23
Speaker 1: some sources alternatively name a carpenter called Escoova Joe Hanson
26:29
Speaker 1: as a discoverer. So it's possible that Johnson and Syrin
26:33
Speaker 1: are the same person, or one of these people accompanied
26:37
Speaker 1: the other, or one did find it first, or by
26:39
Speaker 1: the other so I'm not positive on that, but those
26:41
Speaker 1: are the two names we have. But regardless, the key
26:44
Speaker 1: point is that a local adult found the victims late
26:46
Speaker 1: in the morning and called police. So when police and
26:49
Speaker 1: medics arrived to this horror show in front of them,
26:53
Speaker 1: to their surprise and relief, they found Neil's Gustafson still
26:57
Speaker 1: alive despite his severe injuries. Quickly extracted Neils and rushed
27:02
Speaker 1: him to the hospital in Helsinki for emergency treatment, and
27:05
Speaker 1: the other three teenagers were confirmed dead at the scene,
27:08
Speaker 1: and the police began to secure the area, but crucially,
27:11
Speaker 1: their approach to the crime scene would be later seen
27:14
Speaker 1: as disastrously lax. Initially, however, their focus was on the
27:19
Speaker 1: possibility of catching the perpetrator nearby and gathering obvious evidence,
27:23
Speaker 1: so they had the birdwatchers report, which gave them a
27:26
Speaker 1: rough timeline, and the murders likely happened shortly before that sighting,
27:31
Speaker 1: and the time of discovery at eleven a m meant
27:34
Speaker 1: the killer had around a five hour head start to escape,
27:37
Speaker 1: which is a lot of time. So law enforcement conducted
27:40
Speaker 1: a search of the vicinity, hoping the murderer or any
27:43
Speaker 1: weapon might still be around, but found nothing immediate. Meanwhile,
27:48
Speaker 1: news that three teens were slain at Lake Botom spread
27:51
Speaker 1: very quickly, drawing curiosity and alarm, and unfortunately, as more
27:56
Speaker 1: people flocked to the scene and investigators swarmed in, the
27:59
Speaker 1: integrity of the physical evidence on site would suffer greatly.
28:03
Speaker 1: But the first priority was interviewing the only person who
28:06
Speaker 1: might tell them what happened, and that was the survivor,
28:09
Speaker 1: Neils Gustafsson. So Neils obviously was in no condition to
28:13
Speaker 1: give a full statement immediately, and he was transported to
28:17
Speaker 1: the hospital and treated for his broken jaw and other injuries.
28:20
Speaker 1: But when he was able to talk, Neils described the
28:23
Speaker 1: events as he remembered them, which unfortunately wasn't much, and
28:28
Speaker 1: he claimed to have little to no memory of the
28:30
Speaker 1: actual attack, likely due to his concussion and trauma. But
28:34
Speaker 1: Neils asserted that the night had been uneventful until he
28:38
Speaker 1: woke up in pained during the old and he recalled
28:40
Speaker 1: seeing a shadowy figure just in black attacking the tent
28:43
Speaker 1: and said that this person had bright red eyes, an
28:46
Speaker 1: image that stuck with him from that split second glance.
28:50
Speaker 1: But beyond that, Nils could not recount a clear sequence
28:53
Speaker 1: of events, and he did not remember any argument or
28:56
Speaker 1: disturbance before the attack, reinforcing that it just came without
29:00
Speaker 1: any sort of warning, and he couldn't say how he
29:03
Speaker 1: ended up outside the tent either, and presumably he lost
29:06
Speaker 1: consciousness at some point in the struggle and woke up
29:09
Speaker 1: much later in the hospital. And over the days and
29:11
Speaker 1: weeks after the incident, Nils was interviewed multiple times, but
29:16
Speaker 1: his story remained that he remembered almost nothing, and this
29:19
Speaker 1: prostrated investigators who hoped for an indication or at least
29:24
Speaker 1: a clue. The bird watcher's comment of seeing a man
29:27
Speaker 1: with blonde hair wasn't much to go on, and it
29:30
Speaker 1: was a slim lead in Finland, especially where blonde hair
29:33
Speaker 1: is very common, so it didn't narrow things down much
29:37
Speaker 1: at all. And importantly, at this early stage, police considered
29:40
Speaker 1: Neils Gustavusen a victim, not a suspect, because his injuries
29:44
Speaker 1: were so severe and extensive that it seemed implausible he
29:48
Speaker 1: was anything but an attacked party. In fact, decades after,
29:52
Speaker 1: Gustafson's consistent claim was that he suffered a memory blackout
29:56
Speaker 1: and survived by luck, and he was generally believed. But
29:59
Speaker 1: Neil last memory before the attack, aside from the attacker's
30:03
Speaker 1: image was of the friends happily arriving and settling in
30:07
Speaker 1: the campsite itself, and everything after that turned into a
30:10
Speaker 1: nightmare he largely could not recall. So this incomplete account,
30:14
Speaker 1: with no motive, no clear perpetrator identity, meant that from
30:18
Speaker 1: the very beginning, the Lake Bodom case hinged more on
30:21
Speaker 1: physical evidence and investigative work than eyewitness testimony, and with
30:26
Speaker 1: Nils unable to name or describe the assailant in detail,
30:29
Speaker 1: the police had to cast a wide net in their investigation,
30:33
Speaker 1: and unfortunately, as they started that process, some critical mistakes
30:37
Speaker 1: would be made, and one of those major mistakes was
30:40
Speaker 1: that the police didn't cordon off the campsite adequately, because
30:44
Speaker 1: after they arrived around noon, multiple officers and even volunteers
30:47
Speaker 1: traped through the site without full regard for preserving evidence.
30:51
Speaker 1: In fact, crowds of people, including other police, locals, journalists,
30:54
Speaker 1: and curiosity seekers were allowed to wander around the scene
30:58
Speaker 1: in the immediate aftermath, which is just doesn't make sense
31:01
Speaker 1: to me. But okay, it's a different time, I guess,
31:03
Speaker 1: not really sixties. There there's a lot of crime going
31:06
Speaker 1: on anyway, but The result was that footprints, potential trace evidence,
31:10
Speaker 1: and the original positions of items got trampled or moved,
31:14
Speaker 1: and later analysis slammed this as a serious contamination of
31:18
Speaker 1: the crime scene. And another issue was recordkeeping because reports
31:22
Speaker 1: suggest that investigators failed to systemically document the scene before
31:26
Speaker 1: disturbing it, and photographs were far and few between, with
31:31
Speaker 1: only a handful of prime scene photos that actually exist,
31:34
Speaker 1: and some were taken after things had been moved, so
31:37
Speaker 1: like useless. Essentially, the precise measurements of distances and items'
31:42
Speaker 1: locations were not logged, which would severely handicap the forensics.
31:46
Speaker 1: The Recognizing that items were missing like the keys, while
31:50
Speaker 1: It's clothing and shoes, the police organized a search of
31:53
Speaker 1: all the surrounding area, and in doing so they made
31:56
Speaker 1: yet another blunder by bringing in soldiers to comb the
31:59
Speaker 1: woods around the lake, and while well intentioned, this resulted
32:04
Speaker 1: in dozens of additional people stomping through potential evidence zones.
32:08
Speaker 1: But the soldiers and searchers, as we know, did manage
32:11
Speaker 1: to find some of the missing items as mentioned, like
32:13
Speaker 1: Gustavuson's shoes and some clothing about five hundred meters away,
32:17
Speaker 1: but several items, including the motorcycle, keys, and presumably the
32:20
Speaker 1: murder weapons were never found, and these just early lapses
32:25
Speaker 1: gave the killer a tremendous advantage because by the time
32:29
Speaker 1: the scene was cleared of contamination, any subtle clues like fingerprints,
32:34
Speaker 1: hair fibers, or shoeprints from the perpetrator were likely destroyed
32:38
Speaker 1: or hopelessly intermixed with others, and investigators were largely left
32:41
Speaker 1: with the victims bodies and belongings as evidence, plus the
32:46
Speaker 1: accounts of the people like the birdwatchers. And another challenge
32:49
Speaker 1: was motive as a crime did not immediately suggest one.
32:53
Speaker 1: Robbery didn't fit well, since valuable motorcycles were left and
32:57
Speaker 1: only some personal items taken, possibly as trophies, potentially because
33:01
Speaker 1: we know kialers do that and s was considered because
33:05
Speaker 1: of Mala's state, but aside from her being partially unclothed,
33:09
Speaker 1: evidence was inconclusive and anes motive also didn't explain the
33:13
Speaker 1: males being killed as well, and a crime of passion
33:16
Speaker 1: or personal conflict seemed unlikely given all victims were presumably
33:20
Speaker 1: friends and asleep at the time, so police were dealing
33:24
Speaker 1: with a bizarre, seemingly senseless massacre and in the absence
33:29
Speaker 1: of obvious leads, they started exploring the idea of an
33:32
Speaker 1: outside attacker just roaming the area, and they questioned local
33:36
Speaker 1: residents and known troublemakers, and early on one name emerged
33:40
Speaker 1: from locals whispers, and that was a man who ran
33:43
Speaker 1: a nearby kiosk who had a reputation for hostility towards campers.
33:48
Speaker 1: And we'll discuss this soon. However, initially officers had no
33:52
Speaker 1: hard evidence against any particular individual, and no clear suspect
33:57
Speaker 1: emerged in the initial phase. The only scription was the
34:00
Speaker 1: blonde man seen walking away and the red eyed man
34:04
Speaker 1: in black. So police created a rough, composite image based
34:07
Speaker 1: on the sighting and niels vague recollection, and basically it
34:11
Speaker 1: was just a generic idea of a blonde, possibly tall man,
34:15
Speaker 1: so you might as well have just drawn a stick man.
34:18
Speaker 1: And checkpoints were not immediately set up because by the
34:21
Speaker 1: time they considered it, hours had passed and any culprit
34:23
Speaker 1: was long gone. And as days turned into weeks, the
34:27
Speaker 1: investigation just continued to struggle, and the botched crime scene
34:31
Speaker 1: handling meant that a wealth of forensic evidence was lost
34:35
Speaker 1: and what newspaper or even later harshly criticized the police,
34:38
Speaker 1: noting that careless onlookers and even curious campers all but
34:42
Speaker 1: destroyed the murder scene after police had left, and in
34:45
Speaker 1: these early weeks, investigators did their best with traditional detective work,
34:50
Speaker 1: interviewing anyone who might have been near Lake bodom, checking
34:53
Speaker 1: alibis of local ex convicts or mentally unstable individuals, and
34:57
Speaker 1: sending out alerts in case a bloodied suspec turned up
35:00
Speaker 1: at a hospital, and one actually did. But with each
35:04
Speaker 1: passing day, no arrest was made and the case began
35:07
Speaker 1: to cool down, and the groundwork, or lack thereof, laid
35:10
Speaker 1: in this initial investigation would deeply affect the decades to come,
35:14
Speaker 1: and leads that might have been solved with solid evidence
35:17
Speaker 1: turned into mere speculation. But still, the police did pursue
35:21
Speaker 1: several theories and suspects in the months and years after
35:24
Speaker 1: the murders, and some plausible, some more far fetched, and
35:28
Speaker 1: will now turn to those suspects and theories that emerged
35:31
Speaker 1: as detectives and the public tried to answer the burning
35:35
Speaker 1: question who killed the teens at Lake botom So With
35:39
Speaker 1: an unknown assailant at large and a community in fear,
35:42
Speaker 1: numerous suspects and theories surfaced in the aftermath of the
35:46
Speaker 1: Lake Bodom murders, and investigators looked at local characters with
35:49
Speaker 1: bad reputations, potential drifters or outsiders, and even the surviving
35:54
Speaker 1: victim himself, and over the years, speculation ran rampant. So
35:59
Speaker 1: early on a ten TI focused on a local resident
36:02
Speaker 1: named Karl Vandrmar Yulstrom, infamously nicknamed Kiosk Man because he
36:07
Speaker 1: ran a small kiosk in the campground near Lake Bodom,
36:11
Speaker 1: and Yulstrom was well known in the community, and not
36:14
Speaker 1: for good reasons, because he had a history of hostility
36:17
Speaker 1: toward campers and young people in the area, and locals
36:20
Speaker 1: were counted that he would often shout at or harass
36:23
Speaker 1: people who came near his property. In fact, he was
36:26
Speaker 1: said to have cut down tents and thrown rocks at
36:30
Speaker 1: visitors he didn't like. Not a nice guy, so this
36:34
Speaker 1: pattern of aggressive, anti social behavior made him an immediate
36:38
Speaker 1: person of interest. But a campsite full of teens was
36:41
Speaker 1: savagely attacked, and many in town quietly suspected Yulstrom from
36:46
Speaker 1: the start, and some even claimed to have seen him
36:49
Speaker 1: behaving oddly on the morning of the murders, and according
36:52
Speaker 1: to later accounts, several witnesses said they saw Yulstrom returning
36:56
Speaker 1: from the direction of the campsite that morning, looking wet
37:00
Speaker 1: as if he'd been in the lake, but these people
37:02
Speaker 1: were too afraid at the time to inform police of this,
37:05
Speaker 1: and Muelstrom's own wife initially provided him an alibi, saying
37:09
Speaker 1: he had been home in bed with her during the
37:11
Speaker 1: early hours of June fifth, thus supposedly unable to be
37:15
Speaker 1: the killer, and police interviewed Yulstrom and searched his property,
37:18
Speaker 1: but found no hard evidence linking him to this crime.
37:21
Speaker 1: So this Kiosk man denied any sort of involvement, and
37:24
Speaker 1: aside from community rumors and his general creepy demeanor, investigators
37:29
Speaker 1: had nothing concrete, and they were made skeptical of the
37:33
Speaker 1: secondhand reports of his drunken confessions or supposed knowledge of
37:38
Speaker 1: the crime, because it was said that Yulstrom, when heavily intoxicated,
37:42
Speaker 1: allegedly blurted out confessions to the murders on multiple occasions,
37:47
Speaker 1: which this is pretty suspicious to me, not okay, but
37:51
Speaker 1: when sober, he would either deny it or was just
37:53
Speaker 1: dismissed as a mentally disturbed individual, and police at the
37:57
Speaker 1: time chalked up his wild statements to him being quote
38:00
Speaker 1: unquote disturbed and did not pursue any charges. However, Yulstrom
38:06
Speaker 1: continued to draw suspicion and he did nothing to help
38:09
Speaker 1: his own case in nineteen sixty nine, when he died
38:12
Speaker 1: by drowning in Lake Bodom, apparently by himself. From and
38:18
Speaker 1: according to local lore, Yulstrom in a final note or conversation,
38:22
Speaker 1: hinted at guilt for the murders, though the exact details
38:26
Speaker 1: are murky, and after his death a haunting revelation would come.
38:31
Speaker 1: And on her deathbed years later, Yulstrom's wife recanted the
38:35
Speaker 1: alibi she had given him, and she confessed that she
38:38
Speaker 1: had lied to the police out of fear, implying that
38:41
Speaker 1: Yulstrom had not been home at the time of the
38:43
Speaker 1: murders and that he had threatened to kill her if
38:46
Speaker 1: she revealed the truth. So this posthumous admission by the
38:50
Speaker 1: wife gave enormous weight to the theory that the Kiosk
38:53
Speaker 1: keeper was the murderer, and villagers recalled that just days
38:58
Speaker 1: after the murders, Ulstrom had filled in a well in
39:02
Speaker 1: his yard with concrete, so it was speculated that he
39:05
Speaker 1: might have hid in the murder weapons or bloody clothing
39:08
Speaker 1: in the well, and police later did excavate or examine
39:12
Speaker 1: the property but found nothing. Nonetheless, Ulstrom remains one of
39:16
Speaker 1: the most popular suspect candidates in the public eye. He
39:21
Speaker 1: had motive if seething hatred for campers or teenagers as
39:25
Speaker 1: a motive and possible opportunity because he lived nearby, and
39:30
Speaker 1: just a general proclivity for violence, and in books and discussions,
39:34
Speaker 1: Ulstrom's name often comes up as the likely culprit, a
39:38
Speaker 1: grumpy misanthrope who took his anger out on four innocent kids.
39:43
Speaker 1: But officially, however, Yulstrom was never charged and with his death,
39:48
Speaker 1: the lead effectively died with him, and the case file
39:51
Speaker 1: on him remains circumstantial, and police in later years stated
39:55
Speaker 1: they could not conclusively place him at the scene, and
39:58
Speaker 1: thus he is an unproven but strongly suspected figure in
40:01
Speaker 1: the Botom case. So beyond the local kiosk Man, investigators
40:05
Speaker 1: and amateur sleuths have scrutinized several other potential suspects, and
40:10
Speaker 1: two stand out for the level of attention that they've received.
40:13
Speaker 1: One is Hans Ausman and two is Penti Soynenen, and
40:18
Speaker 1: each represents a very different profile, one a mysterious outsider
40:23
Speaker 1: with alleged spy connections and the other a troubled youth
40:27
Speaker 1: who confessed under dubious circumstances. But let's talk about Hans first.
40:33
Speaker 1: This name recurs in multiple Finnish unsolved cases, practically achieving
40:37
Speaker 1: a boogeyman's status because Hans was a German born, naturalized
40:42
Speaker 1: Finn who lived not far from Lake Botom, and rumors
40:46
Speaker 1: swirled that he had been a soldier, even an SS
40:50
Speaker 1: guard at Auschwitz and later possibly a KGB spy in
40:54
Speaker 1: Finland during the Cold War. Not people you want to
40:57
Speaker 1: be associated with, necessarily, whether or not the espionage tales
41:01
Speaker 1: are true. What put Osman in the Bodom Investigator sites
41:06
Speaker 1: was his suspicious hospital visit on June sixth, nineteen sixty. Member.
41:10
Speaker 1: When I mentioned that there was a man that walked
41:12
Speaker 1: in bloody at a hospital that night, this is the
41:15
Speaker 1: met because the very day after the murders, according to
41:18
Speaker 1: hospital staff in Helsinki, Osman showed up wearing clothes covered
41:22
Speaker 1: in red stains and with black dirt under his fingernails,
41:26
Speaker 1: and he behaved nervously and even pretended to faint or
41:29
Speaker 1: be unconscious at one point, and doctors who examined him
41:33
Speaker 1: believed the red stains on his clothing were blood, and
41:36
Speaker 1: they noted his agitated state as well, and considering the timing,
41:40
Speaker 1: this was a giant red flag, so the hospital alerted
41:44
Speaker 1: the police about this strange patient. However, when briefly questioned,
41:49
Speaker 1: Osman had an alibi, and the police stated that he
41:52
Speaker 1: was able to account for his whereabouts during the Boom murders,
41:56
Speaker 1: and some sources say authorities claimed Osman was in Germany
42:00
Speaker 1: at the time, and others say he was in Helsinki
42:03
Speaker 1: but with someone, and in any case, the police seemingly
42:07
Speaker 1: accepted the alibi and did not confiscate his clothing for testing,
42:11
Speaker 1: which is an oversight that later drew a lot of criticism,
42:14
Speaker 1: which is deserved in my opinion. But Osman notably also
42:19
Speaker 1: matched the limited description of the suspected killer because he
42:23
Speaker 1: had long blonde hair at the time and was fairly tall,
42:27
Speaker 1: and he looked eerily similar to the police sketch of
42:30
Speaker 1: the suspect, and intriguingly, after a newspaper published the birdwatcher's
42:34
Speaker 1: account of a blonde man seen leaving the tent, Osman
42:38
Speaker 1: cut his long hair short. Ooh, that's suspicious as well,
42:42
Speaker 1: and to some this signaled a guilty conscious altering his appearance,
42:46
Speaker 1: and Osman's name would surface in popular books years later,
42:49
Speaker 1: accusing him of not only the Bodham murders but other
42:53
Speaker 1: unsolved killings in Finland, and a former doctor named Yorma Paulo,
42:58
Speaker 1: who had seen Osman at the hospital, became convinced of
43:02
Speaker 1: his guilt and authored several books outlining a theory of
43:05
Speaker 1: Osman as a serial killer protected due to secret connections.
43:09
Speaker 1: So it's I mean, it's an interesting one, and it
43:12
Speaker 1: goes deep into you know, like authority figures at government
43:17
Speaker 1: and cover ups and all this kind of stuff, which
43:19
Speaker 1: at this same age, I just I wouldn't even put
43:22
Speaker 1: it past them at this point, but I don't know.
43:24
Speaker 1: One theory even posited that Osman's possible intelligence ties caused
43:29
Speaker 1: authorities to hush up or ignore evidence against him, essentially
43:33
Speaker 1: a cover up scenario, and it is a very dramatic
43:36
Speaker 1: speculation but obviously caught the public's imagination. But Osman would
43:41
Speaker 1: die in the late nineteen nineties, but not before reportedly
43:44
Speaker 1: confessing on his deathbed to at least one murder, though
43:49
Speaker 1: it's unclear if that referred to Bodem or another case.
43:53
Speaker 1: So officially, the police in two thousand and five reiterated
43:56
Speaker 1: that Osman had a verified alibi and was not considered
44:00
Speaker 1: a suspect by the original investigation. But to this day,
44:03
Speaker 1: many finished true crime enthusiasts think Hans Osman could have
44:07
Speaker 1: been the killer who slipped away. And then there's the
44:11
Speaker 1: lesser known suspect, which is penty Soanianen. Sorry if I'm
44:16
Speaker 1: saying that wrong, but he was a troubled Finnish Man
44:19
Speaker 1: who during the mid nineteen sixties was serving a prison
44:23
Speaker 1: sentence for other crimes, and he allegedly boasted to a
44:26
Speaker 1: fellow inmate that he was responsible for the Lake Bodham murders.
44:30
Speaker 1: But what do we know about criminals. They just love
44:32
Speaker 1: confess and shit just by by anything, just because they
44:36
Speaker 1: want like props in jail. But nevertheless, this jailhouse confession
44:40
Speaker 1: was taken seriously enough that he came under police scrutiny. However,
44:45
Speaker 1: a glaring fact undermines this claim, and that is that
44:49
Speaker 1: he was only about fourteen years old at the time
44:52
Speaker 1: of the murders. So at fourteen, could he realistically have
44:56
Speaker 1: overpowered four older teenagers, two of whom were eighteen year
45:00
Speaker 1: old boys, and many, including the police, found that highly doubtful,
45:05
Speaker 1: and even if armed, a lone fourteen year old would
45:08
Speaker 1: likely struggle to subdue an entire group, especially with Seppo
45:12
Speaker 1: and Nils present, and some have speculated about him being
45:15
Speaker 1: part of a larger group of assailants, but no evidence
45:18
Speaker 1: of multiple attackers was ever found, so inconsistencies in his
45:22
Speaker 1: story and lack of corroboration lat authorities to view his
45:26
Speaker 1: confession with a lot of skepticism. I just think he
45:29
Speaker 1: just wants street cred in jail, and he would die
45:32
Speaker 1: by deleting himself from life in nineteen sixty nine, the
45:38
Speaker 1: same year Yulstrom did before anything could be conclusively verified,
45:43
Speaker 1: so we'll never know. So with his death, this line
45:45
Speaker 1: of inquiry hit a dead end, and so Aninen is
45:49
Speaker 1: generally considered an unlikely suspect, but his name occasionally arises
45:53
Speaker 1: when cataloging all who have claimed responsibility. So aside from
45:58
Speaker 1: named suspects, a few broader theories have circulated, and one
46:02
Speaker 1: is a possibility of a random drifter or forwarder passing
46:06
Speaker 1: through who committed the murders and then disappeared. But Finland
46:09
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty had relatively low crime, and a crime
46:12
Speaker 1: this violent was just unprecedented, prompting ideas of an outsider perpetrator,
46:19
Speaker 1: and some thought perhaps a violent escapee prison or military
46:22
Speaker 1: deserter because there was an army base in the region,
46:25
Speaker 1: might have done it. And another theory poses that it
46:28
Speaker 1: was some kind of twisted revenge or vendetta, for instance,
46:32
Speaker 1: had one of the teens angered someone who then followed
46:35
Speaker 1: them to the campsite. But there's show evidence of any
46:38
Speaker 1: vendetta that ever emerged. And of course there were those
46:41
Speaker 1: who whispered about supernatural or occult explanations, especially given the
46:47
Speaker 1: red eyes detail Nils mentioned, but those are firmly in
46:51
Speaker 1: the realm of legend, and by the two thousands virtually
46:55
Speaker 1: every human suspect theory had been explored to some degree,
46:59
Speaker 1: with Yulstrim and Osman remain in the public's top picks
47:02
Speaker 1: for the likely culprits until a bombshell twist placed suspicion
47:08
Speaker 1: on someone who had long been presumed innocent, and that's
47:12
Speaker 1: the survivor Nil's Gustaffsen. So for forty years, Nils Gustafsen
47:17
Speaker 1: was regarded as the unfortunate sole survivor of the Botom attack,
47:22
Speaker 1: a victim left with physical and emotional scars. When Finnish
47:26
Speaker 1: police stunned the country by announcing that they had solved
47:30
Speaker 1: the case and they were charging Gustaffson with the murders,
47:35
Speaker 1: this development was nothing short of shocking. So how the
47:39
Speaker 1: heck did investigators come to suspect Nils after so many years?
47:44
Speaker 1: And the answer lies in a combination of new forensic
47:46
Speaker 1: analysis and revived witness testimony, which together formed a circumstantial
47:52
Speaker 1: case against him. So the cold case was reopened in
47:55
Speaker 1: the early two thousands by the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation,
47:59
Speaker 1: and with advances in DNA technology, forensic scientists re examined
48:03
Speaker 1: the old evidence, including bloodstains on clothing and the tent,
48:07
Speaker 1: and one key finding was that Gustafusson's shoes, which we
48:11
Speaker 1: call had been found hidden five hundred meters from the scene,
48:15
Speaker 1: had blood from the three slain victims on them, but
48:18
Speaker 1: none of Neil's own blood. Interesting and this was a
48:22
Speaker 1: crucial clue for the prosecution, and their interpretation was that
48:26
Speaker 1: if an unknown attacker had bloodied Nils along with the others.
48:31
Speaker 1: Neil's own blood should be on his shoes, so the
48:34
Speaker 1: absence suggested that Neils was not wearing the shoes at
48:38
Speaker 1: the time he bleed, i e. When he sustained the injuries,
48:42
Speaker 1: and instead the only blood on the shoes was from
48:45
Speaker 1: the other three, implying the shoes were worn during the
48:49
Speaker 1: killing of the others because everybody else's blood was on
48:52
Speaker 1: his shoes, but his own blood wasn't on his shoes,
48:55
Speaker 1: as if he killed them and hid his shoes because
48:59
Speaker 1: he had killed them and there was blood on them
49:01
Speaker 1: and it made him look guilty. So in the prosecutor scenario,
49:04
Speaker 1: after killing his friends, Nils removed his shoes, now stained
49:08
Speaker 1: with victims and his friend's blood, and hid them, then
49:12
Speaker 1: later injured himself, accounting for his blood not being on
49:16
Speaker 1: his shoes, and this forensic reinterpretation was the backbone of
49:20
Speaker 1: the case against him, and investigators also revisited witness statements. Notably,
49:25
Speaker 1: there was a woman camper who came forward and she
49:28
Speaker 1: claimed Nils and Seppo had drunkenly visited her tent on
49:32
Speaker 1: the evening before the murders and that Nils was acting aggressive,
49:36
Speaker 1: and this new testimony puts Neil's character in question, suggesting
49:40
Speaker 1: he might have been intoxicated and agitated that very night,
49:43
Speaker 1: so the prosecutors would weave a theory Neil's Gustavusen, in
49:47
Speaker 1: a jealous rage, murdered his friends, and according to their narrative,
49:52
Speaker 1: the four teens may have been drinking and Nils became
49:55
Speaker 1: drunk and belligerent, and conflict would ensue, possibly a fight
50:00
Speaker 1: between Neil's and Seppo, perhaps over something like Neil's making
50:03
Speaker 1: advances towards Seppo's girlfriend or an argument about the girls
50:07
Speaker 1: in general, and in this supposed altercation, Seppo may have
50:11
Speaker 1: punched Neil's, breaking Neil's jaw, which matches Neil's injury, and
50:16
Speaker 1: enraged by the fight and perhaps humiliated, the idea of
50:19
Speaker 1: a bruised male ego was floated during this trial. Neil's
50:23
Speaker 1: was said to have snapped, and the prosecution suggested that
50:27
Speaker 1: Neil's then turned violent, and he may have attacked Mala
50:31
Speaker 1: first in a frenzy of jealousy or anger, and this
50:34
Speaker 1: would explain why Mala's injuries were so extreme. As Neil's girlfriend,
50:40
Speaker 1: maybe he targeted her in a jealous fury, and why
50:43
Speaker 1: her injuries were so much more severe, and then after
50:47
Speaker 1: she was deceased, then he went to eliminate the witnesses
50:51
Speaker 1: who were Anya and Seppo, and in this scenario, Seppo's
50:54
Speaker 1: earlier fight injury to Neil's accounts for Neil's broken facial bones,
50:58
Speaker 1: and after killing the other, Nils then staged the scene
51:02
Speaker 1: to look like an outside attack, and the prosecutors alleged
51:05
Speaker 1: he hid some of their belongings to suggest robbery, hence
51:09
Speaker 1: taking wallets and keys, and he also removed his shoes,
51:12
Speaker 1: which were now covered in his own friend's blood, and
51:15
Speaker 1: hid them far away, likely in the early dawn, explaining
51:18
Speaker 1: the bird watcher seeing a blonde man walking away. Then,
51:21
Speaker 1: in a final gruesome step, Nils injured himself, and they
51:26
Speaker 1: proposed that he used either a rock or the tent
51:30
Speaker 1: pole to hit himself in the face, causing additional superficial
51:33
Speaker 1: stab wounds and worsening his concussion. And this was all
51:36
Speaker 1: to make it appear that he had been attacked as well,
51:40
Speaker 1: and finally he collapsed on top of the tent and
51:42
Speaker 1: pretended to be unconscious cover So this was a dramatic
51:47
Speaker 1: sounding theory to me, it sounds like the most likely
51:52
Speaker 1: to be honest, essentially accusing the victim of being the perpetrator.
51:55
Speaker 1: After decades, it was a long shot, and when Nils Gustafson,
52:00
Speaker 1: by then a sixty two year old retired bus driver,
52:03
Speaker 1: was arrested in March of two thousand and four, it
52:06
Speaker 1: made headlines across Finland and many found it hard to
52:09
Speaker 1: believe that the quiet man who had lived blamelessly for years,
52:13
Speaker 1: was secretly a murderer. Yet the police insisted they had
52:17
Speaker 1: evidence and formally charged him, leading to a trial in
52:20
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, And during the trial in August
52:22
Speaker 1: of two thousand and five, the prosecution laid out the
52:24
Speaker 1: case I just described, and they pointed to the DNA
52:27
Speaker 1: blood evidence on the shoes, the witness who placed Neils
52:31
Speaker 1: drunk and aggressive that night, and even an alleged incriminating
52:34
Speaker 1: remark from Nils, and one police officer testified that while
52:38
Speaker 1: in custody, Neils had muttered, what's done is done. I'll
52:42
Speaker 1: get fifteen years. Uh huh did you say, Nils? Could
52:47
Speaker 1: you say that again on camera? What's going on? Implying
52:51
Speaker 1: a subconscious confession that he expected to go to prison.
52:55
Speaker 1: And the prosecution also had the two birdwatchers claim that
52:59
Speaker 1: the man they saw while leaving the scene was indeed Niel's,
53:02
Speaker 1: but the defense would dispute that identification, and they argued
53:05
Speaker 1: that no other suspect matched the evidence as well as
53:08
Speaker 1: Gustafason did, and that his motive was plausible given jealousy
53:12
Speaker 1: or intoxicated rage and Nils. Gustavuson's defense team, led by
53:16
Speaker 1: Attorney Rita Lapinamie, fought back vigorously, and they argued that
53:21
Speaker 1: the entire case was speculative and that Gustafuson could not
53:24
Speaker 1: have physically done it given his injuries, and they brought
53:27
Speaker 1: in experts to say that a person with a broken
53:29
Speaker 1: jaw and a concussion would have been unlikely to overpower
53:33
Speaker 1: three people and then calmly stage a scene walking half
53:36
Speaker 1: a kilometer to high items before injuring himself. Further so,
53:40
Speaker 1: the defense cast doubt on the reliability of the new
53:43
Speaker 1: witness as well the woman camper who came forward after
53:47
Speaker 1: forty five years, and they pointed out Mila's personal diary
53:50
Speaker 1: from the day of June fourth, nineteen sixty that made
53:54
Speaker 1: no mention of any such visit to another tent, which
53:57
Speaker 1: it truly would have if something unusual had occurred. That's
54:01
Speaker 1: what they're saying, And they suggested this woman's memory might
54:04
Speaker 1: be faulty or influenced by the documentary process. And they
54:07
Speaker 1: also highlighted the contaminated crime scene and any blood pattern
54:11
Speaker 1: conclusions to draw so many years later could be questionable,
54:14
Speaker 1: they said, because evidence was compromised. And the defense noted
54:18
Speaker 1: that no murder weapon was connected to Nil's and that
54:21
Speaker 1: none of the missing items were found in his possession.
54:24
Speaker 1: And importantly, they argued that the original eyewitness accounts consistently
54:28
Speaker 1: indicated someone else in the blonde man scene walking away
54:32
Speaker 1: was initially assumed to be the killer, not Gustopasin lying
54:36
Speaker 1: injured on the ground. In other words, the third party
54:39
Speaker 1: involvement was more likely. This is what defense is saying.
54:42
Speaker 1: And they said that if Neil's blood was absent on
54:45
Speaker 1: the shoes, a simpler explanation was that he wasn't wearing
54:49
Speaker 1: them when attacked, and perhaps he was sleeping barefoot or
54:53
Speaker 1: the killer removed them for some unknown reason, and that
54:57
Speaker 1: didn't automatically mean he was the murderer, which is fair.
55:01
Speaker 1: You know, he could be not wearing shoes when he's sleeping,
55:03
Speaker 1: that makes sense, But The trial captured national attention, and
55:07
Speaker 1: after weeks of testimony, on October seven, two thousand and five,
55:11
Speaker 1: the court delivered its verdict, and that was that Neils
55:14
Speaker 1: Gustafson was acquitted of all charges, and the judges found
55:18
Speaker 1: that the evidence was insufficient and too contradictory to convict,
55:21
Speaker 1: and the DNA on the shoes raised suspicions but did
55:24
Speaker 1: not prove Neil's guilt beyond reasonable doubt, especially given the
55:29
Speaker 1: alternative interpretations, and the alleged motive was deemed speculative, and
55:33
Speaker 1: there was no direct evidence of a jealousy fueled fight
55:37
Speaker 1: strong enough to trigger mass murder, and the long passage
55:40
Speaker 1: of time had adamantly made certainty impossible, as the court noted,
55:45
Speaker 1: so the presumption of innocence had to prevail, and after
55:49
Speaker 1: forty four years of being considered a victim, Neils Gustavsen
55:52
Speaker 1: walked out a free man, legally innocent and exonerated, and
55:56
Speaker 1: he was awarded forty four nine hundred dollars by the
55:59
Speaker 1: state as compation for the mental suffering caused by the
56:02
Speaker 1: wrongful detainment and trial, and Gustaffson, who had always maintained
56:06
Speaker 1: he had no memory and no guilt expressed relief at
56:10
Speaker 1: the verdict, but despite the acquittal, opinions remained divided. Some
56:15
Speaker 1: in the public, swayed by the prosecution's narrative, still harbor
56:18
Speaker 1: suspicions about Gustaphausen, and others believe he was just as
56:22
Speaker 1: much as a victim as the friends he lost and
56:24
Speaker 1: that the real killer was someone else who just got
56:26
Speaker 1: away with it, and the trial's aftermath left an uneasy
56:30
Speaker 1: feeling because if Nils wasn't the killer, and the case
56:33
Speaker 1: was back to square one unsolved cold case, and if
56:38
Speaker 1: he was, then justice might not have been truly served
56:41
Speaker 1: given the acquittal. But officially, with Gustaphason cleared and no
56:44
Speaker 1: other active suspects, the Lake Bodham murders returned to cold
56:48
Speaker 1: case status after two thousand and five, and no one
56:50
Speaker 1: has ever been convicted for the crime, and to this day,
56:53
Speaker 1: the question of who scored those innocent teens by the
56:57
Speaker 1: lake is unanswered, and all prominent suspects, including Bielstrom, Osman, Seweynenen,
57:04
Speaker 1: and Gustavson, are either deceased or legally absolved, leaving the
57:08
Speaker 1: Boatom case cold. But let me know what you guys
57:12
Speaker 1: think down below. It's hard. It's hard, you know. We
57:15
Speaker 1: have all this information now, and for me, just looking
57:20
Speaker 1: at the brutality of the murder, especially of the significant
57:24
Speaker 1: other and where they were and everything, it is absolutely
57:27
Speaker 1: possible that someone could have been fixated on this group
57:32
Speaker 1: and done something like this. But if we're looking statistically,
57:36
Speaker 1: it's usually someone that you know, so in that regard,
57:40
Speaker 1: it looks like that with the broken jaw and all this.
57:44
Speaker 1: I don't know. I have no idea. All I know
57:46
Speaker 1: is that I feel horribly for the victims' families and
57:51
Speaker 1: for the victims themselves. No one deserves to die, especially
57:54
Speaker 1: as young as they were, and it's just horrible. But
57:58
Speaker 1: you know, I hope that one day can be solved,
58:00
Speaker 1: but it doesn't look like it ever can be given
58:03
Speaker 1: all the suspects are dead or absolved, so I'm not sure.
58:08
Speaker 1: But all I know is that these were horrible murders
58:14
Speaker 1: and the families deserve justice. But let me know what
58:18
Speaker 1: you guys think down below. Also, let me know what
58:19
Speaker 1: other cases you want me to cover down below. I
58:22
Speaker 1: always read the comments and I will see your beautiful
58:24
Speaker 1: face in the next video. Okay, stay safe. Bye,