Hausjärvi Gravel Pit Murders

The Hausjärvi Gravel Pit Murders were a series of two or more crimes during the 1990s that were connected to gravel pits around Hausjärvi municipality in north of Helsinki urban area in Finland.[1]

According to the National Bureau of Investigation, the three different events were the doing of a one-person, who has been called the Järvenpää Serial Killer.[2]

The crimes

Abduction of Helena Meriläinen

In November 1990, 39-year-old Helena "Hellu" Meriläinen was spending her evening at Järvenpää. She left her friend at midnight and was about to travel home to Riihimäki. She walked to the train station and left waiting for the train on the pier, when she was soon followed by a dark-haired man dressed in a leather jacket. The man asked about her travel plans, and she told him that she was expecting to catch a train to Riihimäki. The man offered Meriläinen a ride home, and because she was under the influence of alcohol, she agreed. He then walked her to his car, which Meriläinen later stated in the interrogations was a light-coloured passenger car, not a station wagon, probably an elder Mazda or Datsun.[3]

At the start of the trip, the man offered alcoholic beverages and some form of medicine in the form of capsules, to which Meriläinen accepted both. The man himself took several of the capsules during the drive. During the trip, she noticed that the man seemed distressed and that he had a child seat at the back. She fell asleep, and when she woke up, Meriläinen noticed that the car was not on the road to Riihimäki, but on a remote forest path. When she asked the man about the route, he assured her that he was still on the right way.

The man drove the car to a dark gravel pit and stopped the car. He tried to persuade Meriläinen to stay in the car for a night, but she refused and said that she wanted to go home. At that point, the man said that he needed to go urinate and left the car, with Meriläinen feeling the same need and also leaving the car. When Meriläinen squatted, the man quickly approached and struck her to head with the edge of a knife. Despite the injury, Meriläinen managed to flee towards the forest.

She heard the man say "I did not succeed this time". When she started running, the man spoke something to himself and entered his car. After a while, Meriläinen found a road to a house and alerted them for help. An ambulance was called, and she got away with minor physical injuries. She was apparently saved by a thick woollen knit cap.

Tuula Lukkarinen

In April 1991, 28-year-old Tuula Lukkarinen left Kellokoski psychiatric hospital on vacation, with the purpose of travelling to Hyrylä for a custody case for her son. She left the hospital at around 8.30 in the morning. However, she never made it to Hyrylä, and was last seen in Järvenpää at around nine o'clock am waiting on a liquor store to open.[4]

The next day, a landowner discovered her badly mutilated body in the woods near a gravel pit, the body being less than 100 metres away from the place where, a five months earlier, Meriläinen was attacked. According to police, Lukkarinen was transported to Hausjärvi between the day of disappearance and the day of discovery and the time of death had been around midnight. The body had been dragged a few dozen meters to the woods from a small road that led to the gravel pits.[5] A blizzard had hit the area during the hours after her death and caused damage to the crime scene.[6]

According to police Lukkarinen was not raped.[4]

Maarit Haantie

40-year-old Maarit Haantie disappeared in August 1993, and is also suspected of being the victim of a possible serial killer. Her body was searched for by the local authorities to no avail. The NBI began investigating the cases of the three women as the doing of one killer, arguing that many factors, such as the use of alcohol, the dark hair color and being in the same area contributed to the theory. According to NBI they also have information that connects the disappearance to the two earlier cases that they won't publish due to an open investigation.[7]

Disappearance

Haantie was attending a party at the restaurant Zapata in Järvenpää on August 13, 1993. She was going there with her partner and a few friends. All of them got in the restaurant except Haantie. Haantie was not let in by the doorman because of her drunkenness. She was last seen standing outside the building, and hasn't been seen since.

Investigation

The disappearance of Haantie was initially filed to the Riihimäki Police, who treated the case as a normal disappearance without any indication of homicide. Soon, however, it was discovered that a bag belonging to Haantie had been found in a restaurant called Martina at the town of Hyvinkää. During interviews with the staff, it was apparent that the employees had removed a drunk person who resembled Maarit Haantie.

It soon became clear that in 1991, a woman by the name of Tuula Lukkarinen had been found brutally murdered in a Hausjärvi gravel pit. Earlier, in 1990, Helena Meriläinen was attacked in the same area where Lukkarinen's body was discovered five months later. Helena had been hit with a knife, but managed to escape. The police assumed that Meriläinen had been attacked by the same man who had killed Tuula Lukkarinen.

The whole chain of events mentioned above had drawn the attention of the NBI, and soon the case of Haantie was included in the investigation. A large search was carried out in the woods around the Hausjärvi municipality and especially the gravel pits area south of Hikiä village, but nothing was found. The investigation, however, has remained active to this day. In 2007, the television series "Kadonneet", "Disappeared" did an episode on Haantie's case, which attracted a lot of attention. In the section, the NBI specifically asked for a hint about a dark-haired man in Järvenpää in the early 90s who offered rides to women, as described by Helena Meriläinen.

Helena Meriläinen, Tuula Lukkarinen and Maarit Haantie were combined the use of alcohol, dark hair and living environment, with the NBI believing that the same perpetrator is responsible for all three cases. The Kadonneet episode gathered about 30 new tips, which helped with the offender's profiling.

According to the NBI, the hints have been very important for the investigation, and have confirmed the results of earlier profiling. Investigation is still active, and the Bureau strongly believes that there have been other murder attempts.

The NBI has searched for Haantie from the forest areas in Hausjärvi as late as in 2017, claiming that they have information that connects Haantie to the area.[8][7]

Fourth case

In 2017 it was published in the media that there had been a possible fourth case involving the murders. In 1989 a drunken 30-year-old woman had just exited a restaurant in Järvenpää when a man offered her a ride, offering her alcohol and pills and then driving her to a forest area, the case resembling the case of Helena Meriläinen's. Although the woman did make it, the victim's mother brought it up after the woman had died of natural causes years later.[9]

Similar unsolved cases in the area

In year 1988 there were several cases of a man with a similar description and driving a white Volkswagen Passat liftback harassing women in the areas close by and even attempting to abduct a 19-year-old woman in Hämeenlinna by threatening her with a pistol while the woman was able to escape from a moving car.[10]

In December 1987 a 19-year-old woman Heidi Härö went missing in Mäntsälä after leaving a local bar and probably hitching a ride. Her decomposed body was found five months later from a forest area in Pukkila with some of her clothes missing.[11]

Offender's profile

Over the years, the perpetrator has been profiled largely based on Meriläinen's story and events, with the description as following:

At the time of the events in 1990, the man was between 30 and 40 years old, and had a dark, curly hair.
He is about 1.70 m tall.
He knows the anatomy of a human or a large animal (according to the Lukkarinen murder).
He possibly had an infant child at the time, as the car's back seat had a child restraint.
The car itself is thought to be a Sedan Mazda or Datsun.
He was familiar with the towns of Järvenpää, Hyvinkää and Riihimäki that locate along the railway and with the forest area around the Hikiä village.[8]
It is believed that he is unable to form a normal relationship with a woman.[12]
The man had spoken about his child and told he had a bad relationship with his wife, and is believed that he might have divorced.

A lot of new tips about the killer have been provided due to the Kadonneet episode. According to some, a dark-haired man is believed to have offered rides to a few women still in the 21st century. According to the tips a man fitting to the description has last been offering a ride to a woman in year 2006.[13] The NBI is still investigating the case, believing that the killer can be found.[14] They have also taken into account that the killer hasn't been found yet because he might be living abroad or is dead.

References

"One fled, one was killed, the third disappeared" (in Finnish). Central Uusimaa. 21 September 2008. Retrieved 22 April 2014.
Malin Jarkko (15 July 2008). "Järvenpää's serial killer perhaps tried new things" (in Finnish). Central Uusimaa. Retrieved 22 April 2014.
YLE - Kadonneet: Perjantai 13. päivä
OTETAAN KIINNI Tuula Lukkarisen SURMAAJA!/LET'S CATCH THE KILLER of Tuula Lukkarinen!, Alibi 9/1991. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
J KUPARINEN (20 April 1991). "A woman on a vacation from a hospital, found murdered in Hausjärvi" (in Finnish). Helsingin Sanomat. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
Sari Autio, Marko Sorsa (28 May 2015). "Who hunted dark-haired women? National Bureau of Investigation is re-investigating the strange murder mystery" (in Finnish). Ilta-Sanomat. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
Malin, Jarkko: Police still believes they can find the Hikiä serial killer Aamuposti, 16.07.2008.
"new lead in the 1990-1993 serial killer mystery, NBI doing excavations" (in Finnish). Helsinginuutiset. 3 May 2017. Retrieved 17 October 2018.
"NBI: There are four cases of Hausjärvi's unexplained gravel pit attacks" (in Finnish). MTV News. 4 June 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
Nykyposti 1/89, January 1989
Kadonnut nainen löytyi kuolleena Pukkilassa/Missing woman found dead in Pukkila Helsingin Sanomat, 03.05.1988.
"Will the serial killer finally be caught?" (in Finnish). Iltalehti. 2 June 2011. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
"Police is very hopeful in Järvenpää homicide case" (in Finnish). Mtv3. 18 July 2008. Retrieved 17 October 2018.
"News about Järvenpää's serial killer" (in Finnish). Central Uusimaa. 27 August 2010. Retrieved 27 August 2010.