Auli Kyllikki Saari (b. 6th of December 1935) was a 17 year old girl from Isojoki, located in Southern Ostrobothnia. She was the second youngest child of Vilhelmiina and Eino Saari. She was religious and often took part in various events in the local church. She also worked there. After primary school she attended grammar school in Kauhajoki, but dropped out after a serious bicycle accident. She worked as a housemaid in Kokemäki during the summer of 1952, until the start of September when she went to work for the Isojoki church. According to her friends she was lively and happy, but with people she didn’t know she was shy. Kyllikki was a little different from her peers, for example usually youngsters at that time took part in dances, but Kyllikki never did. She apparently never had a boyfriend or pen pals (form of dating).
On a Sunday morning, 17th of May 1953 Kyllikki cycled 13 kilometers (8 miles) to attend a service at the church. She went back home around 1 pm and after she got home, she informed her parents that she’s going to go and have a lay down. According to her parents it was out of character for her, since she had never done that before. Kyllikki also spoke weird and dark things all day.
Kyllikki had plans to attend some spiritual event for youngsters in the evening and when she was preparing her journey she was acting nervous. She had said something along the lines of that the trip was a nice thing, but her late return home made her worried. Her friend Maiju Yli-Hietala told during the investigation that Kyllikki had been restless during the day.
The event ended around 10 pm. The sun had set and it was getting darker. Kyllikki was last seen alive on the road between Isojoki and Kauhajoki. She had left for the spiritual event with Maiju around 6 pm, located in Kortteenkylä school. When the girls were returning home, their paths diverged around 10:30 pm. There Kyllikki turned to the road that led to her home and Maiju did the same. Kyllikki’s last words to Maiju were: “I’m sure everything’s gonna go well like it always has. Bye now, Maiju.”
Kyllikki still had about 6 kilometers (3 miles) left to travel. A worker man named Jaakko Lähteenmäki was also returning home from some spiritual event and he was the last person to see Kyllikki alive, even though he wasn’t completely sure it was her.
Kyllikki never made it home. It has been speculated that she met with her end after about 1 kilometer after crossing paths with Jaakko. 66 year old farm caretaker Hilma told later during the investigations that she had heard yelling around 10:30 pm. “God, come help me”, was heard and she thinks it wasn’t a man yelling.
Kyllikki’s parents weren’t immediately worried when she hadn’t returned home. She had spent nights at Maiju’s home for several occasions before so that’s what they thought now as well (need to point out that this time too Maiju had suggested that Kyllikki would stay at her place. Kyllikki however did not want to do that). It wasn’t until Kyllikki’s workplace called them and asked why she hadn’t came to work that they made a missing person’s report.
On Wednesday, 20th of May the police conducted a search around the place where Kyllikki and Maiju had said their goodbyes to each other. Over 30 men took part in the search, but there was no sign of Kyllikki nor her bicycle. Word of her disappearance spread fast and soon everyone in Isojoki knew about it.
On Thursday, 21st of May a crime inspector from Vaasa came and took lead in the search. They searched from the woods and swamp. Hundreds of men walked in a line. At this point the large number of searchers draw attention of the press so naturally a lot of journalists came there too. At that point many people also were certain that Kyllikki was a victim of some crime.
Shortly after the missing person’s report made by Kyllikki’s parents it was revealed that her friend Maiju wasn’t the last person to see her alive. Jaakko Lähteenmäki had crossed paths with her as stated previously. On the next morning around 7:20 am a farm caretaker Oskari Forsby and his son Vilho Forsby had seen tire marks on the road, and some other marks that looked like someone had dragged a bicycle sideways. According to the Forsby’s, there were also a lot of footprints, bicycle tire marks, car tire marks and pieces of broken glass. Oskari and Vilho got the image that there had been some sort of a struggle. The place with all of these was about a half of a kilometer away from the spot where Maiju had seen Kyllikki alive for the last time. The Forsby’s hurried and informed the police about their observations immediately when they heard about Kyllikki’s disappearance but at this point enough time had passed so all the tire mark and footprints (and also the glass) had disappeared. The police realized that the marks informed to them were exactly on the same spot where Jaakko Lähteenmäki had crossed paths with Kyllikki, but according to Lähteenmäki he hadn’t noticed anything alarming in Kyllikki’s behavior or anything. But now the police had a very specific place where they should conduct field searches.
Kyllikki’s disappearance was at that time very exceptional case. People in Isojoki felt that their town was put to shame and in a bad light. Almost everyone there felt their need to help with the search because they wanted to help Kyllikki’s suffering parents, but also because they felt that it would clean the image of their town. But of course, rumors started to spread like wildfire. People reported people they were “certain being the killer” to the police and locals blamed each other. The press didn’t really help with all these rumors and suspicion; papers were eager to inform people about the case and since they did not have much news, they would inform about these rumors to satisfy their readers. What was even worse was that papers published the names of the suspects, and that led them being branded as horrible people even after the police freed them.
A week after Kyllikki’s disappearance a 12 year old girl came forward and told that she had seen a cream colored car driving the road where Kyllikki disappeared, and she also saw a bicycle poking out from the trunk. This was around 11 pm. There had been two men in the car, one big and the other having a normal body type. The second man however had something eye catching on his front teeth. The car had been driving very fast and it did not have it’s headlights on, even though it was dark outside.
The car was spotted another time too: Sylvi Hauskaviita from Uuro village (about 18 kilometers [11 miles) from Isojoki) told that she had been sitting on the porch of her cabin with her daughter when a light colored car drove by. They also saw a bicycle tire in the trunk. About a half an hour later the same car came back. These sightings were pointing to a direction that someone had drove over Kyllikki and that she would’ve been forced into the car.
After some time two guys informed themselves to the police and told that on the night of the disappearance they had been riding their motorcycles in the area. About 20 kilometers away from Isojoki they had passed a car parked on the side of the road.
The police started to look for these men in the car but nothing was found. Even though the car sightings and the men were very publicly announced everywhere the men never came forward to the police.
On 9th of June the picture of Kyllikki was published on a newspaper for the first time. Some weeks after this someone told that they had seen a woman acting weirdly in Merikarvia (45 kilometers [27 miles] away from Isojoki) and she was also running away from people in a forest. The papers wrote a lot about this sighting and truly believed the woman being Kyllikki. This was false though and the woman wasn’t Kyllikki.
On 22nd of July two people gathering berries on a swamp area noticed a bicycle tire sticking from the swamp. It was very quickly revealed that it belonged to Kyllikki. The spot where it was found was very far away from the road, in a deep woods. Because of that the police thought that the person who hid the bicycle had to know the area well. It was weird that the bicycle wasn’t found even when the area had been searched with a metal detector, but it is possible it was brought there later. The police gave the bicycle back to Kyllikki’s parents and therefore did not investigate it well. The bicycle was in a very good condition so the thought that Kyllikki would’ve been drove over couldn’t be true. After this was revealed people really started to believe Kyllikki had been deliberately and very cruelly murdered.
At the start of the Fall, Kuortane’s rural police chief Åke Vihanto conducted a search in the border of Kuortane and Lehtimäki, around Karanka lake area, after a local farmer Aarne Autio informed them that he had heard a woman screaming for help, two men talking and gun shots there on the morning of the disappearance, around 5:00 am. When Aarne went there to investigate he had seen a light colored car, two men he didn’t know and two other men sitting inside the car. Other people living in the area also informed hearing the gun shots. One woman reported hearing the following conversation:
Woman: Let me go already, you’ve bullied me enough.
Man 2: We can’t do that anymore.
Kuortane is located 141 kilometers away from Isojoki these days (back then it was about 200 kilometers, new roads have probably been made), so it is a long trip to take. On 12th of September the police searched Karanka lake in hopes of finding Kyllikki’s body. The search lasted about a month, but was stopped when some news from Isojoki came. After the news, the search in Kuortane was permanently closed and they didn’t investigate the gun shots or anything further. During the searches they did find bullets from the ground though.
In October the police felt like they weren’t finding any leads in the case. Nothing was revealed and they started to feel like they would never find out what had happened and where Kyllikki was. They decided to once more search the area where the Forsby’s had seen weird marks on the road. On Saturday 10th of October at 9 am a man named Valtteri Mäkelä found a bundle from the ground. It was Kyllikki’s shoe. Inside the shoe was Kyllikki’s scarf and a men’s sock. There were teeth marks on the scarf so the police speculated it had been used as a gag.
On Sunday 11th of October a man named Ilmari Hietaoja noticed a dry peace of a tree branch that was sticking up from the swamp ground. It was couple meters away from the shoe that had been found. Hietaoja and some of the other searchers pulled the branch out from the ground and noticed the other end was sharpened. Not long after the removal of the branch the men noticed a foul smell. When the ground was moved around, about a half a meter deep was found Kyllikki’s partly decomposed body. Her jacket was wrapped around her head and shoulders. Her body was exposed from the waist down and one of her breast was showing. Because she had been on the ground for a long time, the decomposing had progressed far enough that Kyllikki’s right hand was off from the wrist and there was nothing left of her fingers and toes. This made it impossible to know if she had been fighting against her attacker. The grave was about 200 meters away from the road where she was last seen. The information about the body spread like wildfire and very soon nosy people arrived at the scene. Hundreds of cars blocked the road.
Coroner Unto Uotila stated after investigating Kyllikki’s body that she had passed away when a blunt object hit her on the head. She was hit on her face and her nose and cheek bones were broken. Possible murder weapon could’ve been a rock. She wasn’t shot and nothing pointed to the direction of suffocation. There was no sign of sexual assault, but it doesn’t erase that possibility. They couldn’t find out if Kyllikki still was untouched but they were able to clarify that she wasn’t pregnant.
Since her shoe or the tree branch weren’t found during the very first searches the police speculated she had been buried after those searches. Couple weeks after Kyllikki disappeared, on 1st to 6th of June, farmers had planted trees on the area and they hadn’t noticed anything weird. The police thought Kyllikki’s body was already decomposing when the branch was put on its place; it punctured her stomach. The grave was skillfully made and that is why the police speculated that the murderer must’ve gotten training in military engineering.
During the next days after discovering the body, searches were continued in the area and on the 14th of October the police were able to find Kyllikki’s other shoe. Kyllikki’s watch, wallet and her hymn book were never found.
Kyllikki was laid to rest on Sunday 25th of October 1953. About 25 000 people attended her funeral, truly showing how much her murder touched people. Her funeral was as big as marshal Gustaf Mannerheim, presidents Risto Ryti and J. K. Paasikivi and composer Jean Sibelius’ had been. People travelled hundreds of kilometers to attend her funeral, mostly because they felt like Kyllikki was also their innocent and shy daughter whose life had been stolen from her, but also because many people were simply curious. On the funeral day people also visited the place where she had been found. Locals put up stands around the area that sold or gave food and the funeral also lured trinket merchants and other vendors.
During the funeral inside the church about 3 000 packed in. Kyllikki’s father Eino gave a short speech where he thanked everyone who came and showed sympathy, and helped searching for his daughter. One businessman from Alahärmä caused disturbance when he gave a half an hour long speech where he blamed the police for not getting anything done, protecting the criminal and he also demanded that the death penalty would be brought back as a form of punishment. The speech was very similar with all those articles written about the case, but people saw that the man still chose the wrong place to share his thoughts about the case. People standing outside the church were also using language while discussing things that wasn’t exactly fitting for the sad atmosphere that surrounded the funeral.
Kyllikki’s grave is facing the main doors of the Isojoki church.
About 1 000 people were interrogated about this case. Police forces all around Finland were taking part in the investigation and searching. Every single person living in Isojoki were questioned, police men going from house to house. This was a very good way of making sure if they had any eye witnesses.
The investigation reached all the way to Sweden because some people from Isojoki had moved there after Kyllikki had been murdered. Pointless reports and rumors made the police work more difficult. Money was promised to the one who had any information that would lead to solving the case. Isojoki town promised 50 000 Finnish marks (about 1350 euros) and Helsingin Sanomat (largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries) promised 100 000 Finnish marks (about 2700 euros). Many people were seen as “definite perpetrators”, and the main suspect differentiated depending on who seemed the most possible based on all the things the papers wrote about. What really paints a picture about the tense atmosphere around Isojoki was the case when there was a report of the son of the Isojoki rural police chief. However he didn’t even have a son. Even the police leading the investigation Jorma Koskela was reported and his alibi needed to be checked.
What also made the investigation difficult were all the people who came forward and confessed murdering Kyllikki. They even described in detail how they had done it. These people mostly were mentally unstable, but usually it was only revealed after a long time, so the police had to investigate all these as well. Some of the inmates serving time in prison told that they had gotten information from outside to inside the prison that would help solving the case, but they would need to visit the crime scene to explain them better. It was only just to get out of prison for a while, kinda like a “fun trip”. And of course there were some clairvoyants who however did not give anything important to the police.
People in Isojoki collected money and hired two private investigators, for no avail.
Left handed people were also investigated because the tree branch showed sings that the sharpened end had most likely been carved using a left hand.
The investigation ended in February 1954 when the police forces from all around Finland left Isojoki.
One of the longest suspects was Kyllikki’s vicar, Kauko Kanervo who had worked in the Isojoki church from 1952 to 1953. Three weeks before the murder he moved to Merikarvia. Kyllikki had written a letter to Kanervo three days before she was murdered. Kanervo had to go to three separate interrogations but it was revealed he had a solid alibi. It was given by his daughter and his maid Ida, who had had a long affair with him. They confirmed that Kanervo had been in Merikarvia on the night of the murder.
His movements were carefully inspected and it was revealed that he had been at a party hosted by some canon, spent the night at the vicarage and in the morning at 8 am he was managing confirmation school. The police were unable to find out about a 20 minutes of his movements, but that wasn’t enough time to go from Merikarvia to Isojoki, and Kanervo didn’t even have a car nor driver’s licence.
Later it was revealed that during the war when Kanervo had been working as a field priest he had had female relations and he had been fired from his job as a missionary in Africa. He was known to come on to young women and some woman had accused him of sexual assault. When he was working as a vicar in Kihniö in 1955, he had a relation to a young girl. The case was handled in 1956 in Parkano court where he was accused of getting involved with under 17 year old child. He was sentenced to one year in penitentiary.
In 1962 Kanervo gave an interview to Hymy magazine where he explained his feelings as being a suspect:
“I barely knew Kyllikki Saari and I also didn’t know her home village Möykky well. One possibly can’t get to know every place in their parish within a year. And anyways I was in Merikarvia during the murder. I needed to manage confirmation school in the mornings. How could’ve I had the time to go to Isojoki?”
Kanervo did admit to Hymy magazine that he did know the swamp area well. Even though the police thought his alibi was solid, taking in account Kanervo’s past, many people saw him as a murderer and were doubting his alibi.
Kanervo’s relative who lived in Kauhava was also a suspect because during the investigation he did own a cream colored van.
Kanervo told in the last hearing that he had been harassing Kyllikki while she worked for the church. He also admitted on doing something sexual to Kyllikki. If the same would happen today, it would be considered as exploitation. Kanervo was never charged of Kyllikki’s murder.
35 year old man living in Karijoki was for a long time the main suspect in the case. He was a former police officer who had been fired from his job because he had bad living habits. At the time he owned a coffee house. There were eye witnesses who said they saw him driving a car with some other man near Kauhajoki. There was a lot of sightings of the cream colored car which apparently was similar to the coffee shop owners car. People knew him as a shady businessman. When the coffee shop owner was arrested people in Isojoki felt like now they had found their culprit. In their minds the case was almost solved and it was only a matter of a time before they would get the confession out from the man.
He however had an alibi. Someone from Isojoki who knew him had seen him enjoying a night in a hotel somewhere (near Karijoki I guess) with some man. The man was a business man from Pori and he told that after the night he took the coffee shop owner to his friends house in Karijoki where he spent the night. The coffee shop owner was released.
The coffee shop owners car had been taken to a car repair shop in Lapväärtti (about 40 kilometers away from Isojoki [24 miles]) on 4th of May 1953 and it wasn’t fixed until 30th of May. So during the time of Kyllikki’s disappearance his car was still being repaired, and the owner of the repair shop told that he was at home during the night and he for sure would’ve heard if someone would’ve taken the car from there.
The coffee shop owner was arrested again later but he was once again freed.
38 year old ditch digger was a suspect for a long time, but he as well had to be freed because there was not enough evidence. His arrest divided people’s opinions. Helsingin Sanomat wrote on 23rd of October 1953 about the arrest: “His mother and brother testified for him. He was sleeping on the day of the crime, already at 7 pm. He was heavily under the influence of alcohol so he could’ve not committed any crimes. He’s known in Isojoki as a respectful man who never made anyone’s life difficult, although he uses alcohol pretty often. People in Isojoki think he is innocent. ... Locals are confused because no one has ever noticed him giving any interest towards the opposite sex.”
The workerman had committed a sexual crime in 1940s and he had some mental health issues because of the war. He also had been peeping some girls while they were in sauna.
Even though the police let him go he was still the main suspect. When the police were interrogating him, the things he said were confusing. For example he had said that Kyllikki is no longer alive and her body will never be found. Later he denounced his words and explained that he had been misunderstood. He was sent to psychiatric assessment and later he was sent to Mustasaari mental hospital. The police interrogated him while there also, but it had to be discontinued because the man started to act disoriented and the doctor said he can’t be interrogated while he is at that state. Even if no one could confidently connect him to Kyllikki’s murder, he was still held arrested even while he was in the hospital.
During the time of the murder he was living 1-2 kilometers away from the murder scene. The police suspected that if the workerman did it, he would’ve gotten help in burying the body and hiding the evidence from his 37 year old brother-in-law who had a criminal record. Both of them knew the area well and they both were interrogated in the Fall of 1953. Shortly after the case the brother-in-law moved to Central Ostrobothnia and then later to Sweden. The workerman and the brother-in-law both had died before the year 1972.
(above: Holmström arrested for the Tulilahti camping site murders.)
When the two young women were murdered in Heinävesi in 1959 the police noticed that the way the girls were murdered was very similar to how Kyllikki was. The police started to suspect the culprit could’ve also murdered Kyllikki so they thought Runar Holmström could’ve been the perpetrator. However Holmström had an alibi. He was serving time in a labour camp in Okeroinen, near Lahti (271 kilometers away from Isojoki, 168 miles) during the murder and he had no way of leaving there and going to Isojoki to murder Kyllikki. The inspector who took part in the investigation of the Tulilahti camping site murders Axel Skogman also thought it was quite impossible for Holmström to be guilty of Kyllikki’s murder, but he suspected that the person who murdered the girls in Tulilahti paid a very close attention to Kyllikki’s case and possibly got inspiration.
When the lead inspector Skogman retired in the Fall 1970, there were over 370 research lines. Most of these had been well researched and fully closed. For this case over 5000 people were interrogated, but serious suspects was only a handful, including Kyllikki’s father who is still in some peoples minds the perpetrator.
According to police inspector Pentti Kankaanpää locals in Isojoki didn’t even want to think someone local could’ve murdered Kyllikki. “It almost seems like the locals had made a pact that they would put a blame to somewhere else.” The press told freely about the names of the suspects but nowadays they no longer do that. Kyllikki’s family told many times to the papers that they think they know who did it but they did not want to reveal the name.
In 2000 the main investigator was Tapani Tikkala who was very well acquainted of the case and according to him the police did find the murderer but because there wasn’t enough evidence the case couldn’t be taken to court. He said the case can be opened whenever if new evidence comes up. In 2004 Tikkala told in an interview that he did know who the murderer was but he did not tell who it was because he had already died.
In 2013 the main investigator Jari Neulaniemi (who is still the main investigator) told that it can’t be said with certainty that the police knew who the murderer was because no one has been charged or sentenced for the crime. He thinks Kyllikki’s murder is still a dark homicide and it no longer hasn’t been actively investigated in the 2000s.
Pekka Santtila, a researcher and teacher in police academy has given a possible profile for the murderer. According to him he is a 30 year old man living alone who had little to none social relations and who is thought to be weird. The murder possibly was planned for a long time and the perpetrator knew Kyllikki, but wasn’t related to her. The encounter on the road could’ve been a coincidence but the man felt this was the perfect chance to put his plan to action. He also thinks that it was an coincidence that exactly Kyllikki was the victim. The burying and concealing of the evidence points to the direction that the perpetrator had criminal past.
The man with a black beard
Esko Varpelaide was a retired fireman living in Isojoki. He told in 2004 that he thought this one man from Isojoki was the murderer. He was a 51 year old man with a black beard and who was known as weird sneak. The man had been very ambitious and good in school when he was young, but he suffered a mental breakdown during the time of his graduation from high school and that changed him. In August of 1952 sources told that the man had touched the private parts of a female corpse that had died in a car crash. He was blamed of harassing women and apparently the district court had ordered him to being castrated.
The man had visited Kyllikki’s workplace, the church many times and hearsay tells that he saw Kyllikki as his “bride”. Varpelaide told that while he was working as a security man during many of the events in Isojoki, he often saw the man lurking behind trees and watching people. During the event on the night of Kyllikki’s murder he wasn’t around. At around 2 am the man had been throwing sand to the Isojoki town hall windows and asking the woman living upstairs there out. The woman refused so the man left and started walking towards Mäkikaupunki, away from his home. He was carrying a bag on his shoulder.
On the next morning the man had attacked his caretaker with a chain that had something heavy tied to it. The caretaker shot him on the chest as a self-defense. The man was rushed to hospital and he survived, getting out of the hospital after only couple weeks. Varpelaide suspects the man murdered Kyllikki with the same weapon he attacked his caretaker. He thinks the man went to the town hall with the weapon concealed in his bag and then later went and buried the body. Varpelaide told all of this to the police and the man was interrogated. All they got were pedant answers. Varpelaide thinks the crime inspector Axel Skogman thought the man was irresponsible to be convicted or too stupid to commit a murder.
The man died in Teuva mental hospital in 1971.
Crime inspector Matti Paloaro met Assman on his deathbed in 1997 and there Assman told him about this one car crash that happened years ago that he needed to cover up. Even though Assman didn’t mention any names, Paloaro thought Assman meant that he had meant Kyllikki’s death. Assman’s wife had told that Assman had been around Isojoki and Kauhajoki during the night of the murder because he was planning some work things, painting churches and such. Assman also owned a light brown passenger car around that time - light colored car had been seen multiple times. Assman’s wife has told that his husband was missing a sock and his shoes were wet when he returned home. His car also had some minor damage. Couple days later Assman and his driver left for a car drive, but this time they had a shovel with them. Assman himself told that he and his wife attended Kyllikki’s funeral.
All this has been widely doubted because Assman apparently was in Germany during the murder. According to Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo) Assman came to Finland for the first time during the Helsinki Olympics in July 1952. He then returned back to Germany and then moved permanently to Finland in July 1953. Assman died in Sweden in 1998.
Assman’s words on his deathbed:
“One thing I can tell you right away... because it’s the oldest and kind of an accident that I needed to cover up. Otherwise our trip would’ve been revealed. Even though my friend was a good driver, the accident couldn’t be avoided. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
Reino Ojanperä (he made a memoir about Kyllikki’s case) thought that Kyllikki had been hit by a black car that had three people inside it, including some music artist. The theory goes that the driver was drunk and that is why the accident needed to be covered up. When they were carrying unconscious Kyllikki to the forest, she had started to wake up. Then they would’ve hit her with a shovel. It would explain her cheek bones being cracked. Later the perpetrators went back to the scene and marked the grave with a branch because they felt bad. Apparently from the scene was found a piece of a music paper and some sort of receipt that Ojanperä thought they dropped there. About the music paper and receipt, they were mentioned in the police’s investigation documents as well. Ojanperä got all of this from Vaala that is close to Oulu where the group worked. According to Ojanperä after the accident the car was painted white and many people had heard the group talking about the case. Ojanperä himself was 16 years old at the time and he worked as a storage worker in Vaala.
Ojanperä doesn’t reveal the real names of the people. According to his memoirs all three of them suffered a great deal of remorse after the accident. First of the three men drowned himself in the Oulu river in 1955, after killing his wife. The second man shot himself three years after that. The third man died of an overdose in his home in Kemijärvi in 1960.
After all this time Kyllikki’s murder still remains unsolved. This case touched many people during the time and even after that. The place where Kyllikki was found is a popular place for visitors. Kyllikki’s sister Alli Hernesharju, her husband Esko Hernesharhu and Esa Hernesharju put up a monument in 1987, that includes a copper plate telling about the case. The police are still investigating Kyllikki’s death, and they still receive clues and tips for the case. They think there are still people alive who have information that could lead to solving the case.
