On Tuesday 24th of November 1998 the police in Hyvinkää got a call that a dismembered leg had been found from Kapula landfill. It was cut from the thigh and it was immediately clear it wasn’t cut with medical knowledge. The police asked help from the public with identifying the victim, stating the victim was between the ages of 20 to 60 years old. The police however made a little mistake when they informed the public that a man’s leg had been found. “We realized that it could’ve been a woman’s leg as well, you can’t make a conclusion on gender based on body hair.”
The medical examiner was able to specify the leg had been detached 2 to 3 days before being found, specifically during the last weekend. The police started investigating the landfill and trying to find more body parts from there. The search took weeks when eventually they found a peace, that at first was informed being a liver but later was realized being a part of a torso. It was an important find because now the police could drop the age distribution of the victim to 20 to 30 years old. They were also able to find clues of the lifestyle the victim had had, for example about their alcohol usage. The investigation team concluded the victim had needed some sort of assistance in their everyday life and this helped them to get the name of the victim. The DNA matched and the police started to look into the victims personal life.
On 8th of December 1998 the police arrested four young suspects. Very soon it was revealed that the main perpetrator was 23 years old Jarno Elg (b. 1975). He had been convicted earlier in his life when he was only 16 years old for burning a medieval church. He told the investigators that he was very interested in Satanism and described himself as a Satanist. The police found some “props” connected to Satanism from his apartment. As childish and silly as the picture below might appear, we can not forget that these gave him the inspiration for the horrible deed he committed.
Elg’s 17 year old girlfriend Terhi Tervashonka (b. November 1981) was also one of the main perpetrators. On Friday 20th of November 1998 Elg, Tervashonka, 20 year old Mika Riska, unknown 16 year old boy and the 23 year old victim had been drinking and hanging out. First they spent their evening in a apartment in Järvenpää from where they went to a local church happening to debate about Christianity and Satanism. From there they went to Elg’s apartment in Hyvinkää. There they drank homemade liquor and listened to black metal. It is not exactly clear what happened but somehow the group got into humiliating the victim. They walked him around the apartment like a dog until Elg suddenly hit him so hard in the head he passed out. Then Elg and Tervashonka tied him up using duct tape also wrapping his whole head with it. They started to hit him with scissors around the body, but he most likely died of asphyxiation.
After the victim had passed away Elg and Tervashonka started to commit unthinkable things to the corpse. These included cannibalism and necrophilia. They decapitated the corpse and desecrated the head. Lastly they dismembered the corpse with a saw. They hid the body parts in dumpsters trying to hide the evidence, luckily failing at this.
In 2000 Tervashonka told Alibi (Finnish crime magazine) that during the night they all had been very intoxicated and probably resulting from that the victim had started to make noise. This led to him being tied up with the duct tape. She told that the victim had suffocated by accident and that Satan worship had nothing to do with the case. She also denied the alleged cannibalism.
Jarno Elg was sentenced to life in prison for murder and animal abuse, since he had also killed his own dog in a similar way: wrapping it in a duct tape and hitting it with scissors. He was released on probation in 2016 after serving his sentence for 17 years and has not committed any new crimes since then.
Terhi Tervashonka was sentenced to 8,5 years in prison. The sentence was short because she was young and didn’t fully understand what she had done. She got out in 2003 and in 2007 she murdered a 47 year old man with a billhook. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison and after getting out again she committed a prescription fraud and a theft. After that she has not committed any new crimes.
Mika Riska was sentenced to 2 years for aggravated assault and desecration of grave. He was satisfied with the conviction and after getting out he was convicted of drunk driving and that as for now is his last conviction.
The unknown 16 year old boy from Kerava did not get sentenced. It was seen that Elg forced him to participate and even the prosecutor agreed. He has not committed new crimes.
