Virpi Butt and Janne Hyvönen
Virpi Sanna Sinikka Butt (b. 9th of August 1972) became famous in Finland from the TV-series Gladiators, between the years 1993 to 1994. She was a female Gladiator called “Diamond”. Little did people know back then that she would gain popularity from more gruesome things in the future.
On 29th of May 2002 Butt was hanging out and drinking with her boyfriend, 29 year old Kari Pekka Anttonen and her friend Janne Hyvönen (b. 1974). They were in a bar called Sputnik, located in Tampere. They left the bar at some point and all three went to Butt’s apartment. Early in the morning Hyvönen stabbed Anttonen in the back with a knife. After that, he saw his head off. Butt and Hyvönen dragged Anttonen’s body to the bathroom and after that cleaned the apartment. During the murder, Butt’s two children, aged 2 and 16, were present. The 2 year old son was sleeping in the same room where Butt and Hyvönen killed Anttonen. The 16 year old son was sleeping in a walk-in wardrobe (I have no idea why, possibly because the apartment might have been very small) and he apparently had went to the room to see what his mom and mom’s friend were doing, also seeing the body.
After the murder Butt had carried Anttonen’s head around the city and told people about it. Some sources claim she also showed it to people, but apparently that is not true. Butt told the police that the motive for that was that she wanted the police to found out about the murder. After some time Hyvönen put the head into a pot and boiled it.
In 2003 Butt and Hyvönen were celebrating Midsummer together. Butt went to buy alcohol while Hyvönen babysat her 3 year old child. During Butt’s shopping trip she had bumped into her previous Midsummer date, 26 year old Arto Malinen. They then went to a bar and stayed there till it closed. After that they had went to Malinen’s apartment with a taxi. On the next day they continued drinking in the bar, but at some point they were kicked out from there. When they were walking on the streets, someone tried to buy drugs from them. They apparently promised that they had some for the buyer in Malinen’s apartment, so they went there. However when they got there and the young man didn’t get the promised drugs he got angry. A conflict broke out and it ended with Butt stabbing Malinen with a kitchen knife on the back, 10 times. Butt called Hyvönen and asked his help with disposing of the body. When Hyvönen arrived they dismembered Malinen and stole his possessions.
After the murder public-safety answering point got a call from a man who told that a man had been murdered last night, and that he also had been dismembered. The police didn’t take it seriously at first because the caller told that he had heard about it, not been present during the murder. After that a woman called as well and told the same things, but that she had been present during the murder. The police asked her “are you serious with this?”, they found it hard to believe what had happened during that Midsummer night. After the second call however they started to investigate. They started to suspect that the callers had something to do with Anttonen’s death as well; Anttonen had been missing for a year at this point and they found out about Butt’s and his connection. Some people had also been talking how they thought Butt was responsible for his disappearance.
During the investigation they were searching for Anttonen’s body everywhere. The searching was not successful, but they were able to find Malinen’s body from Nokia.
The trial
When the trial started, Hyvönen appeared in the court wearing the victim’s clothing. When going through Anttonen’s murder, Hyvönen told that he had cut off Anttonen’s feet and cooked them in an oven. He told he ate Anttonen’s meat, but Butt did not take part in this. However Butt had tried to offer Anttonen’s meat to her friend, claiming it was “cutlets”. Hyvönen also described the head boiling thing: “I just watched how the expressions on the face changed. It started to smile, the head. I was sitting in the kitchen, drank some liquor and laughed.” According to Butt, Hyvönen had took Anttonen’s teeth out by hitting them with a knife, but Hyvönen denied this. Hyvönen had cut Anttonen’s finger tips and tattoos off because he did not want the police to identify him by them. The rest of the dismembered body they put in cardboard boxes and after that put them to the balcony because they had started to smell. In the morning Hyvönen’s friend moved the boxes to dumbsters, all around Tampere. Butt and Hyvönen had wanted to also take some of the body parts to Nokia as well (town close to Tampere), but the friend didn’t agree to that.
When going through the murder of Malinen, Butt told that first she had undressed him. After that they had saw his head off and put his internal organs in bags and smaller organs they put in buckets and in a toilet. Butt and Hyvönen tried to run over Malinen’s head with a car, but it was unsuccessful because the head always slid aside.
Butt and Malinen asked to be evaluated mentally and that was granted. It revealed that both of them were fully aware of their actions. Butt and Hyvönen were sentenced to life in prison. They were also commanded to pay 100 000 euros to the victim’s families.
After
In August 2017 the court of appeals in Helsinki accepted Butt’s request for parole. Butt was released from prison on 31st of December 2018, after serving 15,5 years. According to forensic psychiatry there is a high chance Butt will commit new violence crimes, so Criminal Sanctions Agency (Rise) and the Psychiatric Hospital for Prisoners in Turku were against Butt’s release. The court of appeals however saw that Butt had evolved as a person and her return to a citizen would be easy since she had close relationships with her family and an apartment. The same court of appeals also accepted Hyvönen’s request for parole in August 2018 and he was released on 1st of March 2019.
After the release Butt moved to a town located in Western Finland. She has also changed her name and nowadays goes by Lucrezia Francesca Pandora Butt.