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Susanne Lindholm was found strangled in the basement of the apartment building she lived in at 1.15 pm on August 8th, 1976. Susanne had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a Finnair shirt, which was Susanne's own. Susanne's father says that her body had been covered by her work coat and a green Finnair jacket. Susanne was an employee of Helsinki airport and worked as a baggage handler. Susanne had defensive wounds on her body.
Susanne had gone out the night prior to her murder. She had asked her coworkers if they wanted to come with her, but no one wanted to. A male coworker agreed to give Susanne a ride to the western part of Helsinki. Susanne and her sister Camilla met at a hotel in Haaga, a district of Helsinki, sometime around 10 P.M. They then went to the Helsinki Club which is located on the Mannerheimintie street in the city center, and there Susanne struck up conversation with a Norwegian business man who was temporarily in Finland on a work trip. Camilla took a bus back home, and Susanne and the business man went to the man's hotel room at the Hesperia Hotel. This was at around 1.20 A.M. They shared a whiskey, and Susanne decided to go home at around 3 A.M. She did not want the man to come home with her, she lived with her parents and her siblings, but she exchanged phone numbers with the man and agreed to meet him the next day.
Two young men saw Susanne standing outside of the Hesperia Hotel at 3.10 A.M. Witnesses saw her walk down Mannerheimintie and continuing on to Helsinginkatu. This is the last known time she was seen alive. Susanne had no money on her, and could therefore not have payed for a taxi. No one has come forward to say that they saw her hitchhiking, or that they picked her up. The last bus to Käpylä would have been the one that Camilla took back home, and therefore Susanne was effectively left with no other choice but to walk back to her home.
Her body was discovered by one of her neighbors, Esko Savolainen. He was in the basement to retrieve a bicycle pump. Savolainen immediately alerted the caretaker of the building to his discovery, and the caretaker called the police.
One neighbor testified to having heard a woman crying somewhere in the building at around 4 A.M, loud enough to wake the neighbor up. The police had determined Susanne's time of death to be between 3 and 4 A.M, but based on the witnesses who saw her leave the hotel at 3.10 A.M, it's likely that the murder took place at 4 A.M. Another resident of the building claims to have heard footsteps, the slamming of the basement door and a male and a female voice talking at around 2.10 A.M, but because this doesn't align with the timeline of the case it might be unrelated.
During the course of the investigation, the police wondered if Susanne had gotten a ride from her killer to her house, because she could not possibly have walked the 4 km between the hotel and the apartment building in under 50 minutes.
Skin was found under Susanne's fingernails, and it was believed that this was because Susanne had scratched her killer. A man who had scratches on his face was arrested at one point in connection to the case, but he was released due to lack of evidence. The police did at one point suspect a robbery because two gold rings and a purse was missing from the victim.
In 1979, a 28-year-old woman named Helena Korlin was strangled and dismembered by a man named Carl-Erik Björkkvist. Helena might have been a friend of Susanne's, Helena worked as a travel agent but it's unclear if they knew each other. The Finnish police does no longer consider Björkkvist to be a person of interest in the case.
There has been some speculation if perhaps Susanne was the victim of a serial killer. Two other women, 41-year-old Seija Kekkonen, and 42-year-old Helka Ketola, were found murdered in the basement of their apartment buildings in different parts of Helsinki during the early 1980's. Kekkonen was found on December 6th, 1980, and Ketola was found on January 30th, 1981. Both had been strangled and raped. Both women had been killed returning home after a night out, and they had had personal belongings stolen from them. In 1981, a bus driver named Jalo Seppänen murdered and raped 18-year-old Helena Mäntylä in Haaga, Helsinki. Helena was strangled. Helena had encountered Seppänen when she was on her way home, and she had been robbed of some personal belongings by her killer.
An investigator within the Finnish police, Martti Latikka, said in 1995 that the police was aware of the identity of a suspected serial killer, but there was not sufficient evidence for an arrest to be made.
There is unfortunately not a lot of information about the murder in English out there. Here, I've presented a translation of the information that's available in archives and news articles written in Finnish. There is a wikipedia page in English, which I will link down below.
Sources:
(Finnish language news articles.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20150924090707/http://www.iltasanomat.fi/kotimaa/art-1288651998157.html
https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2021/...isi-luopua-uhrin-vastuuta-seksuaalirikoksissa
https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000000964453.html
(English language wikipedia page about the murder).
Murder of Susanne Lindholm - Wikipedia
Susanne had gone out the night prior to her murder. She had asked her coworkers if they wanted to come with her, but no one wanted to. A male coworker agreed to give Susanne a ride to the western part of Helsinki. Susanne and her sister Camilla met at a hotel in Haaga, a district of Helsinki, sometime around 10 P.M. They then went to the Helsinki Club which is located on the Mannerheimintie street in the city center, and there Susanne struck up conversation with a Norwegian business man who was temporarily in Finland on a work trip. Camilla took a bus back home, and Susanne and the business man went to the man's hotel room at the Hesperia Hotel. This was at around 1.20 A.M. They shared a whiskey, and Susanne decided to go home at around 3 A.M. She did not want the man to come home with her, she lived with her parents and her siblings, but she exchanged phone numbers with the man and agreed to meet him the next day.
Two young men saw Susanne standing outside of the Hesperia Hotel at 3.10 A.M. Witnesses saw her walk down Mannerheimintie and continuing on to Helsinginkatu. This is the last known time she was seen alive. Susanne had no money on her, and could therefore not have payed for a taxi. No one has come forward to say that they saw her hitchhiking, or that they picked her up. The last bus to Käpylä would have been the one that Camilla took back home, and therefore Susanne was effectively left with no other choice but to walk back to her home.
Her body was discovered by one of her neighbors, Esko Savolainen. He was in the basement to retrieve a bicycle pump. Savolainen immediately alerted the caretaker of the building to his discovery, and the caretaker called the police.
One neighbor testified to having heard a woman crying somewhere in the building at around 4 A.M, loud enough to wake the neighbor up. The police had determined Susanne's time of death to be between 3 and 4 A.M, but based on the witnesses who saw her leave the hotel at 3.10 A.M, it's likely that the murder took place at 4 A.M. Another resident of the building claims to have heard footsteps, the slamming of the basement door and a male and a female voice talking at around 2.10 A.M, but because this doesn't align with the timeline of the case it might be unrelated.
During the course of the investigation, the police wondered if Susanne had gotten a ride from her killer to her house, because she could not possibly have walked the 4 km between the hotel and the apartment building in under 50 minutes.
Skin was found under Susanne's fingernails, and it was believed that this was because Susanne had scratched her killer. A man who had scratches on his face was arrested at one point in connection to the case, but he was released due to lack of evidence. The police did at one point suspect a robbery because two gold rings and a purse was missing from the victim.
In 1979, a 28-year-old woman named Helena Korlin was strangled and dismembered by a man named Carl-Erik Björkkvist. Helena might have been a friend of Susanne's, Helena worked as a travel agent but it's unclear if they knew each other. The Finnish police does no longer consider Björkkvist to be a person of interest in the case.
There has been some speculation if perhaps Susanne was the victim of a serial killer. Two other women, 41-year-old Seija Kekkonen, and 42-year-old Helka Ketola, were found murdered in the basement of their apartment buildings in different parts of Helsinki during the early 1980's. Kekkonen was found on December 6th, 1980, and Ketola was found on January 30th, 1981. Both had been strangled and raped. Both women had been killed returning home after a night out, and they had had personal belongings stolen from them. In 1981, a bus driver named Jalo Seppänen murdered and raped 18-year-old Helena Mäntylä in Haaga, Helsinki. Helena was strangled. Helena had encountered Seppänen when she was on her way home, and she had been robbed of some personal belongings by her killer.
An investigator within the Finnish police, Martti Latikka, said in 1995 that the police was aware of the identity of a suspected serial killer, but there was not sufficient evidence for an arrest to be made.
There is unfortunately not a lot of information about the murder in English out there. Here, I've presented a translation of the information that's available in archives and news articles written in Finnish. There is a wikipedia page in English, which I will link down below.
Sources:
(Finnish language news articles.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20150924090707/http://www.iltasanomat.fi/kotimaa/art-1288651998157.html
https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2021/...isi-luopua-uhrin-vastuuta-seksuaalirikoksissa
https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000000964453.html
(English language wikipedia page about the murder).
Murder of Susanne Lindholm - Wikipedia