True Life Tuesday: The Tattarisuo Case

On August 19, 1930 a 14 year old student found the severed hand of a woman in the spring of Tattarisuo outside of Helsinki Finland. The police were disturbed but did not do to much about the discovery until September 18, 1931 when more mutilated body parts were located in the spring. Once word of these discoveries got out it caused an uproar in the Finnish media. 

Suspects initially included the Finnish Freemasons, the Oddfellows and Ruufu-Risti. Eventually these groups were all found to not be responsible. The far-right Finnish media placed the blame on Jewish ritual murder. It was eventually found that the perpetrators were a local driver, Vilho Kallio, abd port workers Ville Saari and Johan Ilmari Hedman. The men took the body parts from open mass graves of the poor in Malmi Cemetery. They wanted to use the parts to contact the spirit world. They thought that they would be able to acquire knowledge and powers to cure diseases and locate stolen property. They used instructions that were fund in the Black Bible. 

On September 28, 1932 they were found guilty of corpse mutilation by the Court of Helsinki. Kallio received 2 years and four months while Saari received 3 years. Tge sentences were upheld on appeal by the Supreme Court of Finland.