An elderly man who police in Southwestern Finland suspect stored the bodies of his parents in freezers for 30 years told investigators that he wanted to preserve them for the future.
According to lead investigator, Detective Senior Sergeant Lasse Höysti, the man wanted to preserve the bodies as well as possible, but that his motive remains unclear.
On Friday evening, Yle reported that the deceased were the suspect's parents. They were listed as having died of natural causes in 1994 and 1995 and were handed over to relatives for burial.
"There is a gravestone for the deceased at a cemetery," Höysti told Yle.
The 80-year-old suspect is a trained physician who was listed as an executive at a firm described as offering funeral services. The company's mailing address is the location where the bodies were stored.
After being called to the scene last year, police found the bodies stored in two freezers. One of the freezers was not turned on, according to Höysti. He added that police do not know how long the freezer's power had been off.
Police began investigating the case under the suspected offence of breach of the sanctity of the grave. This generally refers to the illegal opening of a grave or the removal of a corpse or body part, urn or coffin from a gravesite. The law also concerns treating the dead in an objectionable manner.
Yle visited the address on Thursday, in an attempt to talk to neighbours. Compared to surrounding properties, the house is in fairly poor condition. Yle understands the property is owned by the suspect's brother.
However, neighbours who spoke to Yle only did so on the condition of anonymity, partly because of the matter's sensitive nature. Yle has confirmed the identities of the people interviewed.
Preparing for 'the future'
Three neighbours said they saw police vehicles at the house last year. A couple who live nearby said they remember that electricity to the house was cut off for some time a year ago.
On Thursday, lights were seen inside the house, but no one answered the door.
According to the funeral services company's public financial records, the firm had no revenue or operations in 2023-24. Additionally, the records said the company had no assets, liabilities nor employees.
The financial statements also said that the company aimed to maintain itself in a "state of readiness for the future".
The suspect and his funeral service firm were not familiar to other funeral services in the area.
The director of local Perttala funeral service company, Arto Mettänen, said he did not know the suspect before the recent turn of events.
"He's completely unknown. The case has caused a good deal of confusion," Mettänen told Yle.
Others in the funeral home business said the same thing, including Maria Sjödahl-Sahonen from the Härkätie funeral services office.
Sjödahl-Sahonen noted that these days, supervision of the transport of the deceased is "very strict".
Questionable practices
The welfare and health regulating agency Valvira revoked the suspect's license to practice as a physician in 2013, due to shortfalls in updating his patients' records.
The doctor had a practice in Åland, a semi-autonomous province in the Finnish archipelago.
He had been subject to several supervisory actions by the agency since at least 2003. In an official decision, Valvira cited the physician's poorly compiled patient records and noted that past supervisory actions had not changed his practices.
A decision issued by Valvira in 2013 stated that the doctor had prescribed the central nervous system depressant drug Lyrica to seven patients, without listing why the medication had been prescribed in their medical records. In one case, according to the regulator, the doctor had prescribed more than the maximum recommended dose of the drug.
According to Valvira, Lyrica is generally known to be susceptible to abuse, adding that special caution and care must be exercised when it is prescribed.
Valvira partially restricted the physician's ability to practice medicine in 2003, due to similar shortcomings. The agency has intervened in the years since, but he did not change his practices, according to the regulator.
In 2013, Valvira restricted his right to practice to the extent that he was only permitted to work in a public healthcare setting under special management and supervision.
About four years after that, Southwestern Finland District Court convicted the physician of practicing medicine without a licence because he had issued a doctor's certificate to a patient without the right to do so.
14 Sept: Updated throughout with identity of deceased, suspected criminal charge and other details.
