Unsolved Mysteries: The Double Murder at the Tulilahti Campsite

Was the Murder of Two Young Women in Finland Linked to a Killing Six Years Earlier?

Everyone enjoys summer vacation. It’s supposed to be a time of relaxation and enjoyment, a time away from the daily trials of work and life’s general stress. There are always problems, however. Perhaps there might be issues with tickets, hotel rooms, or something as trivial as not enough chairs at the swimming pool. Rarely do such vacations turn to murder. Yet, in 1959, that’s precisely what happened to two young women in Finland. Their deaths became one of the most infamous unsolved cases in the country’s history and possibly the second killings in a chain of events that began with the murder of Kyllikki Saari back in 1953.

It was July 18, 1959, and office worker Riitta Aulikki Pakkanen, 23, and nursing student Eine Maria Nyyssönen, 21, had long since decided they would go on a bicycle trip from their home in Jyväskylä to Savo and North Karelia. They had been anticipating the excursion for months, building up their fitness and going on long practice rides. It was very much a makeshift trip, with Pakkanen borrowing a camera from her brother and both women sewing their own bags to carry belongings.