Crimes Memories almost 30 years old reveal how the investigation into Ilpo Härmäläinen’s disappearance failed in Turku: Police believed that the man who had the baby just wanted to take a vacation from his family, the relative says

Turku resident a lawyer Ilpo Härmäläinen the disappearance murder trial will end on Monday when the parties issue final statements.

Härmäläinen disappeared in 1994, and his murder is accused of a 68-year-old owner of an advertising agency with whom Härmäläinen was undergoing criminal economic scandal. The man has been publicly called an advertiser.

HS looked at the old investigation materials in the case to find out why the disappearance could not be solved 28 years ago. At the same time, special information was revealed about the past of an advertiser accused of murder.

The main reason for the failure of the investigation was related to mistakes made by the police. The fact that the disappearance began to be investigated as a homicide was largely due to the activity of Ilpo Härmäläinen’s relatives.

When Härmäläinen disappeared in Turku at the beginning of August 1994, his wife contacted the police for the first time that night. The Turku District Police Department recorded an investigation report about the missing person the next day.

According to the relatives, the seriousness of Härmälä’s disappearance was not taken seriously, but the police considered it the departure of the young father.

“The police had told my sister that the men are such that when the baby comes, they cannot stand and may take a holiday,” says Härmäläinen’s wire.

Due to the sensitive nature of the matter, the thread describes the events anonymously.

Härmäläinen had a son who was a couple of months old. According to relatives, he was not anxious about becoming a father, but on the contrary he was happy and proud. Härmäläinen had also registered with the University of Turku for a licentiate degree.

Case the first researcher Risto Finland the case has remained engraved.

“I thought at the beginning that this is not all there is to it. I said that this is not an ordinary disappearance of a person, ”says retired Finland.

The police reported the case quickly after the disappearance, and Helsingin Sanomat, among others, reported on the matter. The news said police did not rule out the possibility of a homicide.

Read more: Turku-based lawyer missing

Härmäläinen’s brother found documents in his brother’s apartment, which revealed a financial crime. Ilpo Härmäläinen, an advertising man and a third man from Turku joined it.

You can read about this financial crime in this story:

Read more: Turku-based advertising man accused of 27-year-old murder in extraordinary trial – lawyer said murderer in fear of reporting

According to a memorandum made later by the police, Risto Suomi would have liked to have been arrested at the beginning of the investigation, but the police department decided that the disappearance and financial crimes would be investigated separately.

“If it is maliciously interpreted, the matter was ‘then’,” a memorandum made by another investigator from the Turku District Police Department wrote about the decision.

Finland According to the Turku police, the matter was not taken seriously and the matter did not progress.

On the other hand, the activity of the relatives is indicated by the fact that, at their request, a former bailiff asked Härmäläinen about a picture of the shops in the city center.

Härmäläinen’s yarn says that he has even received unofficial advice from the police to go with the crew to do a check and see where the advertiser is where Ilpo is.

“At first there was a primitive reaction that something could be done, but at the same time common sense came into play, because nothing good could be followed from that,” yarn emphasizes.

Police had long believed that Härmäläinen had only fled, and the man’s search warrant was extended to the Nordic countries, Germany and France at the end of October.

The disappearance of Härmäläinen was dealt with by Yle On police TV November 1994. After that, the police received numerous indications that Härmäläinen had been seen all over Finland, as in Varkaus. The clues pulled the water.

When the investigation into the disappearance took place, Härmäläinen’s wire turned to an employee of the central criminal police (krp) he knew. An acquaintance promised to take the matter forward, and a few days later the wire received a call from a person in charge of the krp.

“I wrote down everything I knew and sent it to the krp.”

HS has read the memorandum submitted to krp.

In January 1995, a meeting was held in Turku on the initiative of the Krp Regional Office, which was also attended by the Turku Police Department. It was agreed at the meeting that the krp will start investigating the disappearance together with the police department.

Risto Suomi was still involved in the investigation for a few weeks. He went to get an advertiser for questioning.

“I remember him crying in the back seat of a car on his way to the police station,” Finland recalls.

However, Krp’s researchers did not make a breakthrough in the case, as it had been months since the disappearance. Gradually, the case fell on the shoulders of one investigator, who investigated the matter “without investigative leadership”.

Krp’s researcher later wrote in his paper in the memorandum that a lot was not done by krp researchers. For example, the advertiser’s wife at the time was not questioned.

Police strongly believed in the involvement of the advertiser and considered the disappearance an almost certain homicide.

“There’s probably every reason to try to put [syytetty] for the cramped, ”the researcher wrote.

However, a couple of years later, the behavior of the advertiser was far from the behavior of the man who was transported crying for questioning. In 1997, police tried to get the accused to a lie detection test, but the man absolutely refused.

The Central Criminal Police had already asked several pages of questions, much of which related to the man’s possible involvement in the disappearance.

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According to the case investigator Risto Suomen, the matter was not taken seriously by the Turku police and the matter did not progress.

Lawyer For years, the investigation into Härmälä’s disappearance remained in the throes of austerity, during which the advertiser remained the main suspect in a possible homicide.

According to a police memo, the advertiser’s subsequent business and the issues that arose from it could provide a new “starting point” for the investigation.

When the homicide investigation was reopened last year, the Central Criminal Police interviewed numerous individuals involved in the advertiser’s subsequent business. They have also been heard in court.

The pre-trial investigation material and the trial deal only with the convicted person’s conviction for an illegal threat from 2007. This has been used by the prosecutor as an argument that the accused is capable of violence.

In the 21st century, the advertiser owned several companies whose industries were at least related to electrical work, mobile applications, and construction. He was hired to run a company, but later bought the majority of the company.

Since 2007, the advertiser has received numerous criminal convictions that paint a picture of a financial criminal who has not even shyed away from exploiting his relatives in his crimes.

The defendant in the murder trial tried to paint a picture of himself as an honest entrepreneur, who was tricked by another Turku resident in the 1990s.

In 2007, the advertiser received a suspended sentence for 11 offenses against registration and forgery. He had falsified the names of his acquaintances as those in charge of his companies. In addition to the sentence, he received a four-year ban on doing business.

In a murder trial, a man said he worked for a large American company in the 21st century and therefore lived abroad, such as in Britain., Vietnam and China.

These allegations are questionable, as he was convicted of tax fraud in 2008 when the Tax Administration was able to prove the man had lived in Finland for several years instead of England.

The man’s London address information was misspelled, and the address referred to a building in the Paddington area that has no residential apartments.

Preliminary investigation according to the advertiser’s children have nothing to do with their father. The man had used his daughter’s name in his business and caused him trouble. This approach was used by the man to his other relatives as well.

In 2013, the advertiser received a three-year unconditional conviction for 21 financial crimes. His sentence in the Court of Appeal was reduced to two and a half years.

Among other things, the man forged his company’s documents using a photocopier. Because he was banned from doing business, he recruited homeless alcoholics to the board of his companies.

He falsified his brother’s name as the person in charge, so the brother was prosecuted for the fraud. The prosecutor withdrew the charge when it emerged that the advertiser had pulled his brother.

The advertiser’s sister, on the other hand, was convicted after getting involved in her brother’s mess. The advertiser had asked his sister to open an account for him, but the sister opened the account in his own name. The sister was convicted of negligent money laundering for opening an account, as the brother stored the sister without knowing the money he had embezzled in the account.