Late on Friday evening, February 6, 1987, it snowed steadily in Tammela, Kanta-Häme.
A 17-year-old high school student Sari Linaharja left his home before eleven in the evening with the intention of spending the evening with his friends in the center of Forssa.
Mother followed Liinaharja's progress from the kitchen window, but couldn't see far because of Pyry. The last time she saw her daughter was walking on the road in the direction of the bus stop.
Liinaharja had arranged a meeting with his friends at Forssa market. However, he never came to the meeting. He also didn't get on the bus operating in Forssa, which arrived in Tammela late due to bad weather a little before eleven.
A girl matching Liinaharja's characteristics was seen around eleven at the bus stop near Liinaharja's home, possibly hitchhiking.
After this, Liinaharja disappeared.
A berry picker found her body seven months later in September. The remains were found in Forssa's Koijärvi Rekiriko on the side of a remote forest road. The place is located about 20 kilometers from Liinaharja's home.
The deceased was wearing brown cowboy-style fringed boots, the same ones Liinaharja had on when he left home. 15 meters away from the body lay a black woolen overcoat, the sleeves of which were pulled into a knot.
The cause of Liinaharja's death has still not been determined, but the police suspect that he was the victim of a murder.
Sari Liinaharja disappeared in February 1987 from the bus stop in Tammela near the lamppost shown in the photo.
CENTRAL CRIMINAL POLICE confirmed on Wednesday that it has completed the additional investigation requested by the prosecutor in the homicide case from 37 years ago.
The further investigation of Liinaharja's suspected murder has now moved to prosecution and the prosecutor is reassessing the case.
According to HS information, a 63-year-old man is suspected of the murder, who was the main suspect in the preliminary investigation already in the early 2000s. However, in 2005, a decision was made not to charge the man with suspicion.
The prosecutor can overturn the previous decision not to charge and charge the suspect if new evidence of his guilt emerges.
In 2005, the charge was dropped because no evidence or probable cause was found in the case to support the suspect's guilt.
It is clear from the decision not to prosecute that despite the additional investigations carried out in the summer of 2002, the cause of Liinaharja's death and the circumstances of her death could not be verified.
According to the prosecutor, there was also no certainty as to whether Liinaharja had died as a result of the crime.
Director of investigations Jussi Luoton according to the further investigation, a suspect in his sixties joins the line of inquiry from a Toyota Corolla that was moving near the place where the body was found.
The suspicion is mainly based on eyewitness observations of the man's suspicious movements in the Toyota Corolla on the night of Liinaharja's disappearance.
The preliminary investigation minutes that became public at the beginning of the 2000s reveal more information about the Corolla driver and how the police tracked down the suspect more than 20 years ago.
According to the preliminary investigation, a girl matching Liinaharja's characteristics was seen around eleven in the evening getting into a car from the bus stop, which, according to the witness, was probably a dark red Toyota Corolla.
A few hours later, on the night of Liinaharja's disappearance, a man in his thirties drove a similar Corolla into a ditch near the place where the body was found in Forssa's Koijärvi.
The place where the car derailed into the ditch is located about three kilometers from the place where the deceased was found.
However, the drive-by on the night of the disappearance did not come to the attention of the police until almost four years after Liinaharja's death.
After that, the police searched for the Toyota Corolla and its 30-year-old driver between 1990 and 1994, without success.
In the 90s, the police asked the public for tips about an old-style Toyota Corolla, which was either dark red or brownish in color.
New The investigation took a turn at the beginning of the 2000s, when a man now in his sixties was arrested by the police as a suspect in the second homicide in Kanta-Hämee.
The suspect had killed a man with a knife in his home in 2000. After that, an attempt was made to dispose of the victim's body by burning it on a forest highway. The Court of Appeal of Turku sentenced the man to 8.6 years in prison for manslaughter.
As a result of this homicide investigation, the police discovered that the man's characteristics also matched the driver of the Toyota that drove into the ditch in February 1987. In addition, the man had a dark red Corolla at his disposal at the time of Liinaharja's disappearance.
Four people had ended up helping the car out of the ditch on the February night. Man the car the identification marks of the driver given by the witnesses who helped in the push matched the suspect. According to witnesses, the driver had behaved strangely. He had been feeling scared and alarmed.
“The man was scared, covered in sweat and his hair was completely wet,” one of the witnesses described to the police.
One one of the witnesses told the police that he paid attention to the fact that the man was coming from a rarely used forest road in bad weather.
21st century at the beginning, the man was questioned as a suspect in Liinaharja's murder, but he denied the murder. During interrogation, the man denied that he had anything to do with Liinaharja or that he even drove the Toyota that derailed in the ditch on the night of the disappearance.
The man was also given a lie detection test during the preliminary investigation. In the test, he reacted strongly to some questions about the Liinaharja case.
Based on the preliminary investigation, the police suspected that the man had left Liinaharja in the forest either dead or unconscious.
Sari Liinaharja in a photo published by the police in 1987.
Central Criminal Police launched in case of further examination in the second year. At that time, the suspect had told Yle his view of the events of the night of the disappearance The last clue on the podcast.
In an interview with Yle, the suspect admitted that he had been in contact with Liinaharja on the night of her disappearance. According to the man, he and another man had taken the car and thrown the hitchhiker girl, who was possibly Liinaharja, into the house party.
This differed from what the suspect told the police in the early 2000s, where he denied having anything to do with Liinaharja. At least no evidence has been found before of the home party mentioned by the man.
The man also admitted in the interview that he was driving a Toyota Corolla at the time of his disappearance.
The police have not made public how he has commented on the events and what he had previously told in the recent additional investigation.
According to the head of the investigation, the suspect still denies having committed the murder.
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