Murder Mystery | “I won’t live much longer” – Kai Salomaa started driving the car he bought the day before and disappeared

“The head of the cloth and the Vaasa police are looking for the missing person Probably Salomaa. Salomaa, who was last seen in Karvia on May 16, has been unknown to you for the past two weeks. Kai Salomaa is 46 years old. He is 189 centimeters tall and has long dark brown hair…”

The text above is a direct quote from the June 2, 2003 issue From the Kankaanpää Region.

From the point of view of the local newspaper, the disappearance of Salomaa was not earth-shattering news in the summer of 2003. Of course, at that time the man was still officially “just” missing.

Later, police investigations have revealed things that give reason to assume that a crime has taken place. And specifically murder.

Although the news says that Salomaa disappeared on May 16, it is known that the last observation was made on May 15, 2003.

The so far unexplained disappearance remains a complete mystery. There are many special aspects of disappearances that have been revealed over the years to ordinary citizens as well.

After the summer of the disappearance, the case has come up from time to time in the national media. The case was brought up most recently by Yle, which was published on May 15, 2023 online news according to the Central Criminal Police is investigating the case of disappearance as a murder.

Until now, the case was being investigated as a homicide. According to criminal law, manslaughter expires in two decades. Murder never gets old.

According to the article published by Yle, the change in the investigation of the case from manslaughter to murder was not due to the fact that the case expires, but that the police have received new information related to the matter, which gives reason to assume that Salomaa was the victim of a premeditated murder, i.e. murder.

Probably to Saloma the last trip to Karvia already started two days earlier, on Tuesday, May 13, when he left Vaasa with his friend for Karvia.

A day before her disappearance, on Wednesday, May 14, Salomaa went to Laihia to buy herself a car, a silver-grey Honda Civic. He drove his Honda back to Karvia via Jalasjärvi.

On the day of his disappearance, Thursday, May 15, several sightings of Kai Salomaa were made in the center of Karvia, the village shop in Sarvela and in the yard of a property located along Laurilantie in Ämmälänkylä.

There are a couple of interesting details related to the day of the disappearance. The car bought by Salomaa was seen leaving the yard of the property located along Laurilantie in Ämmälänkylä in the afternoon. The car returned to the yard during the evening. There is no information about who returned it.

In addition, a call was made to the emergency center from Salomaa’s mobile phone on May 15, 2003 at 11 p.m. It is not known who the caller was. The phone back has never been found either.

After the disappearance, Salomaat was searched for in the terrains of Karvia. However, no trace of the man was found. Artillery brigade conscripts were used to help the police in the search, among other things.

For the first couple of months, the local police in Kankaanpää and Vaasa investigated the case as a disappearance. According to the information that emerged during the first weeks, the police decided to launch a homicide investigation related to the disappearance in July 2003.

One or two a year after the disappearance, the police restarted the search in Pohjois Satakunta.

In the summer of 2007, the police had taken possession of a men’s dark belt found in Suomijärvi in ​​Karvia. The police considered it possible that the belt was connected to Saloma’s disappearance.

The police also showed the media a 2.5 meter x 5 meter tarpaulin they had taken over, which they believed was related to the disappearance. Alibi

In the spring of 2008, the police were also looking for information about the green passenger car and the uncovered two-axle trailer connected to it. At the time, the police believed that the vehicle and trailer might have been connected to Salomaa’s disappearance.

In the spring of 2008, the police had a theory that Salomaa’s body might not have been hidden until several days after the disappearance. For this reason, the police asked for tips from the public through the media about unusual observations made in the terrain, which dated back to mid-May 2003.

Probably in Salomaa had a criminal background. He drank a lot of alcohol in the 1990s, and in the early 2000s he fell into drug circles.

Salomaa had also served a short sentence in prison in early 2003. He had had to deal with the authorities in connection with, among other things, property crimes.

Based on the information brought up in the media, the police had reason to believe that Salomaa owed money to some parties. The matter is discussed comprehensively in the publication published in 2006 Ylen Lost in the program.

At some point, the police also considered the option of whether Salomaa could have disappeared voluntarily in order to get out of debt. However, this theory has been abandoned a long time ago.

Before her disappearance, Salomaa had told her relatives that “I won’t live much longer”. One can draw the conclusion from this that he knew the debts would be paid soon.

To Saloma a body was also searched for in Karvia in 2014. At that time, the police had received new information about the case, so the field search was restarted. The body was not found this time either.

During the last two years, the police have been searching for Salomaa’s body in the waterways. The place has not been Karvi, but the searches have been carried out on the Ostrobothnia side.

Over the course of two decades, the police have interrogated numerous people, some have even been arrested, but no breakthrough has yet occurred. And the most important one, Kai Salomaa’s body, is still missing.