DDT - Deambulações DeMentes Teóricas 36

The Serial Killer - Part XXVII

Matti Haapoja was a Finnish murderer whose exact number of victims is unknown. Haapoja started his criminal career as a brawler, graduating quickly to stealing horses. His first known murder happened on December 6, 1867, when he stabbed his drinking partner Heikki Impponen in a drunken brawl. He was sentenced to serve 12 years in prison at Turku for his murder. During the next 10 years he escaped from prison four times, spending months at large on each occasion. Around this time he gained great notoriety as a jailbreaker and a thief. His fame as a robber started to grow after the newspapers reported that he had robbed and shot at Esa Nyrhinen on August 12, 1876. Later it was found that Nyrhinen had been hiding Haapoja at his home and the men had had an argument.

As a result of his escapes and continued thievery, Haapoja was sentenced to life in prison in 1874. After his last escape, he petitioned for his sentence to be changed to an exile to Siberia. This was accepted and he was sent to Omskoblast in 1880. During his stay there, he is reputed to have killed a man in 1886, after which he was exiled to East Siberia. Folk stories claim that during this time Haapoja killed two other famous Finnish criminals, Anssin Jukka and Kaapo Sutki, but these tales are likely false as they offer no conclusive proof.

Around 1889 Haapoja decided to escape Siberia and return to Finland. He later claimed that he intended to emigrate to America. He raised money for this escape by committing a series of robberies and murders. He probably killed at least three men and participated in the murder of a fourth. He also obtained a passport that belonged to a Russian man whose fate remains unclear.

Haapoja returned to Finland in September 1890. A month later he murdered and robbed a prostitute, Jemina Salo. He was captured at Porvoo a couple of days later and recognized. At his trial Haapoja behaved arrogantly, confessing to this murder as well as to one of the murders he had committed in Siberia. He hoped that he would be sent back to Siberia but instead the court gave him a second life term in prison.

On October 10, 1894, Haapoja tried to escape from prison yet again. During this attempt he killed a guard and wounded two others. When he realized that he couldn't get out, he attempted to commit suicide by stabbing himself, but the wound was not fatal. However, as soon as he had recovered from the self-inflicted stabbing wound, he hanged himself in his cell on January 8, 1895.

Overall it is claimed that he confessed to 18 murders, but there are no details about this supposed confession, and the figure should be regarded as unreliable. Some sources estimate his total number of murders as 22-25. He also non-fatally wounded at least six men in knife fights.
To me Haapoja was not a serial murderer, but a plain killer who liked to have things done his way or not at all. And serial murder is an art form, not a whim.