In the land of over 100,000 lakes, there is none so infamous as Lake Bodom, so well known for the shocking triple homicide that bloodied its shores forever on June 4th, 1960.

…Are you sure you want to read more about the Lake Bodom murders?

What happened on the shores of Lake Bodom is possibly the most infamous multiple homicide in all of Finland…because the one responsible has never been caught! There have been over 70 main suspects and hundreds of minor suspects. Numerous theories and false confessions (or are they?) have sprung up since 1960, as the subject is popular in Finnish media as well as international tabloids (of course), but no progress has been made in catching the murderer.

Here is what happened: Four teenagers were camping on the shores of Lake Bodom, and sometime between 4 and 6 AM, someone (or perhaps more than one person), stabbed through the tent, murdering three of them and badly wounding the fourth, Nils Gustafsson. He lived a normal life as a bus driver until 2004, when DNA evidence, which they didn’t have back in 1960, suggested that he was the murderer, and theories arose that he did it out of jealousy over an ex-girlfriend. Eventually he was found not guilty and released, and also compensated €44,900 by the Finnish government for the troubles they gave him.

Other suspects were Hans Assmann, a German who came into a hospital that night with suspicious injuries and blood on him, but since he could only speak German they couldn’t communicate with him and
had to let him go. Some say this was a diplomatic cover-up…

There was also a man who admitted on his deathbed to be the Lake Bodom murderer, the man who had sold them lemonade that night and who was known to dislike campers, but he had a proven alibi that several other people verified.
Perhaps it’s too late to ever catch the one who did this, but then again perhaps there will be new evidence that will point to the real killer this time. Children of Bodom has been asked that if the murderer is ever caught, will they change their band name because the whole sense of mystery is gone? Their answer was no, because there will always be mystery attached to that name no matter what happens.