In the Gennarby Bay near Hanko, Finland, volunteers are continuing the search for the body of a woman who was shot by her husband in 1974 and later, according to case materials, sunk in the sea in a pressure vessel. The search is being conducted by Anne Järvinen and Jenni Sundell of the Pääkaupunkiseudun Etsintä organization, which is part of the Voluntary Rescue Service system, YLE News reports.
The volunteers have been investigating for several years the circumstances of the family tragedy that occurred in 1974 in the Finnish city of Kauniainen. Last summer, they surveyed the bay floor with a sonar and found three objects whose shape and size could match a vessel. During dives, one object turned out to be logs, probably from an old pier, while another was a large stone.
The husband’s confession
On March 17, 1974, the husband confessed to Espoo police. According to him, in February that year, the couple’s several-week-old son died in their home. After that, the husband shot his wife with a homemade weapon.
The husband told investigators that he placed his wife’s body in a pressure vessel, welded its lid shut, and transported the vessel by car. He initially told police that he had thrown it into the sea in the area of the Hernesaari peninsula in Helsinki, and the child’s body into the sea in a sack. The child’s body was never found, although divers from the Helsinki City Fire Department searched for it.
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Searches in Gennarby Bay
On March 18, the husband took police officers to the village of Eby near Hanko and said that he had not dared to sink the vessel in Hernesaari. According to his version, he brought it to Gennarby Bay, where there was open water, pulled it about 100 meters from the shore with a rope, led it up to a boat, and removed the rope.
Divers from the Finnish Defence Forces Diving Training School searched for the vessel repeatedly in 1974, but without success. In November of that year, a court ruled that at the time of the crimes, the husband did not understand the significance of his actions.
Järvinen and Sundell intend to continue the search. They assume that over the decades, the vessel may have sunk into a thick layer of bottom silt.
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