Teen convicted of Iitti murder had mother with serious convictions

Yle has examined the family background of a teenager convicted of murder in Iitti. The boy’s mother has been convicted of several serious offences, while both of his parents have criminal records.

The boy was 15 when he killed a man in his fifties in Kausala, Iitti, in August 2025. The two had met at a bar on the day of the killing and did not know each other beforehand.

The Päijät-Häme District Court has sentenced the now 17-year-old to 10 years in prison. The judgment is not final, and the boy has indicated that he is dissatisfied with it. Yle is not publishing his name because he was underage at the time of the offence.

According to information obtained by Yle, the boy was registered as living at the same address as his mother in Iitti when the killing took place. After the offence, police found him hiding in premises rented by his mother in Lahti.

Contact between the mother and son was restricted during the murder investigation.

Mother has several convictions

The boy’s mother is currently being held in custody. In March, the Päijät-Häme District Court sentenced her to more than five years in prison for several offences, including aggravated money laundering, an aggravated narcotics offence and an aggravated firearms offence.

That judgment is not final because the case has been taken to the Court of Appeal. Yle is not publishing the 43-year-old woman’s name to protect her underage son’s identity.

Material from the pre-trial investigation obtained by Yle includes an audio recording in which the mother considered taking responsibility for a narcotics offence on behalf of her son. On the recording, she describes him as warm-hearted and worries about how he will cope in isolation.

In 2023, the mother was convicted of deprivation of liberty. That judgment is final. By the time of the district court proceedings, she had also previously been convicted of offences including aggravated robbery, aggravated assault and a narcotics offence. The boy was 10 when those offences were committed.

His father also has a less serious criminal record.

Criminal background increases risk, researcher says

Research shows that children have twice the risk of committing offences if one of their parents has a criminal record, according to Antti Latvala, a professor of criminology at the University of Helsinki.

Latvala said this does not show that this particular teenager’s offending was caused by his parents’ criminal backgrounds. Not all children of people who commit crimes become offenders.

Latvala and his research group have examined how parental criminality can affect children’s lives. On average, children whose parents have criminal records fare worse in several areas than the comparison population, including mental health, substance abuse and educational attainment, he said.

Children may be exposed to crime in their upbringing, which can influence them towards offending. Latvala said genetic factors may also partly explain why criminal behaviour can pass between generations. Criminal behaviour has a genetic component, he said, and children may inherit genes associated with risk-taking.

Children of parents with criminal records also face a higher risk of becoming victims of crime. Latvala said this may be linked to the impulsiveness of parents who commit offences, including a higher risk that a child will be assaulted by their own parent.