Man arrested in Seinäjoki basement killing has history of violent crime

A 55-year-old man from Alajärvi was arrested Friday by South Ostrobothnia District Court on suspicion of murder in the 2020 killing of a 40-year-old Seinäjoki man whose body was found in a basement in June 2021, Yle reports.

The case was initially investigated as manslaughter but was later reclassified as murder. Police referred the case to prosecutors this week.

The suspect has a lengthy criminal record spanning roughly 20 years, with most convictions issued by South Ostrobothnia District Court, as well as some by the courts of Åland and Turku and the Turku Court of Appeals. His offenses include a prior manslaughter conviction from the early 2000s, over a dozen assault convictions of varying severity, property damage, and death threats.

Court records show a pattern of domestic violence, with repeated aggressive and violent behavior toward partners.

In March 2008, the Turku Court of Appeals sentenced him to 9 years and 6 months in prison for manslaughter committed in Åland in July 2006. The suspect and another man had spent the day with a 75-year-old victim, assaulting him for hours before pushing him out of a second-story window. The victim died from his injuries after falling onto a roof and then down a staircase.

While on parole, the man committed further violent crimes. In 2014, he was sentenced to an additional 9 months in prison for assaults in Seinäjoki, including beating a man with his fists, holding a knife to his throat, and striking him with a chair. He also entered a residence without permission and later assaulted another man in the city center. In a separate incident, he threatened a police officer.

His violent offenses continued after release, including multiple assaults, threats to kill, and an arson incident in 2015 where he set fire to curtains in a Seinäjoki apartment after breaking in through a window, destroying the interior.

In 2016, he received an 8-month sentence but was released after two months, only to later threaten to behead strangers in Turku.

Domestic violence charges involve two women over the past decade.