Police still seek answers in Leo Savioja murder

Yle reports that folk musician Leo Savioja was found dead in Haapamäki in August 1962, but his murder remains unsolved 64 years later. A knife had been driven into his neck, but an autopsy found that the fatal injury was a blow to the head. Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation is still seeking information.

A road worker looking for a place to urinate found Savioja’s body in a dense woodland on the morning of August 9, 1962. The temperature was around 10 degrees Celsius.

Savioja, 62, was lying on his back among small spruce trees. He was fully dressed, and a knife sheath was found on his chest. Blood covered his face, part of which had turned blue and purple.

Three officers from the Haapamäki police arrived with the man who had found the body, followed by a doctor. Police immediately began investigating the death as a killing or murder. The finder had not touched anything at the scene.

Police searched Savioja’s pockets and found, among other things, 600 marks, an identity card, a mouldy piece of onion sausage, a piece of rye bread, sheet music, toilet paper and several metres of red wool yarn. Investigators concluded that nothing had been stolen and that the killer had left no obvious traces.

Savioja’s violin was found seven metres from the body, while a loose stone lay 16 metres away. Police considered the stone a possible weapon. Hair was found on the trunk of a nearby pine tree.

There were no drag marks in the vegetation. However, rain had fallen in the days before the body was found, and nearby roads had been graded, meaning earlier traces may have disappeared.

A railway worker on duty saw Savioja walking alone at Haapamäki station at about 3.30am on August 9. His trail disappeared after that.

Haapamäki was a busy community in the 1960s and an important junction station with four railway lines. As many as 1,000 people could pass through the station in a day.

The station restaurant was a popular meeting place. Savioja was known to spend time there, particularly when he had money for beer. According to accounts from the time, anyone who visited the restaurant would see the folk musician.

Many local people knew Savioja, or at least knew of him. He never left home without his violin and was a familiar sight in Haapamäki with the instrument.

Investigators from the Jyväskylä Provincial Criminal Investigation Centre set out to establish who Savioja had been with and where he had gone during his final hours.

Police questioned dozens, possibly hundreds, of people from Haapamäki and others who had been in the area. They asked detailed questions about Savioja’s character, movements and alcohol use.

For reasons that remain unclear, police also sought extensive information about Savioja’s sexuality and related behaviour, including whether he might have been gay. The investigation produced no answers on that point.

Savioja, known as Savi-Leku, had been married to a woman, but they had divorced about a decade before his death. He was not known to have had children.

His sister described him as a quiet, ordinary man. In an interview with a journalist in the 1970s, she said he could sometimes stand by the edge of a field for ten minutes, looking thoughtful and doing nothing.

Police also received other descriptions of Savioja, but the case has never been solved.