Child finds parents dead at Helsinki home in apparent extended suicide

Middle-aged couple committed suicide together in Porvoo

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A middle-aged couple were found dead in their apartment in the Herttoniemi district of Helsinki on Tuesday afternoon. The couple were discovered by one of their two children.
      Police were not actively looking for a third party to the deaths on Tuesday, but seem to believe that the case involved at least one suicide.
      According to Det. Chief Inspector Kari Tolvanen of the Violent Crimes Unit of the Helsinki Police Department, speaking on Tuesday evening, investigations are nevertheless still going forward and the possibility of another person or persons having been involved has not been totally ruled out.
     
Police statements on the case have been terse, and the cause of death has not been released.
      Tolvanen said that it was within the bounds of possibility that this was an incident of a double suicide.
     
A similar case that came to light in Porvoo on Monday also looks to have been a suicide pact between a middle-aged couple.
      A policeman and his wife had apparently shot each other simultaneously of their own volition, using licensed hunting weapons.
      The bodies were found when a police patrol went to determine where the officer was, after he had not reported for work on Monday. The man and woman had left brief notes confirming that they intended to take their own lives.
      It was reported on Wednesday that a possible cause for the couple's actions was the removal from the household last week of three foster-children previously in their care.
      These two cases come hard on the heels of a tragic incident in Oulu just over a week ago, in which a father killed his wife and two children before shooting himself.
     
Family killings and "extended suicides" such as these are sadly not that uncommon in Finland, though the incidence is not as frequent as the latest cases might suggest.
      Each year there are from six to eight such cases on average, and the phenomenon is not new as such - in the 1960s some 15% of capital crimes were ones in which the perpetrator took his or her own life after the act.
      The current figure is around 7%.
      There were 130 murders and manslaughters committed in Finland last year.
     
Causes in the background to such family killlings can include the threat of divorce, jealousy, fears of impending bankruptcy, or a grave weakening of one party's health leading to fears for the other's wellbeing.
      Often there is also a sense that the family or the spouse will suffer emotionally or financially if for instance the father of the family decides to take his own life.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Family of four die in murder-suicide, Oulu neighbourhood in shock (20.10.2008)

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