An elderly man shot his wife and then himself in Mikkeli’s Parkkila district in Southern Finland on Saturday evening.
The bloody deed took place in the couple’s home.
At 18:50 the man had called his daughter telling her that he had killed her mother.
The daughter immediately alerted the local emergency centre.
Shortly after, the police found the 70-year-old man and his 64-year-old wife dead inside the couple’s detached house.
The killings had been performed by using an unlawful homemade small-calibre pistol.
According to Det. Insp. Kaarlo Häkkinen, the man had constructed the weapon from an air pistol by altering it in such a way that it was able to shoot 22-calibre rounds.
An air pistol is a competition or training handgun, which fires projectiles by means of compressed air or other gas. In Finland an 18-year-old person can purchase such a weapon from a sports equipment store without a licence.
“If someone turns an air pistol into a weapon that uses factory-made propellant-burning cartridges, then it falls under the classification of a firearm and requires a relevant licence”, Häkkinen explains.
“Before Saturday we had no knowledge of the weapon. If the man’s immediate circle of friends knew about this, it must have been a small circle.”
In Häkkinen’s view, the constructing of such a gun requires tools and the knowledge of how to work metal.
The man was a retired labourer. Häkkinen describes the family as an average rural couple. Previously they had had no problems with the police.
According to the preliminary police investigation, however, the man had recently behaved oddly and delusionally.
The possible role of alcohol in the killings will be established in the ongoing forensic examination.
The police are also continuing to look into the motives of the killings.
