NEWS ANALYSIS: When a child goes missing, it always generates headlines

The disappearance of a scooter girl became national news as the missing person was a minor

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By Jukka Harju
     
      For what reason did the disappearance of a girl in Tampere become such big news?
      The easiest answer is that because it interested people.
      The incident found its way into dozens of headlines and tabloid flyers outside newspaper kiosks, it was discussed in the national media, and eventually on Thursday night it ended up in the main evening newscast of the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE.
      One would not have believed this after having seen the first short articles - back at the beginning of August - that said simply "Tampere scooter girl missing".
     
The face of 15-year-old Karoliina Kesti became a kind of icon, which one bumped into on the street and on the online news portals every day.
      It is a familiar phenomenon.
      The same thing happened ten years ago, when police were hunting the killer of 14-year-old Eveliina Lappalainen, who had been found dead in Imatra.
      And the same applies to the Tampere girl Raisa Räisänen, 16, who has been missing since the autumn of 1999. Their faces have become familiar to everyone.
      From the media point of view, the case was simple. The missing person was a child, or at least a minor.
     
At present, there are hundreds of people who have gone missing in Finland for one reason or another, but who are barely mentioned - if they are mentioned at all - in the media, because they are adults.
      The disappearance of a child is an altogether bigger issue.
      Actually it can be described by saying that the younger the person, the greater the issue.
      If a five-year old went missing, the media attention would be even more intensive.
      A child cannot simply disappear.
     
The case of Karoliina Kesti gathered further momentum when three weeks after her disappearance the police notified the public that they were henceforth regarding the case as a homicide.
      A tantalising clue pointing to the involvement of a BMW car had turned up.
      At the very latest, this raised the matter to the front pages and online discussion forums. What have the BMW men done?
      An endless round of weighing up of competing theories began on social media sites dedicated to the case, followed by tens of thousands of people.
     
The police tried to find the BMW, until it turned out that there never had been any such vehicle in the first place. Well, not exactly, anyway. The tip was correct, but the time of the sighting was wrong.
      One can imagine that the police were not exactly best pleased with the way things turned out.
     
Could one criticize the police investigation? It is not easy.
      It would be easier to throw bricks had the BMW tip been left unexplored.
      In other words, it turned out that a well-intentioned witness's mistake over when something apparently material to the investigation was seen caused a lot of work for the police and an even greater amount of publicity.
     
The case also showed how much the police depend on clues from the public in such matters.
      The police asked repeatedly for any possible observations pertaining to the case, which they also received - in record numbers.
      But if there is no useful starting point for investigations, nothing can be investigated. A whole arsenal of different techniques and tactics are no great help in this situation.
      And should it be a source of astonishment - as it was, extensively - that divers did not find the body earlier from a small pond?
      No, it should not.
      The pond had a searchable area of 20 000 square metres, next to no visibility whatsoever beneath the surface, and a bottom of boggy muck.
      As it happens the right tennis shoe was found by divers, but it was not connected with the missing girl, because the police had received incorrect information about the shoe’s colour.
     
Right from the outset, the case was a fascinating mystery.
      Voluntary rescue services got many new and enthusiastic members.
      But as time went by, it began to be heard, especially among the young, that the case also caused anxiety, even to the extent that crisis counselling help was sought.
      And that is why the news from the night between Wednesday and Thursday was, for all its profound sadness, good to get.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 10.9.2011
     
     
Note: The body of a girl found in the Likolammi pond in Tampere on Wednesday evening (7.9.) was formally identified on Thursday as that of Karoliina Kesti. A post-mortem indicated the cause of death was drowning, and police have said they consider foul play was unlikely, though they will continue to search for the girl's mobile phone, which reportedly remained active for some two days after her disappearance, and which was apparently not found on her person. The pond was only around 100 metres from the spot where Karoliina Kesti's scooter was found abandoned on its side early on the morning of July 31st.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police believe that body of Karoliina Kesti has been found (8.9.2011)
  Extensive search for missing Tampere girl (19.8.2011)

JUKKA HARJU / Helsingin Sanomat
jukka.harju@hs.fi