Bio

Karl Emil Malmelin was born on 16 January 1872 in Espoo. He was the illegitimate child of Helena Gustava Malmelin, who worked as a maid at a Lahnus croft.

As an adult, Malmelin became a farmworker at the Simola croft in Klaukkala, a village in the southern part of the Nurmijärvi municipality. The tenant at Simola was Johan Ezekiel Aspelin. Malmelin began dating Edla, the crofter's daughter.

Murder Story

Karl Emil Malmelin worked as a farmworker at the Simola croft in Klaukkala. He began dating Edla, the crofter's daughter, and when she would not become his wife, he killed everyone on the croft with an axe on 10 May 1899. Three of the victims were women and two were children. Malmelin was arrested a couple of weeks later. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Turku Court of Appeal. The case was the subject of a broadside ballad, and Nurmijärvi parish became popularly known as Murhajärvi. Malmelin served 13 years of his sentence before being pardoned by Nicholas II in 1912. The later events of his life remain unknown, and he died of a long-term illness on 26 February 1944 in Riipilä, Vantaa, aged 72. He remains one of the worst axe murderers in Finnish history, along with Toivo Koljonen.