Murder conviction in Sastamala: 40-year-old beat victim with electric guitar, sentenced to life imprisonment
Pirkanmaa District Court has sentenced 40-year-old Markus Vjatseslav Tervola to life imprisonment for murder. The act took place in the city centre of Sastamala using an electric guitar as a weapon.
Life sentence for Sastamala electric guitar murder
Pirkanmaa District Court has sentenced 40-year-old Markus Vjatseslav Tervola to life imprisonment for murder, according to Ilta-Sanomat.
The act took place on Saturday, 1 August, in the city centre of Sastamala. Tervola killed another man in the victim's own flat – the murder weapon was an electric guitar.
The homicide occurred when Tervola was in the victim's flat drinking alcohol with the victim and a third man. According to the prosecution, he beat the victim with exceptional brutality: striking him with his fists and an electric guitar to both the head and torso, and repeatedly kicking him. The violence was, according to the prosecution, extremely severe and continued for an extended period. The victim died from injuries sustained to the head and chest.
The prosecutor considered the act to be particularly cruel and brutal, and serious as a whole. The victim was unable to defend himself due to his intoxication and physical characteristics, and had done nothing whatsoever to provoke the violence.
Tervola himself claimed in court that he had passed out in the flat and that someone else had committed the homicide. The district court noted, however, that this claim received no support from any evidence presented. A forensic medical report and technical investigation confirmed the prosecutor's account of events, and the court found that the act met the legal criteria for murder.
The homicide came to light in a circuitous manner. Police began investigating a report that Tervola had broken into another man's flat with a knife – this was the same person who had been drinking in the victim's flat earlier that same day. When police arrived at the scene, the situation had already calmed down, and their intention was to drive Tervola home.
However, a woman in the flat told police that Tervola had beaten the resident of the neighbouring flat. The woman was concerned because the neighbour had not opened the door. The neighbour, for their part, had seen blood on the floor from their balcony. Police gained entry to the flat by climbing up to the balcony with a ladder and found the victim lifeless and bloodied in the living room. He was pronounced dead.
Source: Ilta-Sanomat