Turku "body freezer" sentenced to 110 daily fines – brother received 40 daily fines
The District Court of Varsinais-Suomi convicted an 81-year-old Turku physician of violating the sanctity of the grave. He stored his deceased parents' bodies in a freezer for 30 years.
District court convicted physician of freezing parents' bodies
The District Court of Varsinais-Suomi has convicted an 81-year-old physician to 110 daily fines for violating the sanctity of the grave, according to Ilta-Sanomat. The man stored the bodies of his deceased parents in chest freezers in an outbuilding at his detached house in Turku for approximately 30 years.
The physician's 70-year-old brother was likewise sentenced to 40 daily fines. The verdict, handed down on Friday, 9 October, is not final, as it may still be appealed to the court of appeal.
Bodies found in summer 2024
Police learned of the body storage in summer 2024 when the man's relatives heard rumours about it and reported it to the authorities. The freezers were located next to each other in the outbuilding. At the time of discovery, one freezer had no power, leaving one body no longer frozen in ice. One body was in hospital clothing and the other was wrapped in plastic.
The prosecutor sought punishment for the physician on three counts of violating the sanctity of the grave. Two of the charges concerned bodies stored in the outbuilding. The parents, who died in the 1990s, had been placed in the freezers decades earlier: one body had been brought from a hospital and the other came to the physician following a forensic autopsy.
Man called the storage area a "chapel"
In district court, the physician denied responsibility for the crimes and appealed to his parents' wishes. He stated that his father had himself planned a "chapel" on his detached house's grounds and hoped to be buried in the United States – however, the matter was delayed for various reasons and ultimately never happened.
According to the physician, the matter was not freezing but rather "cold drying". He stated that he had not opened the freezer lids even once during the 30 years.
The district court rejected the explanation. "Even if the motive for the act was the wish expressed by the man's parents, it did not relieve him of criminal responsibility," the district court stated in its announcement.
Authorities had suspected the physician of concealing his father's body as early as 1997. At that time, the man claimed to have transferred the deceased from Turku's pathology laboratory to be stored abroad, and he avoided charges.
Brother participated in grave excavation
In the third charge, both brothers were defendants. They were convicted of violating the sanctity of the grave after they excavated their family grave at Turku cemetery in autumn 2025, until the activity was noticed and stopped.
The brothers justified the excavation as maintenance of the grave, but the district court determined on the basis of evidence that the hole was even 80 centimetres deep – and that this was not the grave improvement they claimed.
Authorities had ordered the brothers' parents to be buried by the end of summer 2025. The physician considered the deadline too tight and appealed it to the administrative court, but the appeal was rejected. The parents were ultimately buried in December 2025.
At a hearing held in September, the physician pulled out a visitors' book during a court recess, in which he hoped the journalists present would write their names.
Source: Ilta-Sanomat