Three killings across Helsinki
The name “Helsinki cellar murders” is commonly used for three unsolved homicides committed over a five-year period. Susanne Lindholm was murdered in Käpylä in 1976, Seija Kekkonen in Kontula in 1980 and Onerva Ketola in Itä-Pasila in 1981.
Yle has reported that each woman had spent her final evening at a Helsinki restaurant and that each was later found in an apartment-building cellar space. The locations and circumstances created an enduring question about whether the cases might be connected.
Susanne Lindholm
Lindholm had been out in central Helsinki on 7 August 1976. Her body was found the following day in the bicycle cellar of her home building on Sofianlehdonkatu in Käpylä.
The killing received renewed attention decades later as journalists and investigators revisited old witness accounts and compared the case with the two later cellar homicides.
Seija Kekkonen and Onerva Ketola
Seija Kekkonen was killed in Kontula in 1980 after an evening out. The following year, Onerva Ketola was murdered in Itä-Pasila. Like Lindholm, both were found in cellar areas connected with apartment buildings.
Police have investigated the three homicides separately. Yle reported in 2022 that investigators had not completely ruled out the possibility of a common offender, but that possibility has never been established as fact.
New information decades later
The cases have continued to generate tips and renewed reporting. In April 2025, Yle's Viimeinen johtolanka program reported that information from two former taxi drivers had attracted the interest of Helsinki police investigators examining the cellar murders.
Other theories have appeared in books and media reports, including attempts to associate known offenders with one or more of the killings. Those theories remain unproven. With no conviction and no confirmed single-offender link, all three homicides remain unresolved.