The first killing
Twenty-six-year-old Terttu Mikkonen was found dead at her home in Kuopio on 8 December 1964 after colleagues became concerned when she did not return to work. Investigators determined that she had been killed several days earlier.
The circumstances of the death immediately led to a major homicide investigation. The case became even more alarming when a second young woman was killed in similar circumstances less than a month later.
A second victim and a city on edge
On 3 January 1965, sixteen-year-old Raili Laitinen was found dead at her home in Kuopio. The similarities between the two cases led residents and the press to speak of a series, and the crimes became known as the nylon stocking murders.
Yle's later historical reporting describes how fear spread through Kuopio as people waited for police to identify the offender. The investigation moved quickly after the second killing.
Arrest and court outcome
Police arrested 17-year-old apprentice barber Ilkka Kivioja shortly after Laitinen's death. He had connections to both victims through acquaintances and became the focus of the investigation.
Kivioja was initially convicted of two murders. According to Yle, the convictions were later reduced on appeal to manslaughter, and he ultimately received a 15-year prison sentence. Yle reported in 2025 that he served about half of the term and was released in 1972.
A case remembered decades later
The Kuopio killings remain among Finland's best-known historical serial-homicide cases. They have repeatedly been revisited in Finnish journalism because of the unusually young age of the offender, the rapid succession of the two deaths and the public fear that followed.
Later theories have attempted to connect Kivioja to other unsolved crimes, but those claims are not established court findings. This page records only the two Kuopio killings for which he was convicted.