Out Of The Shadows

Episode 10 of 15 | Series 36: Serial Killers in HistoryFinland's first documented serial killer terrorized two continents across three decades. This episode traces Matti Haapoja's brutal journey from famine-ravaged Finland to Siberian exile and back—a life defined by escape, violence, and ultimately, one final act of defiance.Victim HumanizationHeikki Impponen was forty-two years old when he walked along that frozen road in December 1867. A farmer with a wife named Kaisa and three children waiting at home, he had known young Matti since childhood—their fathers had worked neighboring fields, they had been boys together in the harsh Finnish countryside. He carried what little money he had, perhaps hoping to buy food during Finland's devastating Great Famine. Maria Jemina Salo was in her early twenties, trying to survive in Helsinki's rougher districts, wearing a silver necklace her mother had given her. Guard Juho Rosted had worked at Kakola Prison for eleven years, with a pregnant wife expectin