About

Anneli Auer
Anneli Auer, a victim of injustice and persecution in Finland, – a country that prides itself to be the least corrupt in the world. Instead of receiving a fair trial, she received a trial by the media. Finally, on 18.12.2015 she was declared innocent for the murder of her husband by Finland’s Supreme Court. Her fight for justice continues, as her wrongful conviction for CSA remains to be overturned.
In this blog, articles will be published in English and Finnish. See the relevant language category on the right hand side.
NEW! Watch Emergency Call – A Murder Mystery documentary film about Anneli’s case (with English subtitles).

Anneli Auer
ANNELI AUER – BACKGROUND
Anneli Auer is a widower mother of four beautiful children. Her husband Jukka Lahti was brutally murdered at their family home in December 2006. The high profile case is known in Finland as the Ulvila murder case.
Someone came through a glass door in the middle of the night, and killed her husband while she was making an emergency phone call. Her eldest daughter, then nine year’s old, saw the killer leave their home. The mother had been stabbed by the intruder through her breast, so that her lung collapsed.
This horrible incident changed the lives of this young family forever. Almost two years after the murder, the local Satakunta police in Pori, changed their investigating officer, because they still had not been able to find the murderer after taking over 700 male DNA samples, and wrongfully arresting a local man for a week. In June 2013, nearly seven years after the murder, it was revealed that the police had contaminated the DNA sample that had been found in the murder scene. It may well be that the murderer escaped justice, because of the blunder.

Pauli Kuusiranta

The victim, Jukka Lahti

Crime scene
The newly appointed investigating officer in 2008, Pauli Kuusiranta, had only one line of investigation; the widower mother must have been the perpetrator. The police decided to introduce an undercover officer to the widower’s life as a new prospective boyfriend. He found nothing incriminating, and reported back that Anneli Auer was a devoted good mother to her children.
FIRST A GUILTY VERDICT, THEN ACQUITTAL
The District Court of Satakunta found Anneli Auer guilty of the murder in June 2010, but the verdict was not unanimous. One of the judges felt that there was not enough evidence to convict the defendant. In May 2011 the Vaasa Appeals Court suddenly acquitted and released her. However, the prosecutors Jarmo Valkama and Kalle Kulmala were not happy. It appears that some other people were not happy either, mainly Anneli’s brother and his wife. At this point they were receiving €9.000/month to look after Anneli’s three youngest children. The oldest daughter had moved to a children’s home, as she could not bare living with her uncle.
Only two months after Anneli’s release, the prosecutors received miraculously “new evidence” from Anneli’s brother, who has had the custody of her youngest three children with his wife since Anneli was first sent to prison. It turned out that the youngest children, now 7, 9 and 12 years old, were telling horror stories about their mother and their older sister to their uncle, and his wife.
Suddenly, and so very conveniently for the prosecutors, the children had lots of horrible memories of events at home, that had allegedly taken place over five years ago when they were only 2, 4 and 7 years old, or even younger. These youngest three children stayed in their bedroom behind closed doors, when the horrific murder took place at their home five years earlier. Now they seemed to know, and remember, in detail what was going on that unfortunate night.
These traumatised children had already lost their farther, – and then their mother two year’s later , when she was wrongly arrested, and sentenced for the murder. Their older sister had moved to a children’s home by herself, as she got constantly blamed for everything at their new foster home. Also Anneli was blamed to the youngest three, who by now must have been very afraid of their mother, the infamous “hostess of the house of horrors” (the way Anneli was portrayed in the media). It must have been a big shock for the children to hear that their mother was suddenly out of jail in 2011, and that they would have to move back home with her. In their eyes mummy had killed their farther, and had been put into prison for life by the police, – “who is never wrong in Finland”. (Finns’ trust in the police is the highest in Europe).
No one would believe the children’s horror stories of Satanic rituals and animal torture, that apparently took place every Sunday in their home (well, the prosecutor Valkama obviously did!). Much more serious material was required from the children by the prosecution. This was produced by using dubious interviewing methods with leading questions companied with encouraging and affirming comments. After some couching the children started telling that they had also been raped by their mother, and her ex-boyfriend. Both were arrested in September 2011, and wrongly convicted for long sentences in June 2012 for child sex abuse.
The Ulvila murder case has become a matter of reputation and prestige for the Pori police and the prosecutors. The newly appointed investigating officer Pauli Kuusiranta had boasted in the press that no homicide cases had been unsolved since the war time in Pori. He also boasted that the case was solved long before it had even been heard in the District Court.
Finland’s National Police Commissioner (2008 – 2015), Mikko Paatero, also from Satakunta area in Finland, had personally intervened in the Ulvila murder investigation in 2008, preventing it from being transferred to Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (KRP). Winning the high profile case, by what ever means, was their only concern. Justice and solving the murder was irrelevant.
In Finland corruption exists in the form of networks of powerful people who are, for example, members of the Free Masons, religious sects, or a political party. It is hidden, structural corruption, that goes undetected, because there is no system in place, and people’s high level of trust is easy to exploit.
In the Ulvila murder case, all the main players responsible for sending an innocent mother of four children to prison, and for her then to lose her youngest children, have been members, or supporters of The National Coalition Party ( = Kokoomus in Finnish). Anneli Auer’s fight for justice had become political.

Prosecutors Jarmo Valkama & Kalle Kulmala have read thousands of pages of horror stories and child sex material
GROSS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE – THE CHILD SEX ABUSE CASE
The Appeals Court hearings for the false child sex abuse allegations started on 28 January 2013 behind closed doors, and ended on 17 April 2013. The verdict was given given on 27 June 2013. It was a devastating miscarriage of justice. Both lawyers for the defendants had said that they had been able to prove the innocence of the accused, but the judges ignored this and increased Anneli Auer’s sentence by six months. (She got 7,5 years, and the Helsinki taxi driver 10 years). Both appealed to the Supreme Court. The Appeals Court ruling was based on the prosecutor’s (secret) expert witness’ statements, and the concept of “general life experience”.
The expert witness’ statements of Finland’s most reputable academics of the field were completely ignored, as they were accused of “working for the defence”. The prosecutor’s own star expert witness was a deeply religious gynaecologist Minna Joki-Erkkilä, who actually does work for the police. She had experienced a strong religious calling after her own daughter was brutally murdered six months before Anneli’s children’s stories were presented to her by the police. A missing teenage girl, Karoliina Kesti, was found drowned in a lake behind her home during that same period, so one must question her mental state, and the ability in that period to carry out her work.

Minna Joki-Erkkilä
Minna Joki-Erkkilä examined Anneli’s children with UV light observing that all the daughters were virgins. This did not mean anything to her, because apparently hymens grow back, and the possibility that crime has taken place could never be ruled out, even if there was no evidence. Minna Joki-Erkkilä examined the children’s entire bodies with a brand new UV lamp developed in Finland (but not tested, nor registered for medical use). It is unclear whether her method is scientifically valid, or whether a gynaecologist can be an expert witness in dermatology, finding numerous “healed scratch marks”, invisible for the naked eye. In fact, the findings were not visible in the photographs either, so the police had to draw them using Photoshop, or similar. According to her these “findings” were scars, and therefore evidence of abuse, and Satanic rituals. Dr. Joki-Erkkilä was even able to name the perpetrators in her statement to the police. How these photographs were accepted as evidence by the judges, we can only guess.
2013, A NEW ROUND OF MURDER TRIALS FOR ANNELI

Annette Santamaa. Member of NCP.
During 2013 Anneli Auer had to endure another round of the Ulvila murder trial, too. This was the third time she’s was tried for the murder. Her fate was again in the hands of three local District Court judges, who were to decide whether she murdered her husband, or not. One of the judges, Annette Santamaa, was from Ulvila, and she knew personally prosecutor Jarmo Valkama who lived in the same neighbourhood. She also knows the former interior minister Anne Holmlund (also from Ulvila) from National Coalition Party political circles, who had also interfered in the case when a local man had been arrested for the murder. Needless to say, Annette Santamaa found Anneli guilty of murder.

Anne Holmlund (NCP) and Mikko Paatero (NCP)

Jarmo Valkama, Free Mason

Pori police chief Timo Vuola and Mikko Paatero were close.

The main investigator, Tapio Santaoja forged evidence

Jaakko Jonkka, the Chancellor of Justice of Finland 2007-2017, was also a good friend of Pauli Kuusiranta. No justice for Anneli.
The prosecutor Valkama had managed to persuade the Supreme Court in May 2012 that “new evidence” provided by Anneli’s brother regarding her three youngest children had to be presented in court. To the prosecutor, the children’s horror stories provided a motive for the murder. The horror stories included Satanic rituals, torturing and killing of animals, brutal violence against the children, their mother plotting the murder, rehearsing and executing it with the participation of their older sister, then 9 years old. The stories grew wilder and wilder each time the children were interviewed, culminating in horrific stories of rape and abuse. The Supreme Court decided to bounce the murder case back to square one, i.e. to the same local Satakunta District Court, so that the “new evidence” could be looked at.
The Satakunta District Court‘s new murder verdict was announced on 12 December 2013. Anneli Auer received again a life sentence by the judges voting 2-1. Again, one of the judges felt that it was not proved that there was no outsider assailant present when Anneli Auer made the emergency call.
Anneli’s youngest three children had told their uncle that their mother had pre-recorded the murder on a C-casette with their older sister, and played the tape back while on the phone, giving them more time to stage the murder scene, and getting rid of evidence before the ambulance and police arrived. In the previous murder trials the prosecutor had tried to prove that Anneli had murdered her husband during the emergency call, leaving his oldest daughter on the phone. The FBI examined the emergency call recording, but found no evidence of pre-recording.
The District Court’s new guilty verdict caused a heated public debate about the legal process that had lasted already five years, and cost millions of euros. The prosecutor changed his theory of the motive, and his theory of the chain of events, while the new murder trial was taking place. The Satanic ritual killing was watered down to mere domestic violence and shop lifting with the children, – of which there was no evidence either. In the end the District Court judges ignored the prosecutor’s “new evidence” provided by the child witnesses, and focussed on reassessing the old. This presents a problem, as there already is a prior verdict (acquitting Anneli) from the Appeals Court, based on the same old evidence.
To summarise, the “new evidence” extracted from Anneli Auer’s traumatised children was too unbelievable for the District Court judges to take seriously. The “new evidence” was ignored, and in this way the District Court’s new guilty verdict bypassed the authority of the Appeals Court prior murder judgement acquitting Anneli Auer. An other major contradiction is the fact that two courts in the alleged sex abuse case have already based their guilty verdicts on the same childrens’, same horror stories. It was done in secret trials behind closed doors.
The police and the the prosecutors kept repeating in the press for six months that the “new evidence” from Anneli’s children had nothing to do with the murder case. This turned out to be a complete lie, but it ensured two separate trials against Anneli, and a complete character assasination of the accused in the press.

Raine Ampuja
Anneli Auer denies the charges made against her. Her battle for justice continues. She was acquitted a second time by the Appeals Court in February 2015 for the murder charges. The bloodthirsty prosecutors were not happy with the outcome, they appealed second time with “new evidence” to the Supreme Court. This time the “new evidence” was provided by an eager arm chair detective, a retired army wind pipe orchestra conductor called Raine Ampuja. He claimed that he can analyse the emergency call recording better than the FBI had done in the United States. The Supreme Court did not accept his analysis, and kept the Appeals Court judgement in place. Anneli Auer was finally fully acquitted of the murder charges on 18.12.2015.
It became clear that the prosecutors did not respect the verdicts that six Appeals Court judges had given in the case (five out of six ruled in favour for Anneli). The prosecutors did not stop persecuting Anneli Auer, they wanted to get her behind the bars for life, even though she had been found innocent. Anneli Auer lost her husband, three of her children, her reputation, her freedom, her savings, her business, her home and belongings during this process, whereas the prosecutors had unlimited resources and taxpayer’s millions to spend in their mission to win the case. After hearing the Supreme Court’s verdict, the disappointed Prosecutor General Matti Nissinen gave his condolences to the relatives of the victim, and defiantly declared that the law system should be changed in Finland.

Paatero’s good mate Matti Nissinen had hoped to become the next Police Commissioner after Paatero’s retirement.
In December 2017 the Prosecutor General Matti Nissinen got sacked from his job for nepotism. In a historic ruling, Finland’s Supreme Court sentenced the Prosecutor General Matti Nissinen to fines amounting to 1,720 euros for official misconduct. His role in persecuting an innocent mother of four children still needs to be investigated.
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During the new murder trial in Pori in 2013, it was revealed that Anneli’s unemployed brother was receiving about € 9000 /month to look after her youngest children. He had purchased a €150 000 luxury cruiser, and a €50 000 car just before Anneli was acquitted by the Appeals Court back in 2011. He took the children to the sea to avoid letting Anneli to see them. During their long sea trip, he and his wife video recorded the children telling horror stories how their mother had murdered their dad together with their sister. The children used notes whilst telling their stories.
Anneli’s brother and his wife have estranged the fearful youngest children from their older sister, their mother, their grandmother and grandfather, and every relative. The children have no contact with anyone from their past.
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Everything will be revealed in the blog posts. I am a sole person updating the blogs in two languages, so please bear with me.
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Anneli Auer on neljän lapsen yksinhuoltaja leskiäiti, joka istui Suomessa syyttömänä toistamiseen vankilassa. Anneli Auer on koulutukseltaan ekonomi ja ammatiltaan yksityisyrittäjä.
Tässä blogissa käsitellään sitä miten syytön ihminen on joutunut viranomaisten vainon uhriksi maassa, joka ylpeilee korruptoitumattomuudellaan.
Tilaa Annelin kirja Murhalesken muistelmat
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Hi Susku,
I also watched the film on Arte, unfortunately not from the right beginning. I’m still shocked and can’t believe the cruelty of all of the involved people – staff of the police, the Court or politicians -, with which they have destroyed and are still destroying a whole family, and beyond, the blind trust of an entire nation in executive authorities as well as judiciary.
In case there will really come the day when all the lies will be revealed and the cards put on the table, I suppose, this must shake the Finish democracy to its very foundations – a quite high risk these people were and are running. So, they will do anything, really anything what you could think of to avoid such a situation. I fear that there will be no justice for Anneli, as long as this case is treated in Finland by finish authorities. So much time has gone, so many people involved and, besides that, people in highest positions with the power of “managing” this case according to their needs.
Thus, there is hope and a real chance getting this incredible case to the European Court of Justice. I’m not familiar with the processing there, but would like to recommend you starting a petition in the network of Avaaz, a great and powerful community of millions of people from all over the world campaigning for strengthening civil rights and fighting injustice. Perhaps you’ve already heard of them. There is also the possibility for everyone to start an own campaign or petition. They also do collect money, and, what’s very important, they are independent. So, perhaps this could be a real opportunity. Their homepage: http://www.avaaz.org.
I wish you, your brother and Anneli the necessary energy in this dirty power game.
Best regards from Germany,
Birgit
P.S.: Please, pardon my moderate English!
I too watched the footage on arte which left me shocked and restless with regard to the displayed events and their results.
It must be unbelieveable tough for a person to endure such circumstances as Annelie Auer must have.
Also the way children had been used to fit the needed part in the puzzle of investigation appeared really calculated to me.
Personally I cannot believe that a mother and an infant daughter are capable of processing a cold blooded murder as executed here. How should all the stages should be rehearsed in a common family environment ?
I will definetely keep an eye on the development and hope that there will be justice and peace for all involved and victims of this odyssey of authorities.
http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/046123-000/meurtre-en-finlande
Terrific story and happy to find this blog. I wonder about the children, how they will construct theirself and the help they will find. The documentary finished with the separation between them and their mother but in the same time doesn’t let her see them! How justice can let do that! This is not objective justice but justice made by the society.
The documentary said that it was suspicious that Anneli never showed any tears. Could she be an individual with high functioning autism? It could explain her lack of tears. Also, am I the only one who finds the way the “Psychologists” interviewed Annelis’ eldest daughter pretty strange and unprofessional?
Form my kind of rational human understanding – that luckily has nothing todo with the law I dont understand two simple questions:
1. From my understanding Anneli and her husbant never had any history of “physical violence”? – so how can you guess that they or Anneli started to do so on this night?
2. The knive was not(?) part of the kitchen inventory and was sharpened with something now available in the house?
– so this all was a well planed conspiracy with a 9 year old at 2 in the morning – yes sure do you have kids?
Its horrible how many lives are destroyed or need a re-build – I just hope that every one that is guilty will get their price to pay (even if its only nightmares every night – heavy inner conficts that destroy the day – of course I wish them a long life).
Hello
I watched the documentary yesterday, I just could not believe it, it left me speechless, how is this possible in Nothern countries ? how can justice and police condamn people with no evidence ? it seems obvious that as the police did not find the author of the murder, the mother has to be sacrified.
Do they realize that they have destroyed the lifes of 4 kids and a mother ?
It is as horrible as what is happening in the worst places of the world, if not more, because it should never happen like that in Finland.
It is possible anywhere at any time. Unfortunately the old Roman Law “in dubio pro reo” has shown it’s limits over the last centuries – even millenniums all over the world.
In this particular case of Anneli however I strongly believe that it is not only a matter of “dubio”. The live recordings of the emergency call, the appearance of the police only a few minutes after the call and the absence of all evidence of an insinuated “staged” alibi, would already convince me as a potential member of a jury that Anneli can’t possibly have comitted such an outrageous crime. Agreed, the crime scene itself could have been staged beforehand but certainly the responsible coroner must have been able to testify the time of death of Anneli’s murdered husband pretty precisely. Algor mortis and livor mortis are the key factors here for a death only minutes or – in case of a staged scene – hours ago.
That what happened to Anneli Auer seems like the Kafka Storie “The process”. Is there any possibility to help this woman? U. Kleffner
Does it have to be translated at your expense? As far as I know at the European Court of Justice any of the languages spoken in the EU can be the official language for legal proceedings.
Saw the story today German TV and I’m still shocked about that numbers of unfair trails.
Would be nice to get more actual information as this seems to ne updates the last time a long time ago… I just saw a documentary on german TV and I am beyond terrified what is happening here…
I have just watched a documentary about this case on the German-French television broadcaster “arte” and it leaves me almost speachless. I certainly will try to find some more sources about this in either English / French or German as I unfortunately do not understand Finnish. Anyway, your blog seems a good start to me.
I can’t say much more right now since I still feel overwhelmed by my thoughts and my emotions but I am sure that the more I learn about it the more I may be able to contribute.
One thing though crossed my mind while watching the part concerning Anneli’s brother and his changed (?) attitude towards his sister, her eldest daughter and the family’s history and I wonder if he may has had a role to play in this whole thing and whether that had been investigated properly? It seemed at least strange to me that the children he and his wife had taken care of changed their initial statement to the police and the proscecutors to the disadvantage of Anneli.
Best regards from Germany to you and all who keep this blog alive,
Alexander
Auch ich habe den Fall gestern im Fernsehen gesehen. Es hat mich schockiert! Ich bewundere die Frau und vor allem das älteste Kind! Die kleine beweißt Charakterstärke! Der Bruder hat sehr wahrscheinlich die ganz kleinen beeinflusst und ich vermute eine Art “Gehirnwäsche” mit ihnen vorgenommen. Er hat sie ja auch lang genug in seiner Obhut und kassiert monatlich jede Menge Pflegegeld!
I’ll translate Jo’s comment for you:
“I have watched this case on television too. It left me shocked! I venerate the woman and the especially the eldest child! The girl shows some moral fibre! The brother” …
(i. e. Anneli’s brother)
“… has very likely influenced the little onces and I presume he has performed some kind of brainwash on them. He had them under his custody for long enough and cashes in on a large sum of attendance allowance on a monthly basis!”
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Lesen alle Stern Crime 7/2016 “Der Anruf”
Please, read Stern Crime 7/2016 “Der Anruf” (The Emergency Call). Unfortunately you cannot get the magazine here in London, nor in Helsinki. You’ll have to ask a friend to send it over.
It tells the story of the Ulvila murder case, and what happened to the widow and her children. Its very sad, indeed.