Homeless man cuts ears off Finn

Photo: Reuters / Scanpix

Swiftly and silently, court passed judgement on a recent crime most brutal – a drug addict recidivist who used shears to cut ears off a Finnish tourist will spend the next six years of his life behind bars.  

The fate of Tero Tapani (44), a Finn now on work incapacity pension, would make for a documentary altogether dark. Just when it seemed things could not get any worse, they did. And kept on «doing».   

In 2013, may a thing went wrong for Tero Tapani – for some people, a whole life won’t have a load like that. To begin with, his wife walked out. That sunk the farmer into a deep depression, with tranquilisers prescribed.  

Thereafter, at the beginning of August, his farm near Kotka burnt down with a large part of the animals. That served to even deepen the depression. Downcast, Tero Tapani decided he needed to go discover Europe – why weep at home. In the morning of August 17th, the man stepped aboard a Tallink ship and journeyed to Estonia. Having no ticket back.

Men meet again

Having walked the Tallinn Old Town the whole day, Tero Tapani decided not to take a hotel room. It was a warm summer day and the Finn thought it best to just spend the night in the open. Having bought five cans of beer, he sat on a park bench and downed these there and then.

Then, Tero Tapani nodded off and awoke when he got cold. As the man afterwards testified, on that park bench he got real homesick – all of a sudden. He wanted to see the animals left behind and be back in native Finland again.

Thus, Tero Tapani took a firm decision – he’d take the first ship straight back home. So, he ordered his steps towards the Tallinn passenger port D-terminal. It was early in the morning and the terminal doors were shut.

Meanwhile, a curious couple – looking from a distance – was headed towards the terminal, coming from Norde Centrum direction. These were a homeless lady Liina, living off picking empty bottles, and a  Marko Holland (37), arms full of tattoos, helping to haul her heavy sack.

The homeless around the harbour know Liina as a lady who, having the chance, will not back off from selling her body to Finns. That’s, at least, what the buddies later testified. The man Mr Holland, keeping Liina company, was a homeless drug addict just a year out of jail. To describe him, the word most often used is «violent».

This summer, the couple dwelt in a forsaken warehouse at Lootsi St 8, right close to the Superalko store. Coming from their work, that’s where Liina and Mr Holland were headed.  

Just so happens that Mr Holland, Liina and Tero Tapani had met once, by chance, the morning before – when the Estonians were begging money from Finns who walked off the vessel.  Tero Tapani refused to give a penny and thought that would be the last he sees of the tattooed Mr Holland. He was wrong.

Seeing the D-terminal doors closed, Tero Tapani opted to go in the bush nearby to pee. There, in the bushes, is where the storehouse is at, where Mr Holland and Liina, with a third homeless, were doing a little tipple to then go to sleep.

Mr Holland spotted the Finn and waived him to come inside. Before the Finn managed to do that, the Estonian put on a pair of gloves. «So there’ll be no fingerprints,» he told the curiously glancing Liina who promptly recognised the Finn they met the morning before.

At that instant, Tero Tapani – just slightly tipsy, as much as he can recall – stepped inside the building and immediately inquired: where’s the nearest Nordea bank branch? He said he needed to withdraw money.

Eating victim’s pills

According to the Finn, he immediately realised the situation inside may prove dangerous. Therefore, he planned prompt departure and was indeed about to go as the «host» got aggressive.

Mr Holland, who admits he just can’t stand Finns, started with landing his fist in his face. That was followed by urgent orders to hand him money, and lots of follow-up blows in the head.

«Saatana,» Tero Tapani cursed in his native tongue. Which angered Mr Holland even more. «Kakoi saatana,» he yelled back in a mix of Russian and Finnish, as the Finn fell under a string of blows.   

«I have no money,» yelled the Finn, trying to crawl out of the abandoned building. Indeed, Tero Tapani made it to the open gantry outside, but Mr Holland got hold of his backpack and pulled him back. What followed was all out beating. The man became unconscious.

Mr Holland searched his pant pockets. Discovering a pack of Winston cigarettes, almost full, and pills labelled Stesolin. At that moment, Tero Tapani came to himself for a moment.

The Finn remembers how Mr Holland ate the pills by handfuls, and gobbled the ones that fell to the ground. «This ain’t good,» he managed to say before he passed out again as kicked by Mr Holland.

A couple of minutes went by. If felt like the pills had an effect and Mr Holland, crouching nearby, was calmed a bit. All of a sudden, the man leapt to his feet again and got to beating the helpless victim again, demanding money. Now, however, the beating was much more brutal than before.

«I have no money,» mumbled the Finn. «If it’s okay, I may draw from the bank.»

Mr Holland believed that not. Grabbing a belt, he proceeded to strangle the Finn with all his might. The last thing the victim remembers was a hammer, lying on the floor before him.

Tero Tapani awoke at the Mustamäe hospital. It was evening, and the Finn, head all bandaged, was in a severe condition. The brain was swollen, lots of ribs kicked in, a pin bone broken. As questioned by a police investigator at the hospital, the Finn was sad indeed over what had happened.

To his own knowledge, Tero Tapani had been badly beaten, been robbed of two Nokia mobile phones in his pocket, of €100 in the wallet, a €40 silver ring on his finger, and two chains around his neck – one of silver, the other of Moroccan wood.  

Tero Tapani felt rather bad, but he tried to provide the investigator with honest answers. And then it came: «How did you get rid of your ears?» asked the investigator. That was a shock.

Thankfully, the investigator had exaggerated a bit. One ear – the right one – was still attacked to the head by some miracle. Indeed, it was eight centimetres off, but skilful stitching by a surgeon helped him keep it.

The left ear was lost. To put it more precisely, it was not altogether lost as by ambulance it had been brought along into the hospital; even so, the ear was so badly damaged it could not be sewn back.

«I did not know my ears had been cut off,» said Tero Tapani. It hurt the man to speak as, on top of all else, he had a wide and deep cut under his jaw, at the throat.

«There were times I screamed in despair, asking for the beating to stop,» he related and ended the interrogation by the sentence: «I wish the criminal maximum punishment.»

Two witnesses

By then, the criminal was already known and locked up. At 8.20 am, that morning, the police had gotten an emergency call from a down-an-out who said he’d discovered a dead man on the grass as he went to Lootsi St 8 to sleep.

As the officer on duty was asking questions to specify, the man said the police knows the place very well and let the patrol show up. «I’m not going to be some informer for you,» said the voice and hung up.

On the scene some ten minutes later, the police patrol witnessed a gruesome scene with a Finn with one half ear. Luckily, however, he was alive.

To catch the sadist was not difficult – as the law and order arrived, Mr Holland was right there. Police detected he was under drugs. Mr Holland proceeded to proclaim his absolute innocence.  

So what happened after the Finn passed out?

Here, Mr Holland was no use to the investigators. According to him, he got some tranquilisers from the Finn and, having consumed these, fell deep asleep in a few minutes. «I never touched him with a finger,» claimed the man.

Here, witnesses stepped in – Mr Holland’s lady companion Liina and another homeless one who had shared the space. These described in detail how Mr Holland, halfway into the beating and a little while after taking the tranquilisers, suddenly got hot wherefore he took off the gloves and the pants and continued the beating.  

Against the victim’s head, Mr Holland broke a Walther beer bottle and tried to cut his throat – thence the deep wound thereabouts.

Then there came a moment when, from among his stuff, Mr Holland fetched shears with yellow handles, the kind a homeless guy will need when looking for metal, and for some reason announced in Russian: «I’ll cut your ears off!»

Having said that, the man sat on the victim's chest and got busy cutting. «The Finn just mumbled in response,» described the witnesses.

Liina thought that Mr Holland had already been high when running into her at Norde Centrum. Must have been China White, as evidenced by his behaviour, suggested the lady. «He needed the Finn’s money for the next fix,» said Liina, who at the start of the beating was attempting to translate Mr Holland’s demands into Finnish for the victim.

Six years jail

The beating stopped when Mr Holland assumed the victim was dead. He dragged the presumed corpse outside the warehouse, to about 25 metres, and begun to wash himself of the blood.  

«You damn bitch,» he yelled, as Liina doused him in too cold water. This was the incident a homeless man, who came to seek a place to sleep, happened to see. The same who later fled in sheer terror and called the police.

«Finns are to me absolutely disgusting, I just cannot stand them at all,» is what Mr Holland stated at the interrogation, but maintained what he’d said earlier – having gobbled the tranquilisers, he fell in deep sleep and only awoke as the police arrived.   

In light of the scene littered with physical evidence – the bloody shears, Mr Holland’s blood-stained clothes etc – the talk was in vain.

As an exception, the Mr Holland case had to undergo alternative proceedings as the victim and his lawyer did not desire to visit Tallinn for a deliberation more thorough. On March 28th, Harju County Court sentenced Mr Holland for nine years. Due to alternative proceedings, a third had to be cut off. Thus, the final sentence is six years in prison.

To that, Mr Holland agreed not. He contested the ruling both to Circuit Court and Supreme Court. Both instances responded with a swift and definite «no». The man was found completely guilty of a most gruesome murder in these recent years. The Supreme Court decision entered into force as of June 16th.  

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Marko Holland, frequenter at police

Marko Holland, criminally punished about a dozen times, has been in constant conflict with the law both for violence, drugs and thefts.  

Over the years the man, born in Tahkuranna, Pärnu County, became a frequent customer at Estonian courts of law. His oldest valid criminal punishment dates back to 2008 as Pärnu County Court judged him six years behind bars for repeatedly beating his then wife..

By then, Mr Holland had already five criminal punishments under his belt for beatings, thefts and robberies. The first of these was in 1995; the longest term he spent behind bars – six years – was for robbery.

In 2011, Mr Holland was sentenced for three months in jail for beating a person with a metal tube. A year later, in 2012, he had to do time for half a year for stealing a Volkswagen car.

A look at the man’s punishment register leaves one with the feeling he runs into a problem every time he comes into contact with the police. Thus, in 2007 he was judged with five days of arrest for being intoxicated with amphetamine as Mr Holland got caught right behind the Rahumäe Road, Tallinn police station.

In 2010, while high with amphetamine, Mr Holland run into police Kadriorg and was locked up for six days. According to him, he had injected the stuff. His last drug arrest – eight days – dates back to may 2013. Risto Berendson