Murder prompted by broken relationship

Photo: Politsei

Detailed questioning of murderer attempting to burn herself and child last December was cut short by suicide of suspect.

«I don’t know how it came to be. I am so sorry it happened. There’s no explanation to it.»

These are the words of Eleri (33), the lady committing a most gruesome crime last year. Eleri strangled her girlfriend and partner, setting her aflame to hide the crime. As police showed up at her home, she dosed a sofa with gasoline, whereon she lay with her child, setting themselves aflame – trying to take the lives of herself and her son of three years. 

Three months after Eleri committed suicide in Tartu Prison, criminal proceedings were finalised by Prosecutor’s Office, thus granting Postimees access to the file revealing the background.

On the night of December 7^th last year, Tartu fire brigades were summoned to Lääne Street, near Jaamamõisa Selver shopping mall. A car, a Mazda, was in flames. Upon arrival, the issue proved to be of greater severity altogether – underneath the vehicle they discovered a dead body. By criminal police operative group called to the scene, it was quickly established the owner of the Mazda was residing in the red brick apartment block close by.

Arriving at the door, the investigators promptly felt the case was complicated. «It smelled weird, in the corridor,» said the operating investigator, afterwards. As they knocked, suddenly there came a scream of a child. Urgently, the policemen ran outside and called the firemen to break the door open.

It took precious seconds, but the rescuers did a quick good job. The policemen will never forget what they saw inside: a lady and child on a sofa, both burning with open flames.

Child near-fatally burnt

On top of the two, there was a cloth smelling of gasoline. The first criminal policeman to reach the bed grabbed the child, trying to pull it out of mother’s arms. The lady, clinging to the child, would not let go. Thus, she was pulled to the floor by force.

At that instance, her grip of the buy loosened and the policeman got the boy. There was little time to think – child in arms, the investigator ran outside and the boy was taken to Maarjamõisa Hospital by ambulance, where life-threatening burns were diagnosed. The one who set him afire, his very own mother, had it a bit easier – her born not being life-threatening.

What, then, led to this blood-curdling event? Who was the lady found underneath the burning car? How did she die? These were the questions for criminal investigators. To clarify the victim proved easy – it was Sigrit (30), a dweller in the same house, and owner of the burnt car.

On the couch, the policemen had found Sigrit’s long-time girlfriend and tenant Eleri with the latter’s son.

Information hastily collected pointed to recent tensions between the women who knew each other about ten years. The owner of the apartment demanded that Eleri move out, and the lady was already looking for a new place to stay. As told by people who knew them, there had been quarrels between the two of late so the owner of the apartment at times preferred to spend the night at somebody else.

That was also supposed to be the case that fateful night as Sigrit, a house painter at constructions, just briefly stopped by after work. The plan was to go be with relatives. It was about three in the afternoon. 

An hour after she came home, Sigrit was killed – strangled from behind, by a band. Not the typical crime of passion, but the only option considering that in a fight the victim would probably have beaten the murderer. Namely, Sigrit was larger than Eleri, and heavier by some twenty kilograms.

Essential questions unasked

Was the unusual killing a side-product, somehow, of the murderer’s brother committing suicide a month before? Why had the murderer, shortly before the crime, left her job at a decent company dealing with mobile phones? To these questions, only Eleri was able to answer.

Three days after the tragic event, the investigators thought the time was right to question Eleri, at her closed and guarded department of the hospital. Understandably, the lady was not too talkative. 

That may have been because of affect, but Eleri claimed she did not remember the circumstances of the murder too precisely. All went black before her eye, she said, and that’s how it happened. Her son, present in the same apartment, did not witness the murder and the body as he was in another room.

As told by the lady, setting herself and son aflame was «triggered» by the sudden knock on the door. «I took fright. I do not know who was at the door, and then I lit the match. I did not see the flames, personally,» said she.

During the questioning, taking five pages in the file, they never asked her several essential questions. The case being so fresh, they did not want to traumatize the lady and she was therefore spared such questions as why she lit her son while doing that to herself. And while waiting for forensic examination results of the dead body, they did not delve in details of the murder.

They intended to ask these questions at interrogations to come. Alas, these were never to be. Transferred from the hospital to Tartu Prison medical department, Eleri hanged herself on Women’s Day. Therefore, after the final forensic expertise results came in, Southern District Prosecutor’s Office closed the criminal case down, on June 17^th. The end.