WEBVTT - Season 08 Episode 34: Ship of Death 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Hello, it's Richard mccleinsmith here with a quick update before 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:06.800 we dive into today's episode. Unexplained is very excited to 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:09.280 be a part of Crime Wave at Sea this November, 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.600 joining forces with some of the eeriest voices in the 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.800 world of true crime and the paranormal four Nights in 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.960 the Caribbean, with amazing podcasts like Last Podcast on the Left, 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:24.400 Scared to Death and many more live shows, meet and greets, 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.960 creepy Stories under the Stars and you can be there too, 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.960 but don't wait. Rooms are nearly sold out. Head to 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:36.600 Crimewavetsea dot com forward slash Unexplained to grab your fan 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.600 coat and lock in your cabin. We'd love to see 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:53.880 you on board. Early in the morning of July twenty eighth, 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.720 nineteen eighty seven, a rescue helicopter flew fast and low 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:02.000 over the Baltic Sea. At this latitude of almost sixty 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.080 degrees north, the sun had already risen and there was 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.000 excellent visibility as the pilot and flight crew searched the 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:13.600 rippled sea below for their target. Shortly before five a m. 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:18.600 They saw it, passenger ferry m S Viking Sally, heading 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:22.319 steadily towards the port of Toriku, on the southwest coast 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:27.360 of Finland. The pilot steered expertly toward the ship's small 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:32.160 helicopter deck, located directly behind one of the Viking Sally's funnels. 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:35.720 It would have been a tricky landing site in bad weather, 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.360 but the sea was calm and the ship barely rocked. 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.360 The flight mechanic opened the side door and guided the 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:47.400 pilot down over his helmet headset. In the back seat, 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:52.280 twenty seven year old nurse Hiki Masculine was readying himself 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:57.480 to respond to whatever the situation presented. Roused from sleep 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:01.320 barely an hour earlier. Neither he nor the flight crew 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:05.400 had been given any details of the emergency medical transport mission. 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:10.480 Typically such distress calls from ferries sailing this route were 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.480 for an elderly patient who suffered a heart attack or 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:17.880 an intoxicated passenger who'd fallen down the stairs. But as 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:22.280 Masculine stepped onto the deck, he realized immediately that this 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:27.519 emergency was very much out of the ordinary. You're listening 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:40.040 to unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith. Thomas Schmidt can't 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.640 remember what prompted him and his friend Klaus Schlk to 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:47.760 go interrailing to Finland, a form of travel whereby one 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:51.959 train ticket grants you unlimited rail travel across thirty three 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:56.280 countries in Europe. Schmidt and Schlker, who had both just 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.920 turned twenty, had met at a local football club in Stuttgart, 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.000 where they'd become friends. Both were studying to beat mechanics. 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.360 Joining them on the trip was Bettina Taxis, who had 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:11.240 met Shelker in a night club the previous year and 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:15.079 the pair had quickly become an item. The trio planned 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.280 to use inter rail passes to tour the Nordic countries, 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.960 traveling by train from what was then still West Germany 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:26.760 to Sweden's capital city of Stockholm. Next, they were traveled 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.560 by ferry up the Baltic Sea to Torku in Finland, 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.959 where they planned to attend the music festival Ruis Rock. 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:38.960 After that, they would continue north to finish lapland then 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.560 head to Bergen in Norway, before taking a boat south 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:47.280 along the coast to Oslo, the nation's capital. The trio 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.040 arrived in Stockholm and boarded the ferry shortly before ten 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.640 p m. On July twenty seventh. The Viking Sally provided 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.800 a daily service between Sweden, Finland and Orland, a chain 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:02.720 of islands at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.640 With a crew of around two hundred, it could take 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.840 up to four hundred vehicles and two thousand passengers. It 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.600 was only seven years old and came equipped with three restaurants, 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.479 several bars, a movie theater and a swimming pool. It 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.000 must have seemed luxurious to the three twenty somethings who 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.760 had everything to look forward to as they leant on 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.120 the rail to watch the late summer sunset as the 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:33.320 ship sailed off into the freezing waters of the Baltic Sea. 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.560 Finding their way to the bar, Thomas sat quietly drinking 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.039 as Klaus and Bettina, the more sociable of the group, 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:46.719 got chatting with several of their fellow passengers. Among them 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.359 was a young British man named Patrick Haley, who was 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.760 on his way to visit his Finnish girlfriend, and a 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.520 man named Tawno, who the couple described to Thomas as 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:02.120 a German speaking fun Finn, a car parts dealer returning 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:06.400 from a business trip to Germany. Around one a m 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.679 on July twenty eighth, Klaus and Bettina pulled their sleeping 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.960 bags from their back packs and told Thomas that they 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.479 were off to get some sleep. With limited funds for 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.440 their trip, the youngsters hadn't booked cabins, opting to sleep 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:25.240 on deck to save money. The pair told Thomas that 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.720 they'd found a sheltered spot out on deck nine at 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.479 the rear of the ship, next to the helicopter pat 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.040 where a plexiglass barrier would provide shelter from the wind. 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.039 It was a quiet location with the added benefit of 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:42.719 being dimly lit since the nearest deck lamp was broken. 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.359 Not wanting to intrude on the young couple's privacy, Thomas 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.200 opted to bed down indoors on one of the lower 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.400 decks and agreed to look after every one's back packs, 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:58.200 which were left with him. Exactly what happened next remains 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:08.880 unclear to this day. Also on board the Viking Sally 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.480 that night was a boisterous group of Danish boy Scouts 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:18.080 heading to an International Nordic Scout camp in Salvo, southwest Finland. 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:22.120 According to passengers, some of the scouts had been causing trouble. 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.440 A small group perhaps three or so, had been noisily 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.559 roaming the ship or night, causing havoc. One of them, 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:35.359 eighteen year old Thomas Nielsen, later told police that around 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.400 three forty five a m. While mooching about the helicopter deck, 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.880 he saw two people, a man and a woman, who 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:47.320 at first appeared to be heavily intoxicated and struggling to 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.880 stand up. He claimed that when he moved closer to 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.720 get a better look, he realized that the pair were 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:58.599 not drunk, but bleeding profusely from head wounds, apparently in 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.960 a panic. He then went to get help. Shortly after 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.400 three forty five, the attack was reported to ship's crew, 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.800 and the OnCore nurse, along with the security operative, hurried 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:14.080 to the scene, soon to be joined by the Viking 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:19.520 Sally's captain. Recognizing the seriousness of the injuries, the captain 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.960 requested immediate medical assistance from the mainland. This was the 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:28.400 situation that nurse Hike Masculine stepped into as he alighted 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:33.360 from the rescue helicopter in the cold morning air. A 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:37.120 small group of people were clustered around two prone figures 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:41.520 on the adjacent deck. When he got there, the unmistakable 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:46.520 metallic smell of fresh blood filled the air. It covered 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.520 so much of the deck area that masculine had to 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:52.080 be careful not to slip in it. As he approached 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:56.280 the two limph forms, he was shocked by the severity 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.920 of their injuries. With the help of the ship's crew, 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.200 the blood drenched patients were quickly loaded onto stretchers and 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:07.800 into the helicopter. As they lifted off from the ship, 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:12.840 Maskalin made a quick assessment. Just one glance told him 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.480 that the injuries were life threatening. The damage to the 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:21.360 back of the young man's head was especially bad. Maskelin 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.960 did what he could, staunching the patients bleeding with the towels. 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:31.200 At some point, Klaus's heart stopped, while Bettina passed in 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:35.240 and out of consciousness. She tried to say something in German, 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.840 but the nurse couldn't make out the words clearly enough 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:43.400 to understand her. The patients were received by the Torkou 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:49.199 University Hospital at five forty eight. Klaus Schelker was pronounced 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:54.280 dead on arrival. Bettina Taxis was still alive and placed 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.960 in intensive care in a critical condition. Meanwhile, back on 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:04.160 board the boat, the police investigation was getting underway. At 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:09.040 six thirty am, three police tactical investigators and one crime 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:14.720 scene technician alighted onto the Viking Sally's helipad. One thing 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.840 that was clear was that the injuries sustained by the 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:22.360 young couple were in no way accidental. They had resulted 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:26.160 from heavy blows in what the chief investigator would later 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:31.880 describe as an especially ferocious attack. Perhaps most shockingly to 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.320 several police officers, the assault was eerily reminiscent of a 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:41.000 previous incident the year before on the exact same ship. 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.680 On July ninth, nineteen eighty six, just over a year 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:59.200 before the German trio's ill fated voyage, during a passage 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:03.280 in the opposite direction from Torku to Stockholm, the Viking 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.199 Sally had been the scene of a violent murder. It 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.160 wasn't until the ship docked that the body of forty 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.760 four year old business men Anti Eliyala was found in 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:18.440 his cabin. It later emerged that a fellow passenger named 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.240 Ray Yohama, said to be an associate of the murdered man, 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:27.280 entered Eliyala's cabin and attempted to steal some money. When 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.840 Eliyala told the intruder that he was going to report 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:33.800 the theft to the police, the thirty three year old 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:37.040 Hammer stabbed him five times in the throat with a 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.600 dinner knife, then strangled him to death with a strip 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:45.360 of fabric torn from the cabin's bed sheet. It was 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:50.360 an open and shut case. Ammar was captured, tried, found 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:54.839 guilty of murder, and given a life sentence. It seemed 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.760 a strange coincidence, indeed, that a violent attack would happen 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.720 on the same ship, almost a year to the day 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:06.760 since the previous murder, when the Viking Sally docked in 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.440 Torkou at ten past eight on that July twenty eighth 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.600 morning in nineteen eighty seven. Unless the perpetrator of the 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.640 attack on the two young Germans had jumped overboard, they 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:22.319 had to still be on the ship. In theory, all 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.240 the police had to do was surround the vessel and 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.600 find the culprit. And so, as the Viking Sally arrived 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:33.400 in Torkou harbor, the police were ready and waiting in 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:38.079 the docking area. They planned to video record every passenger 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:42.160 as they disembarked, asking a brief series of questions and 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.959 taking down names and contact information, but with around fourteen 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:50.960 hundred passengers on board that day, they soon realized that 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:55.160 this would take far too long. Making a compromise, they 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:59.760 excluded the passengers least likely to be the assailant, families 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:04.080 with children and the elderly, and targeted others for close attention, 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.800 including the dead victim's friend, Thomas, and the young British 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.560 man who the German couple had spent time with in 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:16.840 the bar the previous evening. At first, Thomas Schmidt appeared 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.160 to be in shock. He said he'd heard a helicopter 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.400 during the night, but thought nothing of it so went 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:27.480 back to sleep. The police questioned him for some time 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.920 before he demanded to know what had happened. It was 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.800 only then that he was told of the terrible events 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:39.040 that had befallen his traveling companions. In the end, Thomas, 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:43.320 who appeared genuinely distraught to hear the news, was deemed 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.560 to be telling the truth. He'd slept all night in 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.960 a public space, and there were witnesses that he was 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:52.440 in another part of the ship at the time of 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:57.200 the murder. Attention then turned to Patrick Hailey, the young 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:01.480 british Man who'd spoken with the couple in the When 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.800 the ship docked, police found him in his sleeping back 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:10.040 covered in blood. Hailey insisted it was the result of 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:15.720 a nosebleed. The man was interviewed repeatedly until forensic tests 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:19.200 eventually appeared to confirm that the blood in his clothing 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:30.920 probably was his own, and he too was released. None 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.360 of the twenty initial suspects who were interviewed by police 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:39.199 in detail gave any reason to suspect them. The police 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.600 had only two things to go on. A violent assault 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:46.640 and murder seemed to have been committed with no conceivable motive, 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:52.319 an extremely exceptional occurrence in Finland, and whoever the perpetrator 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:57.199 was had just walked off the Viking Sally. The police 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:01.079 soon ruled out robbery or a sexual attack as the motive. 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.600 The only viable explanation they felt was that the crime 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:09.760 had been sparked by a seemingly insignificant reason and likely 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.880 carried out by someone who was mentally ill or possessed 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:19.440 of a severe personality disorder. In today's high tech world, 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.960 the investigators would have had more evidence to work with, 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.440 but at the time, forensic DNA testing was in its infancy, 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.400 and it had only been used for the first time 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:35.080 in a criminal case in the UK the previous year. However, 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:40.320 it had proved crucial exonerating an innocent suspect and resulting 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.360 in the conviction of the Trooe perpetrator in a case 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:47.280 known as the Enderb murders. The outcome of the Viking 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.800 Sally investigation might have been very different if DNA testing 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.520 had been widely available to the Finnish police, but at 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.360 the time, the most the Finns could expect from their 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:02.480 blood sample analysis were determining the blood group and whether 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:07.479 the sample was human or another animal. On board CCTV 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:12.400 footage was mostly unavailable too. The ship only had surveillance 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.640 cameras on the car deck and in the engine room, 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.160 and at that time there was no requirement for Swedish 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:25.120 ships to keep comprehensive passenger lists. Victim testimony didn't help either. 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:31.760 When Bettina Taxes eventually regained consciousness and Finish investigators finally 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.920 managed to question her, it was months after the incident 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:41.520 and Bettina couldn't remember anything about the attack. Nevertheless, investigators 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.840 did what they could, even sailing on the Viking Sally 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.680 between Turku and Stockholm several times hoping to find clues, 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.560 but all to no avail. The only real evidence the 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.320 police were left to work with was the footage they 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:01.600 had shot of the disembarking passengers poring over it for 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:07.800 endless hours. Investigators identified several potential suspects and released footage 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:12.200 of them to the public. One man was especially elusive. 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:17.080 He'd been spotted moving around near the fifth deck cafeteria 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.760 in the early hours on the morning of the attack. 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:25.200 Aged around thirty five foot five inches tall, with dark hair, 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.840 it was reported that he spoke English and wore a 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:34.480 distinctive beanie hat. He was never traced. And then there 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:38.480 was the Danish boy scout Thomas Nielsen, who appeared to 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.880 have been the first person to find the injured couple. 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.760 It was late October nineteen eighty seven when the police 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:57.240 questioned Thomas Nielson again. Nielsen had only recently been in 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.720 trouble with the police in Denmark on suspicion of theft. 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.679 The Finnish police believed he was looking for something to 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.600 steal on the night of the murder. This second time, 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.520 when asked to described the morning he'd found the couple, 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:16.320 Nielsen told a slightly different story. Rather than spotting the 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.760 couple immediately, he said now that he'd gone to the 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:24.200 helicopter deck two or three times before he spotted them, 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.520 and it was only when he followed members of the 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.679 crew as they rushed to the helicopter deck that he 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:33.960 saw they were injured. The police also questioned the Danish 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.320 scout leader, who said at the time that Thomas had 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.240 woken him on the Viking Sally in the early hours 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.520 of the morning covered in blood, which he'd said was 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.280 from helping the victims of the attack. The scout master 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.760 had asked the ship's staff to wash the boy's bloody clothes, 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:55.320 and shortly before they arrived in Torku, items were returned 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.000 clean and dry, and the man thought nothing more of it. 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.920 A magazine reporter who interviewed Nielsen around a month after 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:09.320 the attack also noticed something strange. The young man seemed 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.560 to have remarkable recall of the details of the pair's injuries, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.399 despite the traumatic nature of the events, the time of 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:22.080 night and the area being dimly lit. The eighteen year 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:26.399 old described how the couple's faces had not been hit, kicked, 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:30.680 or slashed with a knife, but rather were like slush, 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.760 as if they'd been hit with something like a hammer. 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:38.040 But who would suspect a fresh faced boy scout of 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:43.400 such a brutal attack. During the investigation, around one thousand 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.880 people were interviewed in nine different countries and several hundred 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:52.600 forensic samples were sent for analysis, but with no eyewitness 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:58.159 to the incident, no useful CCTV footage, and no apparent motive, 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:05.320 after four years, the investigation was discontinued. Traditions about bad 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:09.280 luck attaching itself to ships have been around for centuries, 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.879 and often date back to ancient times. In the past, 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.680 many ships had a cat on board to help control rodents. 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.919 If the ship's cat fell overboard, it was believed that 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.359 this would summon a terrible storm. Even if the ship 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.679 survived the storm, it would be cursed with nine years 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:33.120 of bad luck. Whistling on board a ship has long 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:37.120 been frowned upon. Doing this is said to literally whistle 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:42.040 up the wind, causing a strong gale to appear. Perhaps 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:45.679 the most well known of all maritime superstitions is that 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:50.679 it's bad luck to renamership, a tradition so ingrained in 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:55.480 seafaring culture. It's even mentioned in the classic novel Treasure Island, 0:19:55.920 --> 0:20:00.080 when pirate captain long John Silver chooses to keep the 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:04.840 name of a captured ship to avoid any potentially negative consequences. 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:10.080 According to legend, When every ship is christened, its name 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.560 goes into a ledger of the deep, maintained by the 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.159 god Neptune, who views it as devious to use a 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:30.959 new name. To this day, many mariners still insist that 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.400 if you must change a ship's name, you should perform 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:38.480 a purging and renaming ritual to demonstrate to the sea 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.760 gods that you have no hidden agenda. There are numerous 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:47.280 cautionary tales of ships being renamed without this ritual, then 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:52.760 meeting a tragic end. On the evening of September twenty seventh, 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:57.560 nineteen ninety four, the cruise ship the MS Estonia, powered 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:02.280 westwards across the Baltic ringing through twenty foot high waves 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:06.760 into sixty mile per hour headwinds carrying sheets of icy rain. 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:10.879 The vessel had left its home port of Talent bound 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:15.159 for Stockholm, fifteen minutes behind the scheduled seven pm departure, 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:19.040 and the crew were pushing it at maximum speed to 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:24.440 make up time. As the Estonia pitched through the heavy seas, 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:30.240 most passengers were sleeping when around one am, a gigantic, deep, 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:36.240 metallic sound reverberated throughout the entire ship. A crew member 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.360 later said that he saw one of the loading bay doors, 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.960 taking in water. The high waves had crashed the bow 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.840 doors to separate from the ship, allowing water to flood 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:51.919 into the vehicle deck. Panic ensued as the Estonia began 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:57.080 listing heavily to its starboard side. Less than forty minutes later, 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:01.879 the boat capsized and sank. Of the nine hundred and 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.719 eighty nine passengers and crew on board, eight hundred and 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:10.200 fifty two died, most of them trapped inside the sinking ship. 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.240 Many escaped the ship, only to freeze to death in 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:19.119 the Baltic's icy waters. Only one hundred and thirty seven 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:22.520 people survived in what became one of the most deadly 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:27.119 European peace time disasters at sea, second only to the 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:32.960 sinking of the Titanic. But Ms Estonia hadn't always been 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:36.919 called that. It was, in fact none other than the 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:40.720 Viking Sally, which had been sold and repurchased in the 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:52.240 nineteen nineties. In twenty sixteen, twelve years after the former 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:56.200 Viking Sally had sunk to her watery grave, and almost 0:22:56.240 --> 0:23:00.080 thirty years since the mysterious assault on the Young German Cup, 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:04.760 the police received information that prompted them to reopen what 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:09.960 had been a very cold case. Initially, Torku police refused 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:14.399 to reveal any details about the new evidence. Finally, in 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:18.280 September twenty twenty they announced that they had solved the case, 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:23.000 and in December that year, a district prosecutor filed homicide 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:27.199 charges against a fifty two year old Danish man. It 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:31.240 was none other than the former boy scout Thomas Nielsen, 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.119 the very person who'd claimed to have discovered the victims. 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:39.120 The police received a tip from a Danish jail where 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:42.600 Nielsen had spent half of his life for various crimes 0:23:42.920 --> 0:23:46.000 and had confided to a fellow inmate that he'd gotten 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:50.000 away with the crime on the Viking Sally. They also 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:53.560 discovered that in twenty fifteen, the man began to threaten 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:57.480 his ex wife, sending her numerous text messages in which 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:02.680 he said he committed the shipboard attack. Doroku police sent 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:06.080 two officers to question him, who changed his name by 0:24:06.119 --> 0:24:11.040 then to Hermann Himmler. Danish police warned the Fins that 0:24:11.119 --> 0:24:14.440 it would be a wasted trip, but to everyone's surprise, 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:19.880 Himmler more or less confessed to committing the crime. Himler's 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:24.560 trial started in May twenty twenty one, with the statutory 0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:28.560 limit of twenty years on cases of manslaughter, the charges 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:32.119 had been changed to murder and attempted murder, which have 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:37.560 no expiration date in Finland. Prosecutors pointed to the accused's 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:40.800 apparent knowledge that the murder had been committed with a 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:44.199 welding hammer, and that he had told several people that 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:47.960 he had killed and gotten away with murder. There was 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:52.600 only one problem, or three to be precise. There was 0:24:52.640 --> 0:24:56.320 no lawyer present when Himmler made his confession, which he 0:24:56.400 --> 0:25:00.040 later retracted, the murder weapon had never been found, and 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:05.200 a key witness, the defendant's former wife, refused to give 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:10.479 evidence at the trial, defense attorneys insisted that their client 0:25:10.800 --> 0:25:21.080 now denied all the charges. In the end, the court 0:25:21.200 --> 0:25:25.159 sided with Hermann Himmler since there was insufficient proof that 0:25:25.280 --> 0:25:29.120 he was truly responsible, and in June twenty twenty one 0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:34.560 he was acquitted of all charges. Today, the ill fated 0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:38.600 ship lies deep beneath the cold, dark waters of the 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:43.359 Baltic twenty two nautical miles from the Finnish island of Utah. 0:25:44.640 --> 0:25:48.240 The precise reason for its sinking is also a somewhat 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:54.040 murky and contentious story, perhaps one for another episode, but 0:25:54.160 --> 0:25:57.840 yet another grim warning to the perils of offending the 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:02.840 god Neptune by renaming a ship as for knowing who 0:26:02.880 --> 0:26:07.719 it was exactly that assaulted Bettina Taxis and killed Klaus 0:26:07.720 --> 0:26:11.800 Shekel as they slept on deck that harrowing night in 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:17.600 July nineteen eighty seven that remains to this day Unexplained. 0:26:24.560 --> 0:26:28.120 This episode was written by Diane Hope and produced by 0:26:28.200 --> 0:26:32.879 Richard mclin Smith. Diane is an audio producer and sound 0:26:32.880 --> 0:26:35.560 recordeded in her own right. You can find out more 0:26:35.640 --> 0:26:39.720 about her work at Dianehope dot com and on Instagram 0:26:39.720 --> 0:26:44.119 at in the sound Field. Thank you as ever for listening. 0:26:44.520 --> 0:26:48.320 Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard 0:26:48.400 --> 0:26:52.399 McLain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, 0:26:52.800 --> 0:26:57.080 are also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained. The 0:26:57.080 --> 0:27:01.159 book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. 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