Eighteen-year-old Jenna Lepomäki had a hundred euros with her when she boarded Ryanair’s flight to Malaga on Spain's Costa del Sol on June 20th last year. In October her body was found in a sleeping bag in the village of Mijas, near Fuengirola. At present, the homicide is being handled at the Pirkanmaa District Court. Two young Tampere men, aged 19 and 21, were indicted for her murder on Tuesday. At the beginning, Lepomäki enjoyed the company of the two young men in a large villa, which had been rented by one suspect’s parents. She had been invited on her first beach holiday by two acquaintances she had met at a youth home in Finland. But the reality turned out to be rather worse. The prosecutor believes that a couple of days after Lepomäki’s arrival the men had tried to sell her to a pimp. According to one of the men, she was willing to sell sex, but the plan did not work out. According to the prosecutor, it was clear from the outset that the men intended to use the young woman for business purposes. They had asked six other young women to travel to the Costa del Sol. To some of them they had made it clear that the purpose of the trip would be selling sexual services. Eventually the men decided to task Lepomäki with smuggling cocaine to Finland as a mule. While being interrogated, the suspect who allegedly stabbed and strangled Lepomäki said that he had understood that Lepomäki was willing to become a drug courier against a generous award. However, the preliminary investigation indicates that Lepomäki soon started to have second thoughts. That led to an incident in which the same man put Lepomäki in a stranglehold, threatening her with a knife and pressing her against a wall, after she had started to argue about the job and its risks. A couple of days later, the men left the house in order to get materials, and Lepomäki dialled the emergency number. At a police station she reported through an interpreter on what had happened, and said her life was in danger and she had to get away. The Spanish police interrogated the men superficially. Lepomäki was offered emergency accommodation, but she turned it down and went back to the villa. She also repeatedly tried to reach her mother. The men realised right away from the police transcript that Lepomäki had told the authorities about their plans to pressure her to act as a drug mule. Lepomäki denied this, but one of the suspects took her to the bathroom and killed her. The man later told the police that he saw the other suspect at the door after the deed. The body was left in the bathroom for a couple days, after which the men dragged it away from the house, burying it some 70 metres away from the villa. The body was found more than three months later. After trying to cover their tracks in many ways, the suspects left for Northern Ireland, as they believed that they would not be extradited from there. However, they soon returned to Finland. They agreed on a cover story, according to which the young woman had simply disappeared. Back in Finland, the case was investigated by the National Bureau of Investigation (Finland’s central criminal police). In October, the NBI together with the Spanish police found Jenna Lepomäki’s body in Fuengirola. On the evening of the same day the two suspects were arrested. The trial continues. The 19-year-old man has admitted killing Lepomäki, but denies that the act was premeditated. He also says he acted alone. The second man was present in the apartment at the time, but denies seeing the incident, saying he arrived on the scene only afterwards. One exceptional aspect of the case is the volume of pertinent material that has been secured from Facebook entries where the alleged perpetrators wrote directly or indirectly of their role in the young woman's disappearance. The stepfather of the man who has admitted the slaying was remanded earlier this year on aggravated drug charges, and the two younger men also both face charges of drug offences.
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