Finland: Matti Haapoja's Famine Murders

Foul Play: A Historical True Crime Podcast

Shane L. Waters, Wendy Cee, Gemma Hoskins

History, True Crime, Society & Culture

4.5 • 992 Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Finland's Great Famine birthed bleak times, and amidst these shadows emerged serial killer Matti Haapoja... In dire straits, survival instincts can descend into depravity. Haapoja's crimes emerged from a backdrop of desperation and scarcity during Finland's Great Famine. His journey across continents speaks to a life marred by insatiable violence that spanned two continents over three decades. Episode 10 of Season 36 dives into the annals of terror as we explore Matti Haapoja's calculated acts within the period's societal strain. A man burdened by hardship, Haapoja's early years were devoid of joy, an environment that honed survival instincts into something else entirely. For those that knew him, he was a rogue among rebels, complex and charismatic, forever teetering on the brink of societal exile. Haapoja's criminal career mirrored Finland's own struggles with upheaval, shortages, and subsistence agriculture. His brutality cast a long shadow over the rural communities devastated by famine, where life and death pitched into stark relief daily. The scope of his murder spree was astonishing, with law enforcement helplessly trailing his bloody path through Europe's fledgling criminal tracking methods. His all-encompassing knowledge of obscure woodlands and secretive routes rendered him elusive, frustrating public measures for justice. In the late 1800s, Finland struggled to unify its rural population under centralized authority. Sparse law operations allowed individuals like Haapoja to operate under the continuous cycle of transient crime and elusion. Listeners can expect a gripping exploration of a life consumed by primal fury, illuminated by authentic historical insights. Discover how desperation succumbed to darkness in an age searching desperately for order through chilling narrative arcs. --- Support Foul Play: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/foulplaypodcast Website: https://www.mythsandmalice.com/show/foul-play/ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/foul-play-crime-series/id1525832703 Follow us: Instagram: @foulplaycrimeseries Twitter: @foulplaypod

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Transcript

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0:00.0	January 8th, 1895
0:06.0	Turku Provincial Prison, Southwest Finland
0:11.0	Guard Henrik Lund walked the morning rounds.
0:16.0	Cell 47 was always the one he checked last, the one he dreaded.
0:23.1	The prisoner inside, Maddie Hapuja, was different from the others.
0:29.0	Lund had seen men break in, the coolest prison stone corridors.
0:34.6	Watch them weep, watch them beg, watch them go mad, behind the granite walls they'd
0:41.7	carved with their own hands.
0:44.8	But Hapuja never broke.
0:48.1	He escaped instead.
0:51.1	Four times.
0:52.9	Four times they dragged him back.
0:55.9	Lund turned his key in the lock.
0:58.9	The heavy door swung open.
1:02.0	The body hung from a beam.
1:05.2	A woollen string torn from prison socks.
1:08.7	Twisted tight around the wood.
1:14.4	The man was cold. He had been dead for hours, sometime in the night while Lund slept in his quarters, while the other guards played
1:21.5	cards in the break room. Matt Apuja had escaped one final time.
1:30.6	He was 49 years old.
1:33.1	He'd spend more than half his life behind these walls.
1:37.0	Walls he'd escaped four separate times.
	...

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