The relation places Karhu-suo upon a small, isolated farmstead deep within the woods, a German league removed from its nearest neighbours. On the 17th of December, 1852, Elias Nygren was returning home in the company of Thomas Jäppinen. They had not yet departed for Wiborg; they were to drive their sheep thither on the following morning, intending to sell them before the Christmas feast. The narrative of the New Pitaval, published ten years thereafter, depicts him as agitated and in all likelihood intoxicated. His wife had succeeded in bringing back but a single sheep; the other had remained in the hands of a creditor pressing for the discharge of an ancient debt. Nygren reversed his intentions regarding the journey and gave orders that the remaining beast be slaughtered. A quarrel ensued. He dispatched the animal with a knife, then cast himself upon the bed, muttering incessantly.
The evening repast was prepared with the assistance of the two tenant farmers who were present. Nygren set an earthenware jug of brandy upon the table; his companions declined to partake, though he himself drank deep from it. His wife then sought to carry the fleece outside, wishing to hang it beyond the reach of the room’s oppressive heat. Nygren took it into his head that she intended likewise to surrender it in satisfaction of some debt. He wrested it violently from her grasp, flung it into the hearth-fire, snatched it back almost immediately, and hacked it to pieces with an axe. Thereupon, he ran headlong to the barn, threatened the kine, struck the horse, and at last re-entered the house.
In the Yard and in the Woods
Four children dwelt at Karhu-suo. Nygren struck down the two youngest—two little girls aged four years and eighteen months—then grievously wounded Katharine, his twelve-year-old daughter. The two tenant farmers hurried the seven-year-old boy out of doors; the wounded lass followed in their wake. Their mother, who had just stepped toward the stable to protect the livestock, came upon them in the yard. She concealed the two surviving children within an outhouse, covering them with garments gathered up in haste.
Nygren reappeared and demanded where his son and daughter were. His wife kept silence until he had pledged not to harm them. Yet Katharine had already fled toward the forest, and he discovered only the lad. Enticing him with gentle words, he drew him into the chamber where his two sisters already lay dead. The mother and Jäppinen followed behind them. Piepponen, the other farmer, withdrew, declaring he would go to alert the authorities. Nygren seized the boy by the throat. His wife cried out to Jäppinen for aid; Jäppinen fled by sledge. Nygren then cast the child to the floor and strangled him.
He departed on horseback. The mother searched for Katharine about the precincts of the farm, then took the path leading into the forest. Hearing Nygren returning, she concealed herself among the brambles and pressed on toward the manor house. There she collapsed, having related the dreadful occurrence. The lord of the estate dispatched men to apprehend Nygren and others to seek out the little girl. Within the house, they found three lifeless children. Katharine was discovered only after several hours, her wound deep and grievous; conveyed to the manor, she succumbed some days later. Before the return of the men sent to capture him, Nygren surrendered himself of his own accord, confessed to the quadruple murder, and submitted to arrest without resistance.
The chapter names the two witnesses and details their actions without portraying them as accomplices: Piepponen went to raise the alarm; Jäppinen fled when the mother implored him for assistance. The compiler records that both men were punished with fourteen days’ detention for having made no attempt to restrain Nygren. This sanction concludes the narrative of events at the farmstead; it does not transform their mere presence into active participation in the murders.
The Certificate and the Sentence
Nygren was born within the jurisdiction of Ithis, in the Government of Nyland. At the age of twelve, he quitted his father’s house and laboured as a domestic servant in several places. Having married in 1833, he settled at Ruokolaks, where he resided for sixteen years, engaging in husbandry and also practising as a barber-surgeon. In 1849, upon the demise of his father-in-law, he removed with his wife and child to take over the smallholding of Karhu-suo, within the district of Jääskis. The estate owner declared he had ever been well pleased with his labour, having observed in him neither an irritable temper nor brutality. Neighbours, however, recounted bouts of frenzy occasioned by strong drink, during which Nygren had occasionally drawn his knife. The compiler nevertheless portrays a household hitherto peaceful and a father who was affectionate when free from these paroxysms: the testimonies thus bear upon disparate facets of his conduct.
It is to this rural condition that the Pitaval links an administrative ordinance of 1852. Its author traces the origins of an ancient distinction: menial servants and retainers were bound to a master, whereas day-labourers, through a gradual relaxation of custom, had obtained leave to hire out their arms and choose their place of residence without an overlord. The new regulation, as reported in the chapter, threatened to treat as a vagabond anyone lacking steady employment who failed to secure it within the prescribed period, unless his native parish—or the parish wherein he had resided for ten years—stood surety for his taxes and maintenance in the event of disability. The compiler situates this rule within the broader context of Finnish institutional history: the Diet of the Estates had last sat at Borgå in 1809, after which the administration was conducted through a Senate appointed by the Tsar. He adds that this practice was modified in 1854; yet this later alteration yields no proof of what Nygren knew at the moment he received his order. In August 1852, Nygren had reportedly been ordered to furnish a certificate from his native parish, which he had left in his childhood. According to the narrator, he lived in dread of being evicted from his holding, conscripted, or sentenced to hard labour should the document fail to arrive. He appealed to the landowner, who had not attended the parish assembly and could not answer on behalf of the commune for a tenant who was not his direct servant. The parish of Jääskis required that he obtain a certificate from his parish of origin; it might also have stood surety for the tenant itself, had it chosen not to insist upon the paper. The proprietor counselled him to await the written communications between the communes, though he could not vouch for their outcome; the clergy, petitioned in their turn, were powerless to shield him from the law. The chapter cites neither the official text of the ordinance nor the administrative correspondence; it reports merely the tenant’s petitions and his dread, unsupported by any official records of the proceedings.
The compiler asserts that this anxiety mounted to such a pitch that Nygren contemplated slaying his entire family and then taking his own life; he concedes, however, that the motive for relinquishing this second resolution remains unknown. He links this terror to the sudden fury of that evening, to the brandy, and to the dispute regarding the sheep. This retrospective interpretation does not allow one to measure the precise weight of each circumstance within Nygren’s mind. Nothing in these alleged causes diminishes the reality of the murderous act nor the utter defencelessness of the children. His wife had attempted to save the beasts, and later to conceal the survivors; the two farmers had fled without subduing Nygren.
The court condemned Nygren to death for the four murders. The narrative specifies neither the date of the hearing nor the tribunal, nor does it reproduce any official minutes. The Tsar commuted the sentence: Nygren was condemned to undergo corporal chastisement, and thereafter to be deported for life to Siberia, laden with chains and consigned to hard labour in the mines. Upon learning this, he repeatedly petitioned that the capital sentence be restored, declaring that he longed for death. His petition was denied. The chapter, whose concluding page also recalls the fourteen days’ detention imposed upon the two farmers, closes upon this determination without the citation of any further judicial document.