This week’s Welcome to the Insta-hood is on IG: mysteries_crimes_curiosities (Teemu)

1. How did you come up with the concept of your IG?                                                            “I started reading about unsolved mysteries (UFOs, ghosts etc.) when I was around 10 years old, so I’ve been interested in this stuff basically all my life. My Instagram account is an extension of this interest, and a way of sharing it with the world. It started out as an experiment: is it possible to use a selfie-infested social media platform to create something intellectually stimulating? Turns out I was just being prejudiced: not nearly all of the people there are just looking for “belfies” or celebrity gossip – there are also wonderful people and accounts there, really imaginative stuff. Like your account, for example 🙂 “
2.  What has been the most memorable unsolved crime for you and why?                      “If you had asked me this a year ago, I would have said “the murder of Janelle Lisa Cruz by the East Area Rapist / Original Night Stalker”. However, it is no longer unsolved, as they caught the guy this year, so I’m gonna have to say the disappearance and probable murder of Maura Murray. She was a nursing student who crashed her car in 2004, and vanished from the scene of the accident. It’s likely that she met with foul play: someone probably used her vulnerable state, and kidnapped her. Not a trace of her has been found. This case is an obsession to a LOT of people, believe me.”
3. What is your top three crime books and why? “1. True Crime Addict, by James Renner. This book deals with the disappearance of Maura Murray, mentioned above. Renner is a writer obsessed with the case. He decided to try to basically solve it himself, and went on a fact-finding mission, which this book is a “report” of. Heartfelt, extremely well written, and suspenseful. Every true crime aficionado can relate to the author’s yearning for answers. ”
   2. Killing Pablo, by Mark Bowden. Bowden is a master non-fiction storyteller, and the tale of the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar is the stuff legends are made of. Pulse-pounding thriller, especially towards the end, and a fascinating history lesson at the same time.”

                                                                          3. The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer, by Brian Masters. Masters makes a genuine effort at understanding the disturbed mind of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Full of spooky little-known details about Dahmer’s bizarre life, and written in a darkly poetic way. Reading this is like looking into someone’s mind as they’re having a horrible nightmare.
   

4. . What is the most interesting fact you have shared on your feed and why?        ” When people ask me this, I always say that my favorite post is my first-ever post. In the 1960s a man in Kokemäki, Finland, knocked out his wife, then sealed her into an oven in his kitchen. He was ultimately caught when his son alerted the police, who broke open the oven and discovered the woman’s now-dead body inside. I was one of the last people to visit the very house where this happened, a remote cabin in the countryside. My first-ever (and favorite) post was a photo I took of the house a few months before it was demolished.”
5. Can you talk about your favorite event you hosted so far and why?
   “My favorite event that I myself hosted was a true crime meet-up in Helsinki, Finland, in May of this year. Only a handful of people showed up (I post in English, and 99 percent of my followers are abroad), but we had a pretty good time wandering around Helsinki, sharing tales about crimes, ghosts, horror films and the like.”
6. Any exciting things or events coming up for you that you would like to share?
   ” I’m currently in the process of interviewing one of the members of the “Texas Seven”, a group of prisoners who pulled off a complex prison escape in 2000. I’m also going to interview a few serial killers, whose names I won’t mention yet. All this stuff will be published in my blog Books, Bullets and Bad Omens; I will post notifications to my Instagram feed to let my followers know when the interviews are online”
7. If you like to know more about Temmu his IG is @mysteries_crimes_curiosities

Thank you Teemu for the awesome interview!

Until next time!!!