71: Murder At Sea: A Cruise Mystery // Dark Summer Series
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you can be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you could save money by doing it right from your phone.

Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what.

Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

A cruise ship cuts through the calm waters of the archipelago sea off the coast of Stockholm late one summer night in 1987. The air has finally cooled off, the night sky is on display in full starry glory, and most of the 1,400 passengers on the nine-story cruise are asleep in bed. The night is pretty quiet except for the hum of the engines below and the lap of the waves against the hull.

Up on the ninth floor deck, three Danish Boy Scouts appear. They've foregone their bedtime to explore the massive ship, and it was a perfect night to climb up to the deck and watch the stars. They're laughing and shining their flashlights around, telling each other to shush so they don't get caught. Lights Out was two hours ago, and if their scoutmaster finds out they were out of bed at 3.30 in the morning, they'd be shipped back to their parents.

Around them, the deck is mostly empty, but all of a sudden, one of them sees something out of the corner of his eye. He catches two sleeping bags near a railing, and they're moving. He pokes the other boys, as if to tell them, hey, get a look at this. Just then, like a moth from a cocoon, a boy stumbles out of his sleeping bag and stands up.

He tries to step forward, but stumbles into a railing. There's a girl in her sleeping bag next to him, but she's unable to get up. The three boys look at each other, trying to hold in laughter. "Someone must have had a good night," they joked. The couple looked about as drunk as you could be. They struggled to even get out of their sleeping bags. But then one of the boys' faces falls. He's not laughing anymore. Through the darkness of the night,

lit only by the moon, he sees behind the stumbling boy on a white metal wall, crimson streaks of fresh blood spread all up and down in violent strokes. Once he realizes that, the severity of the scene comes into view, no longer hidden by the low saturation of the night. Blood is soaking through the sleeping bags of the couple. The source seems to be injuries both sustained on their heads,

The couple is not drunk, the Boy Scouts realize. They're dying. Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, Dark Summer Edition. I'm your host, Kaylin Moore. We're currently taking a morbid tour through the dark side of summer. Last week, we investigated some disasters that have happened at theme parks. And this week, we're setting sail on the high seas and setting our investigation on a summer cruise.

I want to tell you the story of a young German couple, Klaus Schelke and Bettina Taxis, and what happened to them on the Viking Sally ship one summer. But this episode is kind of a two-hander. There's something hiding under the surface of this story. The curse of the Viking Sally itself. I don't want to give too much away, though. I would rather just tell you the story.

But first, I do want to make a quick editor's note. I'm basing my pronunciations off reports from YLE, the Finnish broadcasting company. Their coverage of this case was unparalleled. And I know I have a lot of listeners from Nordic countries, and you're probably tired of hearing me butcher your language, and for that I am sorry. So my pronunciations in this episode may be off, but they are based upon recorded witness testimony from Nordic journalists. I promise, I'm trying.

Okay, we're going to take a quick ad break. And when we get back, we're going to pick up right where we left off.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you can be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drive

Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So, just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. More than ever, Progressive is a great way to save money.

Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

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Back on top of the deck of the Viking Sally, as the three young scouts were panicking near the violent scene, an older scout appeared out of nowhere and immediately jumped into action. The scout was named Thomas Nielsen, and he was an 18-year-old from a Danish troop.

Without hesitating, he ran to the couple to try and administer first aid. Despite their deep wounds, he tried CPR and even helped get the weak Bettina down the stairs so she and Klaus could be rushed to the infirmary. But the two were so badly hurt that the ship's resources just weren't enough. The Viking Sally's head nurse radioed the Coast Guard for an emergency escort to the closest hospital in Turku.

She did her best to treat the couple while they waited 40 minutes for the helicopter to arrive, but this was the worst injury she had ever seen on any cruise ship she had worked on. As she assessed the victims, she got a better sense of the magnitude of their injuries.

Bettina had a giant, gaping wound on the back of her head like she had been struck from behind. And Klaus had multiple wounds all over his head. The couple kept trying to speak, but everything that came out was gibberish. It seemed like the weapon that had been used to bludgeon Klaus and Bettina was big and powerful, like some sort of hammer. And their condition was worsening at an alarming rate.

Eventually, the helicopter made it to the ship, and though Klaus seemed the more lively of the two when he was on board, he slowly lost consciousness on the ride to the hospital. Bettina, however, was fighting for more than just her life. She took swings at the first responders in the helicopter, as if she were reliving parts of her attack. Unfortunately, she

Klaus was pronounced dead upon arrival at Turku University Hospital around 6:00 AM. His skull had been badly pierced by the murder weapon during the attack, causing a fatal injury to his brain. Bettina, who had been frenzied and incoherent during the flight, went into a coma.

At 6.30 a.m., the local Turku police began an investigation into the violent crime that was so unusual for Finland. Klaus Schelke was dead and Bettina Taxis was barely hanging on. And whoever killed them was still on the Viking sally.

Officers started at the scene of the crime. There was far more blood than the scouts had seen. It was all over the wall, soaked through the couple's sleeping bags and dripping around the deck. One thing that was noticeably absent from the scene, however, was a murder weapon. And so started the questioning of witnesses. Police wanted to get a full picture of what the couple was up to the night of the attack.

This is the account they put together from witnesses. On July 27th, 1987, the young German couple set out on a cross-country adventure through the Nordic region. 20-year-old Klaus Schelke and 22-year-old Bettina Taxis had been dating for less than a year when they boarded the Viking Sally along with their friend Thomas Schmid to join 1,400 passengers and crew on a cruise across the archipelago sea.

In photos, they look like true kids of the 80s. Klaus had blonde hair that started curling the longer it got. He had aviator glasses and was often seen wearing a red Coors Light shirt. Bettina had teased blonde hair and colorful patterned shirts. There's very few photos of just the two of them together. In most, they're joined by their friend, Thomas Schmid.

The trio had traveled by train from West Germany to Stockholm, Sweden, where they boarded the luxury cruise boat as a part of their road trip from Eastern Europe.

The 10-hour boat journey would bring the group to Turku, Finland, where they planned to attend a music festival called Rusrock, where they could enjoy indie rock band performances and a lively party scene. From there, Klaus, Bettina, and Schmidt planned to explore the picturesque northern region of Finland called Lapland and finally end the backpacking trip in Norway.

A trip like this was a huge expense for the 20-somethings, and they had initially toyed with the idea of driving a car through all of Europe, but ultimately decided to take the boat ride. But their stay on the Viking Sally wasn't going to be the luxury experience some of the wealthy families on board had in store. They didn't have a lot of money to enjoy the 10-deck ship with its movie theaters, nightclubs, and five-star restaurants.

The three friends couldn't even afford to split a private room. So instead, they brought their sleeping bags to camp on the ship's deck under the stars, which is what they were doing the night of the attack. They had stayed up late drinking beer and playing card games with a group of rowdy men from Finland and England when Schmid eventually decided to call it a night.

But the young couple was still up for roaming about the boat, so they left their backpacks and sleeping bags with Schmid for safekeeping while their fun continued. They chatted with a businessman named Tauno, who was a fellow car enthusiast, just like Klaus. He was transporting some cool, rare parts stored in his car that he thought a guy like Klaus might be interested in seeing. So he invited the two up to the deck where all the cars were being towed to take a look.

Together, they followed their new friend up to the deserted deck where the cars were stored for the trip. They could hear the laughing and chatter of the groups on the boat fade in the distance as they got further away from other people. Once they got there though, it was locked.

They made plans to try again in the morning, plans that Klaus was eager to see through as he told Schmid when they went back down around 1 a.m. to collect their things from him and finally go to sleep. Schmid watched as Klaus and Bettina left the ship's dormitories to go choose a secluded area on the ninth deck by the helipad as their sleeping quarters for the night.

The area was totally empty. Not many travelers without accommodations chose to camp so far away from the ship's bedrooms. Perhaps they figured they'd have the view all to themselves when the sun rose in just a few hours. So they set up camp behind the privacy of a plexiglass wall tucked away in the corner to keep them as warm as they could be under the cool, clear night sky. The next time the couple was seen, according to the police reports,

was when the boy scouts stumbled upon them about two hours later though no one had come forward about seeing the fatal attack happen some witnesses had more information about what might have happened thomas nielsen the boy scout who had given them cpr later told police that the assailant must have used something heavy and blunt like a hammer

Locals were horrified when he described Bettina and Klaus's faces to newspapers as, quote, like slush. In addition to the blood everywhere, Thomas also said he noticed empty beer bottles littered by their camping spot. Had a friend they stayed up drinking with that night come back to find them?

The police commended Thomas on his bravery. Bettina probably wouldn't have made it to the hospital in time to receive care had he not jumped into action immediately. His ability to direct others, perform CPR, and calmly take charge in an emergency situation was everything that being a scout was about. With those skills, they said, one day he would make a fantastic police officer.

A little after 8:00 AM, the ship finally docked in the Turku port. Police started by letting passengers off one by one, carefully observing their behavior, their appearance, their possessions, and taking a picture of each face. One of these people was the killer. But with the large number of passengers needing to exit the boat, authorities eventually decided to let families with children and the elderly go.

relying on video footage to document those they didn't individually photograph. The police were perhaps sweating a little bit in this moment, not even because they knew they were letting a murderer off of the ship and into society without having identified them, but because this was the second high-profile murder to happen on the Viking Sally.

See, exactly a year earlier, in July of 1986, as the ship was heading from Turku to Stockholm, the exact opposite route that it was making this time, a businessman on board was found brutally murdered in his room. Someone had stabbed him in the neck with a dinner knife multiple times. The scene unfolded in a similar way to the current emergency.

The ship was docked and police searched the guests for the murderer, but it was discovered that whoever killed the businessman had disembarked before the murder was even discovered. It wasn't until months later in the spring of 1987 that the culprit was captured. Ray Ohamar and a female accomplice had met the businessman at the ship's bar and followed him back to his room where they robbed him.

Afraid that he would tell the authorities, they killed him in cold blood and fled the ship. But just as police officers thought they were putting that dreadful scene and frankly embarrassing investigation behind them, they got the call about this murder. And once again, they watched as every guest disembarked, the murderer hidden amongst them. The thing is, they have someone who saw the attack happen,

Bettina, but she was fighting for her life in a coma. If she survived though, maybe she would be able to tell them what she witnessed. To get started, however, the police did have a few other leads they could follow. There were a few guests on the boat they wanted to interrogate a bit further, ones that other guests had whispered about as potentially being involved.

The first one, being the friend that Bettina and Klaus came there with after the break.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you can be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Try it.

Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what.

Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

Plug in a Hyundai EV and the extraordinary happens. It's not just the ultra-fast charging capability and long range in the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6, or the adventure-seeking spirit of the Kona Electric, or the groundbreaking 601 horsepower Ioniq 5N. And it's not just the comfort in knowing that every Hyundai EV is backed by a 10-year, 100,000-mile limited electric battery warranty.

Hyundai's EVs transform a low hum into a loud adventure. They bring color to your journey and turn energy into main character energy. So forget everything you thought you knew about EVs and turn the extraordinary into something truly electrifying.

There's joy in every journey.

Thomas Schmid, the friend that was on the trip with Bettina and Klaus, was the last person to see them alive, and the only person who knew the couple was going up to the top deck to sleep. Some people on the ship started talking. How did they know he was telling the truth? The police brought him in to interrogate him, where they noticed that Schmid looked confused. He asked where his friends were.

Apparently, word of what had happened had not made it to every passenger on the boat just yet, and no one but the police knew that Klaus had died. Once they informed him of the severity of the situation, Schmidt maintained his innocence. He shared that he and Klaus were students at university together, studying to be car mechanics. They also played on a local football club back home together.

They'd been close for five years and Schmidt had no motivation to brutally attack his best friend and his girlfriend. The police felt as if he was telling the truth and they eliminated him from their suspect list. And plus, they had another person they wanted to look into, Patrick Haley, a British engineer who had been up that night drinking with Bettina and Klaus.

Patrick, which, by the way, was an alias given to the public, was in the group of Finnish men who were seen spending time with the German couple late the night of the attack. This was Haley's second back-to-back journey on the Viking Sally. He had previously arrived in Turku days before the trip on July 27th, hoping to get from Turku to Helsinki, but he was denied entry by Finnish border control because of his, quote,

disheveled and drug addict-like appearance. On his second attempt to enter Finland, Patrick had struck up an acquaintance with a larger Finnish group who were gambling so much in Stockholm that they had been given courtesy tickets and strict instructions to leave Sweden on the Viking sally when they were unable to pay off their mountain of debt.

While this made them all suspicious characters, at least in the eyes of the police, Haley stood out because someone had told police officers that when Haley woke up that morning, they saw he had blood on him. Police asked Haley about this suspicious blood and he claimed it was his own. He had a nosebleed in the middle of the night. Was it possible that such a convenient coincidence could be true?

After holding Haley for the maximum amount of time allowed without filing charges, police were able to confirm with DNA testing that the blood on Haley's sleeping bag was his own, just like he said. He was released without further questioning and cleared of all wrongdoing, along with the group of gamblers.

So it's worth mentioning here that DNA testing only became a widespread practice in 1985. Even then, in the early days, the methodology was less advanced than what we have today. Scientists were able to create signature DNA fingerprints, but identifying identical sequences, especially in low-quality samples, was harder to do without refined testing that experts have today.

So it's fair to say that testing in the 1980s lacked the ability to exclude samples with 100% certainty. Could there have been a match that was missed? Absolutely. But still, there was one witness who they believed would put all of this to bed without needing DNA technology, Bettina. But even though she awoke from her coma a few weeks after the attack, there were still some issues preventing her from speaking with police.

One being that they couldn't technically use her as a witness because she had been moved from Finland to Germany while comatose and she was no longer in the same country. Finnish police didn't have the same authority in Germany, so they lost access to their key witness.

By August, the police were forced to widen their search pool to theories formed after the initial discovery. The entire country was now engaged in the search for the killer, especially after accounts of how gruesome the scene was became front page news. They had read the account of what the poor boy scout had come upon as he tried to save the handsome young couple's life, and they were desperate for the killer to be found.

Police chased a few other leads, but to no avail. A tall, dark-haired man named Beanie Man was zeroed in on after surveillance footage at the port became a source of public interest. Police eventually tracked him down in West Germany, the same area that Klaus and Bettina were from, actually, but he turned out to be a false lead.

Another man who was reported to be looking unstable and murmuring to himself in English was also of interest, but the police couldn't manage to track him down. Over the course of the initial investigation, the police interviewed thousands of potential suspects and collected over 200 samples of DNA that were tested in cooperation with six different European countries to try and assign a face to the senseless act of violence.

And still, the police were struggling to break the case open in the weeks and months following the historically awful night on the Vikings' alley. And so, time went by. Seasons changed and no more clues were revealed. But then, a year later, there's a small break. They were able to secure an interview with a key witness, Bettina.

When the police were finally able to sit down with Bettina, they expected the worst. They didn't know how much of a toil the head injuries and trauma had taken on her body. And they had heard that she didn't really like talking about the event at all. However, they were impressed by how much of a recovery she had made from the brutal attack when they finally sat down.

There was one issue though, one long-term symptom of the attack that was going to make this interview hard. She didn't remember it at all. The weapon that was used, the face of the attacker were all wiped from her memory with whatever blunt object hit the back of her skull.

I want to add a note here that I couldn't find information to confirm or deny this, but Bettina's injury was on the back of her head. So maybe she was sleeping on her stomach when she was hit and she never in fact saw the person who did it. However, they were able to get some useful information from her, like the fact that she and Klaus had no enemies and had good relationships with everyone they had met on the boat that night.

Because of this, police determined that the reason for the crime was not, quote, a logical one, like a simple robbery or a sexual assault, but rather a, quote, insignificant one, meaning a motive that can't be justified or explained, like a mental illness or disorder. But if this attack was random, how were they going to find the culprit now that they had exhausted all of their leads?

They had no murder weapon, no DNA. Really, all they had to rely on now was low-res CCTV footage that provided them no clues. Yet, police were holding out for a miracle. It took them time to solve the random murder of the businessman the year before. Maybe the same would happen here. Maybe they'd get some miracle clue. But it seemed like they were holding out for nothing.

And as the years went by, the case eventually went cold. For years after the murder, the Viking Sally continued the same route it had on the nights that two separate violent and random murders occurred. People started to question if the ship was really cursed. And a few years later, they may have gotten their answer.

On September 27th, 1994, as the unsolved case of Klaus and Bettina sat on a shelf, the Viking Sally, which had recently been renamed the Estonia, cut through the dark sea towards Stockholm as bad weather rolled in.

As it chugged along on its overnight journey, guests struggled to sleep from the motion of the ship being tossed. Many sat in the public spaces where Klaus and Bettina had met their friends and played cards while sheets of icy rain battered the sides of the ship. Just before 1:00 AM, passengers heard a loud metallic sound echo through the halls coming from the front of the ship.

Within 40 minutes, the ship would be beneath the waves, sinking to the bottom of the deep sea.

The heavy waves had ripped open the large metal door that let cars onto the ship, allowing water to rapidly flood in. The uneven weight distribution of the water caused the ship to capsize, taking 852 people with it. Water filled the halls so fast that the lights went out, plunging the passengers into complete darkness as they rushed to find balconies, only to be met by the waves that had already reached them.

It remains the second worst maritime disaster in European history outside of wartime. The first is the Titanic.

Authorities worried that the Viking Sally took all of her secrets with her to the bottom of the ocean. And the families of Klaus and Bettina worried that nothing would ever come of the investigation into the death of their loved ones. How could they stir up interest in this case when it wasn't even the worst disaster that had happened on that ship? Well, in 2014, everything changed.

Finnish authorities were contacted with shocking new information from an unexpected source. The capital police from Denmark reached out to the new lead investigator on the cruise ship case, Veli Madi Soikoli. They got a call from a woman who said that she received text messages from Klaus and Bettina's killer.

See, she had been married to an angry and abusive man. And in the middle of one of their arguments, he sent her text messages confessing to killing the couple back in 1987. Quote, I have survived a murder, one dead and another brain dead, two Germans. Read one threatening text to her translated into English. Quote, I am one of the few who have done the unsolved.

The texts were shocking, but what really shocked the police was who they were from. They were from someone that was on the Viking Sally that night, someone the police had investigated thoroughly. And in fact, it was the last person they would have ever expected. They were from Thomas Nielsen, the scout who had helped the couple.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you can be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drive

Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So, just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what.

Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

Plug in a Hyundai EV and the extraordinary happens. It's not just the ultra-fast charging capability and long range in the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6, or the adventure-seeking spirit of the Kona Electric, or the groundbreaking 601 horsepower Ioniq 5N. And it's not just the comfort in knowing that every Hyundai EV is backed by a 10-year, 100,000-mile limited electric battery warranty.

Hyundai's EVs transform a low hum into a loud adventure. They bring color to your journey and turn energy into main character energy. So forget everything you thought you knew about EVs and turn the extraordinary into something truly electrifying.

There's joy in every journey.

Police were shocked. But after that night on the Viking Sally, Thomas had quite a few run-ins with the law and spent much of his adult life in jail. Robberies, assaults. It seemed that given the opportunity, Thomas would choose to do something illegal.

In 2014, when police had gotten wind of the threatening text messages, he was in a pre-trial holding facility for a different crime under a different name. He had changed his name multiple times over the years, but I will keep referring to him as Thomas just to avoid any confusion.

Thomas had also breadcrumbed concerning memories of the cruise to members of his prison choir, implying that he had killed two Germans on the Viking Sally under the open sky and gotten away with it. The only problem was police only had these two semi-confessions and still no physical evidence.

So, in 2016, lead investigator Sojkely decided to take a major risk and confront Thomas in prison. The Danish authorities warned that it could be a fruitless mission, considering the former scout's well-documented disdain for the police because of his criminal history. But they decided to try and approach him anyways.

Soikoli and another Turku police officer were accompanied by a Danish officer as their escort to the Copenhagen prison facility where Thomas was being held. The Turku officers could tell Thomas was surprised and maybe even flattered that they had come all the way from Finland after all these years to speak to him. The team visited Thomas three times in two days,

During these visits, they tried to gain his trust by promising to refrain from videotaping him and to treat him fairly during their private conversation. At first, their conversations seemed promising. He opened up to the police about his difficult childhood. One officer put a recent picture of Bettina in front of him and they watched as his expression dropped.

He clearly was affected by hearing that she was still struggling from the effects of the attack to this day. But Thomas also intentionally teased the police throughout their days together. He would drop hints that implied he was responsible without incriminating himself outright. He suggested that a slag hammer was the murder weapon, but maybe it had been thrown overboard.

And he told police that Bettina Taxis could rest assure her attacker was off the streets. Their final visit, though, was different than the rest. The officers were feeling defeated as they left the prison that day. But one Finnish officer hung back with Thomas in the prison yard when all of a sudden, he finally confessed to everything.

He said that that night on the Viking's Alley, he had been angry about not having all of the fancy camping equipment that the other Boy Scouts had and about his life in general. Out of inexplicable pent-up rage, he viciously attacked Klaus and Bettina with a slag hammer when they were in their sleeping bags, thinking he could take their things afterwards. But the Swedish scouts from a different troop came to the deck before he could take anything.

which he found lucky for himself in hindsight. Not knowing what else to do and covered in their blood already, he ran back to the scene to help the couple and no one suspected a thing. Everything Thomas said added up from the missing murder weapon to the timeline of events. The investigative team felt confident they were bringing Klaus and Bettina justice after all these years.

But they underestimated the protections of the legal system and made some crucial mistakes that would cripple the case. Thomas had spoken to them without any legal representation to advise him about potential self-incrimination, which tainted the interviews, which was a loophole that he may very well have been aware of.

The police had zero recording devices in place since the interview happened in the busy prison yard at Thomas's insistence, which meant that only one officer was able to hear the final confession without any other witnesses or corroboration. Zoigli knew that the threshold for the prosecution would be higher for a cryptic case such as this one with no witnesses to the crime. They needed to secure all the evidence they could.

After a years-long delay in the investigation because of internal mismanagement, which only further complicated things, Zoekaly's team returned to Denmark in 2019 with hopes of securing the confession again, this time on tape. They weren't going to make the same mistake twice. They met with Thomas, along with the proper legal advisor in place and a nine-page document of questions to get to the bottom of the scouts' recount.

However, the legal aid in defense of their client advised Thomas against answering many of the police's questions. The interview itself got cut short because of scheduling issues.

What they did manage to record was that Thomas claimed that his 2016 interviews were all full of lies and theatrics only meant to mislead the police. He added that they probably showed him a picture of the slag hammer back in the 80s, which is how he knew about the murder weapon. Still, the police decided they had enough to officially charge Thomas Nielsen for the murder of Klaus and the attempted murder of Bettina in 2020.

The trial began a year later in 2021 at the District Court of Turku. Thomas was eerily calm and even smiling at times, according to reporters. The prosecution tried to present his many confessions as evidence, including the one he told the Finnish police officer in the prison yard in 2016, the 2019 follow-up interview, and also private references to the crime that Thomas had told fellow inmates.

The defense pointed out that the police didn't have evidence of intent for the private conversations Thomas had, so he could have been bragging or using the story as intimidation. But that didn't necessarily make it true. The defense also unsurprisingly focused on the lack of legal representation present during the 2016 interview.

Even worse, they were able to show that in an attempt to solidify their case, investigators had manipulated the police records of the 2016 and 2019 interviews with Thomas by listing the officers who didn't actually hear the confession as witnesses, and including undeniable factual and translation errors that the court just couldn't ignore.

Ultimately, all of Thomas' confessions were found inadmissible in court. But what about the text messages to his ex-wife? Hadn't he put in writing that he got away with murder? Unfortunately, she changed her mind about taking the stand for the trial, and the police were unable to verify the texts and their meaning.

In the end, the case had a disappointing conclusion at the hands of the investigators who spent years trying to prove what happened to Klaus and Bettina that night. Since the prosecution failed to prove Thomas had a strong motive and was the only one on board with the opportunity to commit the crime, he was found not guilty. After all the hours spent raking through footage, interviewing suspects, and testing DNA,

The police felt they had found their man, but they still came up empty-handed. It seemed heartbreaking after a decades-long investigation for the Viking Sally murderer to never be held accountable. Thomas Schmid, who lost his best friend that night, was hoping the case would bring Klaus' family closure. Bettina, who will have to live with the consequences of what happened that night for the rest of her life, may never see her attacker be jailed.

The only one who seemed happy with the results was Thomas Nielsen. If the police were right, Thomas had brilliantly made himself look like an innocent Good Samaritan, a hero even, of a crime that he was actually the perpetrator of. After the trial, he told reporters the whole situation was all a joke to him.

He didn't mind wasting the police's time because he hated police. In fact, he barely remembered Bettina's name. But Thomas would go on to commit a crime a few years later that would, in some ways, resemble the way he handled the murder investigation. In 2023, he was arrested for arson after he blew up a luxury villa in Denmark.

He was working as a repairman near the villa when he lit two glass gas cylinders on fire, starting what eventually became an explosion. But Thomas denied this. He said that the reason he was on the scene at the time of the fire was because he saw the fire from a distance and wanted to help. But witnesses saw Thomas playing with matches at the scene just before the fire started.

Perhaps he thought he had a playbook for his crimes. Pretend to be at the scene of a crime as a helping hand, and then no one can suspect you of anything. Well, this time it didn't work, and he was sentenced to three and a half years in jail.

Tragically, there was no justice for Klaus and Bettina. And though the biggest suspect is in jail, he will be released one day where if history proves anything, he may go on to commit more crimes. Some say that it's the curse of the Viking Sally, but I wonder if those people want to believe it's a curse because they don't wanna live in a world where something this horrible can happen.

where two young adults can be attacked in the middle of the night and no one is ever charged for the crime. Where the supposed killer could make a confession three times and still walk free. But the Viking Sally now lies beneath the waves. And my hope is that the truth of what happened that night didn't go down with her. That one day, Klaus and Bettina will find justice.

Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Additional research by Marissa Dow. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlop, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstartspounding.com. Until next time, stay curious.

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