Jarno Sebastian Elg (born 1975) is a Finnish

Satanist Satanism is a group of ideological and philosophical beliefs based on Satan. Contemporary religious practice of Satanism began with the founding of the atheistic Church of Satan by Anton LaVey in the United States in 1966, although a few h ...

who was sentenced to

life in prison Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

for murdering a 23-year-old man, eating some of the body parts and instigating others to participate in a

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

that included

torturing Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

the victim while listening to songs from '' The Cainian Chronicle'', an album by the Norwegian

black metal Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with t ...

band

Ancient Ancient history is a time period from the History of writing, beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian language, Sumerian c ...

, on November 21, 1998, in

Hyvinkää Hyvinkää (; sv, Hyvinge, ) is a city and municipality of Finland. It is located in the Uusimaa region, approximately north of the capital Helsinki. The city was chartered in 1960. The population of Hyvinkää is (). Its neighboring municipal ...

. Elg's accomplices were the 17-year-old Terhi Johanna Tervashonka from

Järvenpää Järvenpää (; sv, Träskända) is a town and municipality in Finland. It is located on the Helsinki–Riihimäki railway track in Uusimaa region, some north of Helsinki. Neighbouring municipalities are Tuusula, Sipoo and Mäntsälä. People ...

, a 20-year-old man from

Mäntsälä Mäntsälä () is a municipality in the province of Southern Finland, and is part of the Uusimaa region. It has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . The municipality is unilingually Finnish. M ...

and a 16-year-old boy from

Kerava Kerava (; sv, Kervo) is a town and municipality within the Uusimaa region of Finland. The municipalities of Vantaa, Sipoo and Tuusula are adjacent to Kerava, which is part of the Helsinki metropolitan area. The town has a population of () an ...

. Jarno Elg was captured by the police and sentenced to life in prison. The accomplices Terhi Johanna Tervashonka and Mika Kristian Riska were respectively sentenced to eight years and six months and two years and eight months in prison by The Hyvinkää District Court in southern Finland. It was said that the three people "were strongly influenced by Satanism". The court declared most of the details of the case to be sealed for 40 years. For this reason, only a limited amount of information is available. The criminal investigation started when a leg was found from a

dump site A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

,''Worship Him!''. In:

Jon Kristiansen Head Not Found is a Norwegian record label, a sublabel of Voices Music & Entertainment, specializing in various heavy metal subgenres. They describe the genres as Black, Death, Doom, Thrash, Gothic, Viking Metal and Ambient. Their parent label is ...

: ''Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries''. Brooklyn, NY: Bazillion Points Books 2011, p. 466f. thus giving the name "dump site murder" to the case. The case was generally described as the most gruesome homicide in Finnish history.Jon Kristiansen: ''Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries''. Brooklyn, NY: Bazillion Points Books 2011, p. 435. After the sentences, the media "tried to raise up Black Metal as a scapegoat for the happenings in Hyvinkää". Demonos Sova of

Barathrum Barathrum is a Finnish black-doom metal band, formed in 1990. The band's name is Latin for ''pit'' or ''abyss''. The first letters of their eight full-length albums spell "HEIL SOVA" - referring to the band's frontman, Demonos Sova, who is the o ...

"tried his very best not to involve Black Metal and Satanism with the murder" and called the murderers "some nutcases", whereas the ''I Return to Darkness''

fanzine A fanzine (blend word, blend of ''fan (person), fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''-zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by fan (person), enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) ...

"fully supports the murder of Hyvinkää and would like to hail in honour all those who participated in it". An article printed by the Norwegian ''

Slayer Slayer was an American thrash metal band from Huntington Park, California. The band was formed in 1981 by guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, drummer Dave Lombardo and bassist/vocalist Tom Araya. Slayer's fast and aggressive musical style ...

'' fanzine stated that " 's amazing how Satanists are always so full of strength and never forget to remind us that the weak must be weeded out., yet when someone does actually weed out some weak hypocrite - they are the first to mourn in public to save their precious Satanism from the terrible Devil Worshippers who ruin the whole name and essence of

Satan Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...

which actions that, of course, don't have anything to do with 'real' Satanism", and told Sova to " ck off and die". The article also questions why some people within the scene were "so fucking protective concerning Black Metal's 'good reputation'" although "Black Metal was the only form of 'music' where the music itself doesn't come as the first priority", whereas musicians now would seem to "care more about their guitars than the actual essence onto which the whole concept was and is based upon". In ''Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries'', the fanzine's author

Metalion Head Not Found is a Norwegian record label, a sublabel of Voices Music & Entertainment, specializing in various heavy metal subgenres. They describe the genres as Black, Death, Doom, Thrash, Gothic, Viking Metal and Ambient. Their parent label is ...

stated that it was a "stupid article" and people gave him "lots of shit for printing the article, especially because the point of view tended to support the attackers". In an interview given in 2000, Tervashonka explained that she did not consider the case murder. She said that she and her friends, completely intoxicated, had tied and silenced another member of the group who had become noisy by using a duct tape without understanding that he would die of suffocation as a result. Tervashonka denied that the case had been related to devil worship. The

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

granted Elg parole in December 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elg, Jarno 1975 births Living people 20th-century Finnish criminals Finnish male criminals Crimes involving Satanism or the occult Cannibals Finnish criminals Finnish prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Finland Finnish people convicted of murder People convicted of murder by Finland People paroled from life sentence Finnish Satanists Black metal