A TRUE-CRIME author has compiled a list of five suspects in his quest to answer a 60-year-old mystery surrounding Jersey’s most notorious unsolved murder.
Mark Bridgeman, who has spent the past year researching the case of Tuula Höök, a 20-year-old from Finland who was bludgeoned to death in December 1966, presented his findings during a visit for the Jersey Festival of Words.
The writer, who has been working with Miss Höök’s family and the States of Jersey Police on his book into the murder, set to be published next year, said his research had resulted in a series of questions used in drawing up his list of suspects.
The case of the blonde au pair, who accepted a lift from St Helier on Friday 30 December 1966 and whose body was found in a field in St Clement the following morning, has never been solved by the police in spite of an intensive investigation and a later cold-case review.
Mr Bridgeman says the car, a Vauxhall Cresta, represents a key element of the investigation, with his research enabling him to narrow down the number of cars of this model in Jersey at the time – almost 700 – to 25 as a result of the colour and year of manufacture: 1960.
“That was my starting point in looking at potential suspects,” he said. “What car did that person drive? Were they likely to have known Tuula, not necessarily, as friends, but enough for her to accept a lift from them?
“Were they likely to have known the area around St Clement? Were they known as a womaniser? Did they have any history, before or afterwards, of violence or a related conviction? And did their behaviour change significantly in the week or so after Tuula’s death?”
Mr Bridgeman said he had applied his six questions to each of his suspects, leading to him identifying one man on the list as his prime candidate after answering at least five of the questions in the affirmative.
Although all his five suspects are dead, which would have meant there was no legal barrier to the writer naming them in his talk, he said he had decided not to do so at this stage, although he confirmed that details had been passed onto the police.
“It’s probably better if they’re not named publicly now, because you don’t want to prejudice anything,” he said, adding that he had yet to make a final call whether names would be published in the book.
Mr Bridgeman said his list did not include the name most commonly mentioned to him, that of Edward Paisnel, dubbed the “Beast of Jersey”, who was jailed in 1971 for series of rapes and assaults.
“So many people have came to me and said ‘I thought it was Paisnel, I thought he confessed’, and plenty of people assumed it had been solved, but his crimes were significantly different – I don’t think it was him,” he said.
“I think it’s a guy who panicked, after having no intention to kill Tuula initially, tried to cover it up and managed to stay off the radar when police were investigating.”
After praising Islanders, including JEP readers, for a large volume of calls, letters and emails containing information, Mr Bridgeman is now finalising the text of his book, which he anticipates will be published next April or May.
