Finnish youths face life in prison for Jenna Lepomaki’s murder

TWO Finnish youths accused of killing 18-year-old Jenna Lepomaki in Mijas this summer, could be given life sentences if they are tried for murder in Finland.

The Finnish police, with DNA provided by the National Police in Spain, confirmed that the body found in Mijas belonged to Jenna, and the two men, Joona and Joel, aged 18 and 20, could be tried for murder.

In Finland murder convictions carry automatic life sentences.

Jenna came to the Costa del Sol on holiday invited by the two Finnish men, who she had met online.Her family attempted to dissuade her from coming, but they paid for her trip and she arrived on June 20.

It was later discovered that she had reported them to the Guardia Civil in Mijas on June 27 because they attacked and threatened her when she refused to transport cocaine from Spain to Finland.

From June 29, her phone was turned off. When questioned about her disappearance, the men said they had last seen her at a party and that she left in tears. On September 21, Jenna’s 19th birthday, Joel wrote on her Facebook ‘wall’, “Happy Birthday, wherever you are”. Police later found that the two men had left Spain, travelled to Ireland and then back to Finland, where they were arrested.

In October, they searched the house in Los Espartales area of Mijas, where the girl had been staying. An almost mummified body was found wrapped in a sleeping bag hidden amongst some bushes and leaves.

The body was missing both legs and one arm. Part of the arm was found in a barrel located on a construction site nearby. The police report it appeared she was killed inside the house and the killers attempted to cut her body into pieces and then burn her remains, but having failed to do so, they hid it.

One of the young men’s mother, aged 37, was arrested for covering for her son and his friend, and her partner, 47, was also arrested.

By Jennifer Leighfield