Missing in Finland: The Disappearance of Piia Ristikankare
What happened to the teen after she walked out of her family home in 1988?
On Friday, October 7, 1988, fifteen-year-old Piia Ristikankare finished her day at the vocational school in Turku, southwest Finland where she was studying housekeeping. She was planning to spend the weekend at a female friend’s home but her father, a single parent, told her she needed to babysit her three-year-old brother Kalle over the weekend because he had to work.
Later that Friday evening, when Piia’s father Heikki emerged from taking a sauna with his ex-father-in-law, Piia’s Grandfather, he found that Piia was not in the house.
Piia’s fourteen-year-old brother Teijo told their father that he and Piia had fought over what to watch on TV and Piia had angrily left the house at about 8 pm, taking with her a small handbag, and stepping out into the autumn darkness. Despite the chilly, rainy evening, she only put on a denim jacket before leaving. Her handbag contained her bank card and a small amount of cash.
Her family has not seen or heard from her since that evening.
Piia
Blond-haired, blue-eyed Piia Irmeli Ristikankare was born on December 18, 1972, and was her parents’ firstborn child. Her brother Teijo was born in late 1973 or in 1974.
Piia’s family were Jehovah’s Witnesses of which there were around 12,000 in Finland in 1990, making them the country’s fourth-largest religious community. The family actively attended the thrice-weekly meetings at their Kingdom Hall. Piia’s father Heikki was already a Jehovah’s Witness when he married his wife, Piia’s mother, Gunilla. Gunilla converted when they married.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses had predicted that three years after Piia’s birth, in 1975, Armageddon would take place. Obviously, this did not happen and the Ristikankare family continued to live in their large detached home on a quiet street in a small village called Piikkiö, about 17km (10 miles) east from the city of Turku, in southwestern Finland.
