| Karl Emil Malmelin | |
| Occupation: | Farmworker |
| Birth Date: | 16 January 1872 |
| Birth Place: | Lahnus, Espoo, Finland |
| Death Place: | Riipilä, Vantaa, Finland |
| Penalty: | Life imprisonment |
| Date: | 10 May 1899 |
| Locations: | Klaukkala, Nurmijärvi, Finland |
| Fatalities: | 7 |
| Weapon: | Axe |
Karl Emil Malmelin (16 January 1872 – 26 February 1944[1]) was a Finnish farmworker and mass murderer.
Malmelin was born 1872 in Espoo as the illegitimate child of Helena Gustava Malmelin, a maid at a Lahnus croft.[2] [3] As an adult, Malmelin became a farmworker at the Simola croft in Klaukkala, a village in the southern part of the Nurmijärvi municipality.[4] The tenant there was Johan Ezekiel Aspelin. Malmelin began dating Edla, the crofter's daughter,[4] but when she would not become his wife, he killed everyone on the croft with an axe on 10 May 1899.[5] Three of the victims were women and two were children. Malmelin was arrested a couple of weeks later.[6]
Malmelin was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Turku Court of Appeal. The case was the subject of a broadside ballad, and Nurmijärvi parish became popularly known as Murhajärvi (which literally means "murder lake"). Malmelin served 13 years of his sentence before being pardoned by Nicholas II in 1912.[7] The later events of Malmelin's life remain unknown. He died to a long-term illness in 1944, aged 72, in Riipilä, Vantaa.[5] [8]
Malmelin remains one of the worst axe murderers in Finnish history, along with Toivo Koljonen.