119 stories

True crime from Estonia’s past

119 true crime from estonia’s past, each tied to the real place where it happened or is told, county by county. See them on the map →

Harju County

Rummu Jüri's rope escape from Toompea Castle 1879
Rummu Jüri robs Sausti manor 1879
The first witch executed in Livonia 1527
A nobleman beheaded between the Harju gates 1535
Where Tallinn's executioners lived 1600
The priest, the omelette and the L in the square 1690
The storming of the Fat Margaret prison 1917
The shootout at the Ministry of Defence 2011
Toompea's own gallows on Jerusalem Hill 1608
The ex-policeman shot at Valdeku range 1932
Hijackers on a flight out of Tallinn 1954
Imre Arakas jumps from Kohtuotsa 1979
The stolen Moses of St Michael's Swedish Church 1987
The Lilleküla murderer 1992
The scrap hunters who broke into a radioactive store 1994
A hijacked jet from Komi lands in Tallinn 1994
Shootout at the Antonius exchange office 1994
Murder at the Krooning petrol station 1995
Three minutes in the Hansapank vault 1995
A mobile phone stops a bullet on Tartu Road 1995
The actor killed in Kadriorg Park 1997
The teenage killer of Kopli 1998
The bomb man of Pae Street 2003
The blocked drains of Sõle Street 2000
'Made in Predator': the bombs on Roosikrantsi Street 2002
Thirteen bullets at Lükati tee 2005
A birthday party ends in a stabbing 2007
The first fine for the 2007 cyber attacks 2007
The baseball bat attacks by Snelli Pond 2009
Fire under the Song Festival arch 2020
A GRU-ordered fire at Slava Ukraina 2025
A failed kidnapping in the Old Town 2024
A stolen dinghy from Pirita to Finland 1984
A constable stabbed outside the Grand 1937
A hostage in a police car at Õismäe 2004
Poison or the rope: the last execution at Patarei 1991
Rifle fire from the end of Viinistu 1920
Out of the SD prison in an SS uniform 1943
The commissioner shot by a Lasnamäe lift 1996
The dawn attack on the Tondi military school 1924
Rebels seize Lasnamäe airfield and fly for the border 1924
A station taken in the night at Tallinn-Väike 1924
A tank, a traitor and a shot through the vision slit 1924
The last stand of the coup leaders at Iru 1924
The rifle pits dug on Naissaar for a ship that never came 1905
Jaan Tomp, shot in Valdeku forest for one shout in court 1924
The secret door on Karu Street: Kingissepp's arrest 1922
The cotton mill's cooked books 1932
Berries in the woods: a werewolf confession at Kurna 1636
Beer, dice and a rope ladder: Kursell's coup in the castle 1570
Spirit by air: the smuggling pilots of Lasnamäe 1920
Rummu quarry, dug by prisoners 1938
Two prisoners vanish into the woods at Harku 1928
Crowds come to see the captured spirit ship Torm 1927

Hiiumaa

Baron Ungern-Sternberg and the death of Captain Malm 1802
The graves at Oomäe 1941

Ida-Viru County

A bomb on board and an emergency landing at Jõhvi 1958
Juri Sulimov, released and killing again 1994
The fake traffic policeman of the Narva road 1994
Four shot dead in a Kohtla-Järve flat 1998
The bootleggers' shore at Liimala 1927

Järva County

Nine accused in one witch trial at Paide 1615
Gunfire at the Mäo crossroads 1994
The 'Estonian Republic' of Vaali village, 1905 1905

Jõgeva County

Lääne County

Lääne-Viru County

Hans, the young werewolf of Idavere 1651
Petrol against the wall at Vao 2015
The poison trial of Põlula manor 1542
Captured in Aegviidu, shot by the Tapa bog 1924
Kongla Ann, the Pada witch buried outside the churchyard 1640
Hannibal's last raid at Rakvere castle 1579
Gunfire at the gas workers' summer days, Letipea 1976
Beheaded men under Pikk Street, Rakvere 2019
A lone constable and two horse thieves near Porkuni 1920
The murder of Provost Hoffmann at Viru-Jaagupi 1904
Border guards marooned on Uhtju island 1928

Pärnu County

Jaan Umb, the Kihnu sailor who struck back 1887
A June night of shooting near Lihula 2020
The Pärnu rebels who never crossed the river 1924
The wolf couple and the bear woman of Pärnu 1633
Honour and blood in sixteenth-century Pärnu 1590
Shots over a buried spirit cache at Sauga 1927

Põlva County

Burglars cut the radio aerial at the Põlva pharmacy 1935

Rapla County

The capture of Rummu Jüri 1879
Five women executed as witches at Juuru 1588
A bullet from the forest by Kohatu mill 1920
Seventeen dead at Hageri church 1905
Through the gauntlet on Mahtra's Field of Blood 1859
Fersen's punitive battalion at Valtu 1905

Saaremaa

Tartu County

The killings in the Credit Society cellar 1919
The last witches executed in Tartu 1699
The student prison under Tartu University's roof 1802
Kristjan Viro's gang and the summer of murders 1919
Valdek Laas and the killings of elderly women 1996
The thief who fired through a Hellenurme window 1921
The horse thief at Vahi farm 1919
The prison yard behind Jaani Street, July 1941 1941
The tavern killings at Koosa 1919
Over the Karlova roofs: Kristjan Viro's escape and capture 1919
The Bible translator beheaded by Tartu's Town Hall Square 1706

Valga County

Murderers' Lake and the robbers who drowned

Viljandi County

A shot through the window at Vana-Kariste 1922
A pack of eleven werewolves at Vastemõisa 1696
The Hero of the Soviet Union who shot his wife in Viljandi 1950
The fake sorceress of Vastemõisa fair 1915
The miracle doctor of Õisu in court 1928
A counterfeit mint in a Mõisaküla farm smithy 1931
The fortune-teller of Abja-Paluoja in court 1935

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