Myyrmanni bombing

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The Myyrmanni bombing took place on October 11, 2002, in Myyrmäki, Vantaa, Finland, in Greater Helsinki, at the Myyrmanni shopping mall. A bomb carried by Petri Gerdt exploded at 19:36 killing five immediately, including Gerdt. In total seven died, including two teenagers and a 7-year-old. 166 people were injured, including 10 children. 66 victims required hospitalization with the remainder treated and released at the scene.

The motive was unknown.

Petri Gerdt has been described as a champion of Finland, along with Matti Saari and Pekka Eric Auvinen.

What do you think he was going to do with the bomb? I find this case very interesting.

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Alternate version:
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Enesbrietchvonfrederitch wrote:

What do you think he was going to do with the bomb? 

Blow people up? It sounds like he wasn't expecting it to go off when it did, so I think he wanted to get away with it, possibly become a serial bomber.

According to Finnish wikipedia, he had the bomb in his lap when it exploded and if I recall correctly his corpse hit the window of a shop. He apparently spent around 150 to 180 euros on the bomb. The bomb was a 2 litre soft drink bottle with ANNM and a little bit of HMTD. It also apparently had some sort of shrapnel (like BBs or nails) too.
Edit: He apparently used buckshot shotgun pellets and a few nails.

Article claiming he was on a "home chemistry" forum where people showed off their experiments with explosives.

I wonder what his motive was?

I remember reading a bit about him

Tommy QTR wrote:

I wonder what his motive was?

For the lulz? I'm not sure the motive would even be apparent if he had lived.

I do think this was a purposeful attack, Petri was big on an chemistry and explosives forum and was a hobbyist Bomb Maker, I remember seeing something about him acting weird before the attacks and him leaving some cryptic messages but im not sure.

Reason that the attack may of been purposeful is because the explosive device had both a manual detonator and a backup Remote controlled signal detonator. Why would you equip an explosive device with a manual detonator if he was supposed to be heading to his test range with non malicious purpose?, Manual detonators are either Fuses or Electrical and with an expert like Petri dealing with high explosive you wouldn't use a manual detonator unless you were stupid or planning to blow yourself up.

Also the presence of Ball Bearing to act as shrapnel is not something you see Pyrotechnicians add to their devices as it is too dangerous and is obviously in this case used to build a lethal device with additions that maximise lethality.

Im not sure if he accidentally detonated the explosive or meant to but im sure it was purposeful.
But until anything ever surfaces his motive and reasons are unknown

The profile of his on a forum, although I not certain that is real or not
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Petri Gerdt's father wrote a book about the incident called ''Petrin matka Myyrmanniin''. I wish I could read it, but unfortunately there's no English translation.
Pictures taken from the internet:
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Thought I'd revive this thread by posting some interesting crime scene pictures that I found in a video. I'm almost certain these all come from the pre-trial investigation report, which I'm currently in the process of requesting and hope to release. So far, I've only seen around 10 pictures, including these 3, of the at least 45 from this document, so I'm eager to see what the other 80%+ are. Since I'm a passionate amateur chemist and have a few other things in common with Gerdt, this case is incredibly fascinating to me, and I thoroughly enjoy researching it.


Also, that video has some supposed CCTV footage of the bomb going off near the beginning, despite the police saying the explosion wasn't caught on camera. It also looks incredibly suspect, so I disregarded it entirely.

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Sarin Gas Attack wrote:

Thought I'd revive this thread by posting some interesting crime scene pictures that I found in a video. I'm almost certain these all come from the pre-trial investigation report, which I'm currently in the process of requesting and hope to release. So far, I've only seen around 10 pictures, including these 3, of the at least 45 from this document, so I'm eager to see what the other 80%+ are. Since I'm a passionate amateur chemist and have a few other things in common with Gerdt, this case is incredibly fascinating to me, and I thoroughly enjoy researching it.


Also, that video has some supposed CCTV footage of the bomb going off near the beginning, despite the police saying the explosion wasn't caught on camera. It also looks incredibly suspect, so I disregarded it entirely.

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Great work as always SGA. You mentioned in the comments of your latest video that you were considering making an animation for this, are you working on it? I'm not sure how it could be done.

Mr Bubbless wrote:

Great work as always SGA. You mentioned in the comments of your latest video that you were considering making an animation for this, are you working on it? I'm not sure how it could be done.

Thank you! Myyrmanni is more of a side project currently. As much as I would love to animate it, I doubt I'd be able to, both in terms of lack of info and lack of skills.

I was reading posts about the bombing on a finnish crime forum, and came across the theory that Petri was planning on detonating the bomb somewhere safely in an isolated area but it prematurely detonated in the shopping centre. The evidence for this is that Petri left no suicide note or indication that he was going to commit the bombing. I personally think this theory is quite unlikely, as many mass killers leave no indication of their intentions to commit an attack or leave a suicide note either.

lognifiiskurk wrote:

I was reading posts about the bombing on a finnish crime forum, and came across the theory that Petri was planning on detonating the bomb somewhere safely in an isolated area but it prematurely detonated in the shopping centre. The evidence for this is that Petri left no suicide note or indication that he was going to commit the bombing. I personally think this theory is quite unlikely, as many mass killers leave no indication of their intentions to commit an attack or leave a suicide note either.

I agree that this theory is unlikely. Although people, most notably Petri's father, seem to think otherwise, the fact that he put thousands of BBs around the explosive charge as shrapnel seems to indicate that it wasn't just meant to detonate in a nearby forest. Also, like you said, many mass killers leave no intention of their plans. Given that Petri was quite reserved and didn't have many friends, it's safe to say that he would've kept his plans to himself.

In saying that, the motive and Petri's intentions are still very unclear.

Surely if he was planning on becoming a suicide bomber, he would have gone to a crowded part of the mall like a fast food restaurant and detonated the bomb there, so I believe it might have been a premature detonation.