DNA linked ex-police officer to triple murder, but probe was closed

DNA evidence produced a new lead in an unsolved triple murder and identified a suspect as a former police officer, but investigators closed the case soon afterwards, ERR reported.

The case concerns the killings of Urmas Aal, a young officer who had made a rapid career in Estonia’s defence forces after the restoration of independence; his former girlfriend Tiina Lätt; and her father, Elmo Lätt. The television programme Pealtnägija is continuing its account of the murders, which have remained unsolved for 25 years.

“It was such a brutal murder that none of us continued living the life we had before it,” Andra Lätt, Tiina Lätt’s sister, said.

Vallo Koppel, a former senior inspector at KKP, said it was regrettable that investigators had been unable to solve the crime.

Speculation in the first 24 hours

The case attracted intense attention from the beginning. The victims’ relationships and backgrounds prompted theories involving jealousy, financial disputes and even links to the defence forces.

“At this stage, there are generally no stupid questions, answers or versions,” Ain Balder, a leading KKP inspector, said on the programme Avatud toimik in 2002.

Koppel said investigators had tried to devise every possible motive and find evidence either to exclude or support each one. Balder added that the simplest or most unusual theory could sometimes turn out to be true.

The main theory from the outset was a burglary that had gone wrong. Urmas Aal’s mobile phone and a stereo system from Tiina Lätt’s apartment were missing from the crime scene.

“The most likely version at the moment is that an armed robber was waiting in the apartment, and the victims surprised the armed criminal,” Kadri Palta, a Tartu police spokesperson, said in 2001.

The theory was supported by the theft of Tiina Lätt’s keys during a gathering elsewhere in the city on the night before the killings. Her bag also contained identity documents with her address.

However, neither Tiina Lätt’s nor Urmas Aal’s relatives ever believed the burglary theory. They questioned why a thief would strike at midday and noted that the victims appeared to have been killed one after another in a cold-blooded manner. The two men were shot in the chest and then in the back of the head, while the young woman was shot once in the temple.

“It was not a simple thief or some drug addict. It was an execution, and I still believe it was commissioned,” Urmas Aal’s sister, Ursula Aal, said.

Relika Alliksaar Williams, Tiina Lätt’s friend and a representative of the victims, said it was clear that someone had been waiting in the apartment.

State prosecutor Mari Kartau said Elmo Lätt had entered the apartment before the younger victims and was found murdered in one of the rooms. In her view, an ordinary burglar who killed someone during a failed break-in would have left rather than stayed behind to wait for the others.

Koppel said investigators had never been able to establish precisely when the three people arrived at the apartment.