What happened on Saturday night to Sunday on the Tallink Silja Europa passenger cruise? Is it just a coincidence that two young people were found dead with no signs of violence and apparently without any relationship with each other? Did the victims consume during the journey (voluntarily or without knowing it) substances that caused the fatal outcome?
These are some of the questions that many citizens asked on Sunday in Finnish internet forums after knowing about the discovery of two bodies on the Tallink Silja Europa ship while it was docked at the port of Tallinn.
The usual party that lasts until dawn on ships that connect both shores of the Baltic ended in tragedy for a 25-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man, both Finnish nationals.
According to Estonian police, the first corpse was found at 3:00 and the second one at 5:00. Both dead bodies were found by travel companions. And none of the victims (or other passengers) had left the boat during the night, the company said.
Illegal activities
The disconcerting things about the case is that, according to preliminary investigations, the victims were no related to each other, they were found in different cabins which were not even located close to each other and in none of the cases there were signs of violence. However, the police remained silent about the possible participation of the deceased in illegal activities.
An alert was sent to police and emergency services there was even an attempt to revive the male victim in one the aisles of the ship, but it ended unsuccessfully, according to Estonian sources.
Estonian police said both the man and the woman had spent the night in their cabins while the ship was anchored in the port. Both bodies have been sent for an autopsy and it might take weeks to determine the real cause of death.
Tallink Silja suggested that these are two individual and unfortunate cases.
The company did not inform the rest of the passengers -who returned to Helsinki on Sunday at 16:00-, that two persons had been found dead in the boat during the previous night. The reason, according to Tallink Silja, is that the case did not have any effects that affected their journey, for example by causing delays.
Last August a 21-year-old boy, Patrick Stefanius, was reported missing after falling from Silja Europa's deck while the boat was docked in Tallin's port. Police did not say whether the fall was accidental or deliberate.
