1919 has gone down in Estonian history as the time of decisive victories by the Estonian forces in the Estonian War of Independence. Unluckily, the Estonian people suffered many casualties in that period. In addition to those who fell on the battlefield or were murdered in the communist terror, many people fell victim to epidemics. Crime was one such ‘epidemic’. It soared to an exceptionally high level during the War of Independence. This article takes a closer look at a gang of robbers that operated in Tartu County in 1919. Based on existing information, there is reason to consider it one of the bloodiest in Estonian history. Together with two companions, Peeter Kuusk and Aleksander Turp, Kristjan Viro killed 12 people in only a few months. Peeter Kuusk murdered most of those people (seven in total). He is also the murderer with the largest number of victims in interwar Estonia. Based on archival materials, the article provides the first comprehensive overview of the activity of Viro and the members of his gang. It examines how the police and the Estonian public reacted to the gang’s murders.
The gang operated starting in June of 1919 until at least September and they very quickly became professional criminals. Peeter Kuusk became a robber-murderer just a week after deserting from the army. Viro decided to thenceforth kill all witnesses of his robberies after his first robbery. Murders were part of their robbery tactics. They killed people in the course of random quarrels or to eliminate witnesses, sometimes torturing them to obtain information. The frequency of robbery-murders committed by the gang increased over time. The gang no longer committed robberies together starting from September, at least there is no information on such group robberies. It cannot be ruled out that the police did not uncover robberies that were carried out in the second half of August and in September.
The police arrested the gang’s members over the course of October. The individuals associated with the gang were caught mostly by chance. The first to arrest the criminals were the Kaitseliit (Estonian Defence League) and the Estonian Army. Only thereafter did the criminal police intervene more vigorously in catching the criminals.
The gang did not garner widespread notoriety in society because its existence and the extent of its activity only became known in the course of its judicial investigation –
in the summer of 1919, the authorities were unaware that the murders were related to one another. Besides, before Peeter Kuusk was arrested, Kristjan Viro was only known to have committed his first robbery, in which the victim suffered only a couple of bruises and lost the property that he was carrying with him, and a horse theft committed a dozen days later.
It is notable that part of society related to criminals tolerantly. Thus, the prostitutes of Uus Street were not perturbed by the fact that Peeter Kuusk had shot the life companion of the madam of another well-known brothel just a month earlier. Instead, they warned him of an impending raid so that he was able to escape.
The gang members received harsh punishments: its two leaders – Kristjan Viro and Peeter Kuusk – and Viro’s partner in crime Daniel Märtin were shot. The rest were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.