Ior Bock

Ior Bock (; originally Bror Holger Svedlin; 17 January 1942 – 23 October 2010) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish tour guide, actor, and mythologist. Bock was a colourful media personality and became a very popular tour guide at the island fortress of Suomenlinna, where he worked from 1973 to 1998.

Biography

Birth According to Bock's autobiographical The Bock Saga, he was born as the result of an incestuous relationship between sea-captain Knut Victor Boxström (1860–1942), who would have been 81 years old at the time, and his daughter Rhea, 42. where he claimed that Ior Bock was actually an adopted son of Rhea Boxström-Svedlin and Bror Svedlin. In 2003, Bock had answered Londen's queries by explaining that the adoption-theme was a necessary precaution from his mother to hide the incestuous act that led to his birth.

Adolescence According to Magnus Londen's article, young Holger Svedlin was sent off to an orphanage for one year at age nine. Londen, citing unnamed acquaintances of the Svedlin family, states that Holger (who had adopted the name Ior, meaning Eeyore in Swedish) had displayed irrational behaviour and that his mother had been unable to cope with him since his adopted father had died the previous year.

In 1990, police arrested Bock and 33 other participants in the dig on suspicion of the use and distribution of Indian hemp. When the court sentenced three of Bock's foreign companions the results were a public scandal and the withdrawal of the sponsor of the excavation, the major construction company Lemminkäinen Group. Since then, smaller digs have been made. In 1999, a stabbing left Bock quadriplegic. When Bock was still in hospital, his debts to the Lemminkäinen Group and a geotechnical contractor (from 1992) were used to instigate a process against him for debts and credits. During Bock's stay in Goa the following winter, his assets were confiscated and his properties sold. During an archaeological excavation made later in 2006, it was noticed that an electric ground cable had been dug in the courtyard at 40 cm depth. According to the project manager Selja Flink of the National Board of Antiquities, it was most probably the object noticed in the ground-penetrating radar investigations. According to Flink, there is no archaeological or documentary evidence of the well mentioned by Bock.

Death On 23 October 2010, Bock was stabbed to death in his apartment in Munkkiniemi, Helsinki. Police arrested two men, Indian nationals aged 19 and 28, who had shared his apartment and had worked as his personal assistants.

The younger suspect was subsequently set free and cleared of all charges. The 28-year-old was found not culpable by reason of insanity and in 2011 he was deported to India.