"The more I looked into it, the stranger it became," said detective Sgt. Dean Wells. "It was like the person who moved down here was a completely different person from the one up there."

"His wife said he never ran. She knew that he did. But nobody in our area here — nobody ever saw him run. It's just something he didn't do here. So talk about a night and day difference."

— Detective Sgt. Dean Wells, Coconino County Sheriff's Office, Flagstaff, Ariz.

Arizona turned out to be a world away from Riihimaki, Finland, where Heikki and his sister were born.

His 35-year-old father died when Heikki was six months old, victim to a family history of heart disease that also stole his uncle at 29 and his grandfather at 46.

Senja Ingstrom brought her two young children to Salt Lake City from Finland 40 years ago, when Heikki was 8 and Erja 10. "We were really close because we only had each other," Erja says.

Heikki would sit on his porch. "Hi," he'd say proudly to children walking by as he learned English.

He was a quick study at language and at friendships. One person described his personality as magnetic, and Heikki collected a range of friends through his days at the University of Utah, at LDS Hospital through jobs, where he worked as a phlebotomist tech, and at the Pub in Trolley Square, where he was a bouncer in the 1980s.

Earlier, friends spoke of his adventures at East High School, and then as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in his native Finland.

Mark Morris, a business litigation attorney in Salt Lake City, went to high school with Heikki, then met up with him again in the mission office in Helsinki, where Heikki was assistant to the president.

"Heikki was playful, and he had no malice," Morris said. "He enjoyed a good practical joke. There were several pranks in the mission home." Morris chuckled, but he wouldn't give details.

"He was happy doing the Lord's work," Morris said. "Those were good times."

It was during the mission that Heikki began running. Every morning, except Sunday, Heikki hit the road there, Morris said.

"He took his running very seriously."

"He was just as kind and appreciative when he was at the back as he was when he was winning. He was just happy to be out there in nature, with his friends, running."

— John Grobben, director of the Wasatch Front 100 Endurance Race since 1986