Today’s story is set in the coastal town of Arbroath, Scotland. Which is about 55 miles South of Aberdeen and 500 miles north-east of London.
It was Monday 31st March 2008 at 10:30am, when two red-headed young girls, aged 8 and 11, ran down to the beach, enjoying their freedom over the Easter holidays. Following heavy rain the evening before, the girls were enjoying a dry, sunny morning on the coast. One of the girls spotted something amongst the flotsam, near the high tide mark. As young children would, they curiously approached the mysterious object hidden in the debris. A black plastic bag lay out before them, clearly containing something large inside. The girls peered inside.
Seconds later, upset and crying they were both frantically running home where their alarmed mum called the police. In response to the call, PC Lyndsey Bovill arrived as one of the first officers on South Street beach that morning. The mum had told the officer that the girls had found… something. Lyndsey headed over to the black bin liner, and then spotted a Lidl carrier bag inside. A small tear on the Lidl bag, only about an inch wide, told Lyndsey everything she had to know…She saw flesh, and dark hair. It was a head, with brown hair sticking to an injured face.
A colleague on the beach called for Lyndsey’s attention – they had found another bag, about one hundred yards closer to the town’s bustling harbour. Another rip in that black plastic bag revealed more horrors – fingers. The officers covered the discovered head with a fish crate, cautious as to not cause alarm, at least not until a forensics team arrived.
A builder, John Carswell, was working on a new house only fifty yards from where the severed head was discovered and was subsequently interviewed by police. He said that neither of the two bags had been there when he removed debris from the sand-and-shingle beach the night before: “I cleaned up that beach at 4 o’clock last night – every bit of rubbish on it – and there was nothing there. I have given the police the bag of rubbish I collected at the time. There was some clothing in the rubbish I collected – that’s all.”
His son, also named John – yet more families for some reason call the same name – why! – was working on a nearby apartment when he spotted the two traumatised girls out of the bathroom window – “They were playing at the water’s edge”, he said. “They were on their own, but everyone around here looks out for the kids and makes sure they’re OK. I saw them poking about a black bin-bag, when they suddenly took off screaming in a hurry, which I thought was a bit strange. I saw them come back with their mother, and I asked her what was going on. She said she thought the girls had found a head, and that she had called the police. Police officers came down, and then CID arrived. They went to the black bin-bag, and when they opened it up I saw some hair, and it was plainly a head.”
Soon enough, a murder inquiry had been sparked in the seaside town of Arbroath and forty detectives were lining the beach as all manner of wild rumours swept the local community.
“This is something you might find in a Rebus book rather than our seaside town”, said Inspector Graham McMillan, in charge of the investigation. He was unsure at first if the bags had been deliberately dumped or if they had just washed up with the high tide, thanks to rough seas the night before. However, due to the North Sea currents, the origins of the remains were untraceable. They could have even been washed up from Europe. That morning, the officers swept the beach a ¼ of a mile in both directions, but found no more evidence.
Immediate inspections of the face and hands left no question that these were the body parts of a woman. Yet a local forensics expert confirmed the remains were relatively fresh and had clearly not been at sea for very long, as they were still quite recognisable.
The investigating team began scouring the Missing Persons Database.
Locals were convinced that the remains of a missing mother had been discovered at last. Forty-two Louise Tiffney had gone missing in 2002, three days before her 18 year old son had been due to appear in court for killing his best friend and cousin in a high speed car crash west of Edinburgh. In 2006, Louse’s mum said she was convinced her daughter’s remains were dumped and washed out to sea off the East Lothian coast, leading many residents to believe that her body had sadly been recovered.However, the forensics team proved that they had not found Louise Tiffney – the head did not match the description of Tiffany…or any local missing women. Let me digress quickly here as Louise’s body was tragically found in 2017 in a shallow grave by the entrance lodge to Gosford House, just east of Edinburgh, not far from Muirfield golf course. Shockingly, her son Sean stood trial for her murder in 2005, when it was argued that he killed his mum after arguing with her over his dangerous driving case and over his relationship with an older woman. Flynn denied hurting his mum telling how she had “stormed out” of their home, but she had not taken her keys, bank cards or cash, or made childcare arrangements for her six-year-old daughter. He walked free when the case was found not-proven, but when more evidence was uncovered following the recovery of Louise’s body, he faced a second trial. But the 37 year old would never face justice, as he took his own life in Alicante in Spain, days before the trial was due to begin.
Back to today’s story, and the investigation for who had been found continued for several more days with no success. But on the 5th April 2008 at 15:30pm, a member of Grampian Police’s specialist Underwater Search and Rescue Dive Team found something. The team had already spent a whole day searching the harbour, but found nothing. It was on the afternoon of the second day of searching that they found the remains of a body in a suitcase in Arbroath harbour. By 5pm, the suitcase had been forensically removed from the water, and further suspected remains had been uncovered along the coast at Carnoustie, seven miles south of Arbroath.
Inspector McMillan gave an update to the public on the status of the inquiry – “The contents of the case will have to be emptied and examined under a very controlled environment within the police mortuary at police headquarters in Dundee.”
And whilst the team on the beach were exposing more horrific discoveries, an anxious employer reported a missing worker. Philip Brown was an area manager for an agency supplying farm workers in Arbroath. This area of Scotland is popular with Eastern European workers seeking jobs in the fruit picking or labouring industry. In 2007, there were an estimated 4,000 migrant workers in the region, and Philip Brown was responsible for many of those workers. He was unnerved after a ‘very reliable’ worker had failed to show up to work for several days. It was extremely out of character for her, and he therefore reported her missing to the police. The detectives quickly visited Philip and he was shown images of the gruesome head. Shocked and appalled, he confirmed that it was indeed the face of his missing employee – 35-year-old Jolanta Bledaite.
Jolanta had moved from Lithuania to the UK, and had been working on a farm for around eighteen months. She had experienced a rough childhood with an alcoholic mother, whose whereabouts remain unknown. Jolanta was a quiet, shy woman who had been working hard in the area to raise money for her family back home in Lithuania. Her dad had been receiving cancer treatment, and she was raising money to assist him with his treatment.
Philip Brown had previously contacted her address to try to see where she was and was told by her flatmate Aleksandras Skirda that she had run away with some of her Polish friends.
Following this breakthrough, Inspector McMillan called for information; “This is a tragic incident involving a 35-year-old woman who came to Scotland seeking a better life.
‘I am determined to make sure justice-is served not only for Jolanta, but for her family too.’ He vowed to search “properties in the area and carry out door to door enquiries in the area in a bid to find out what happened to Jolanta”.
Police officers headed to her apartment on Southesk Street, Brechin, 14 miles North, inland of Arbroath. The block of flats that Jolanta lived in were populated with migrant workers. A forensics team entered her flat whilst other officers scoured the banks of a river near to her building. Upon entry into her apartment, the team discovered a significant amount of blood – blood was spotted on door frames, a bath panel and a large amount was soaked into the carpet. The police arrested two fellow Lithuanian men at the scene. Her neighbour Aleksandras Skirda, aged 19, and his friend Vitas Plytnykas, aged 40.
Vitas, a former member of the Soviet Red Army, already had a conviction for murder. He was jailed in Germany in 2001 after stabbing a man to death in a row over money and for this he had served 7 years and 6 months at a prison in Stuttgart, Germany for manslaughter. He was deported back to Lithuania in January 2005 before moving to Scotland. His menacing presence spread fear amongst the migrant community in the area upon his arrival, also gaining the attention of police after carrying out some low-level thefts in the area. But he claimed he had nothing to do with Jolanta’s death.
On the other hand, upon his arrest, Alek Skirda admitted to murder immediately. Aleksandras had moved to Scotland with his mother in 2006, and from 2007 he lived with Jolanta. Skirda claimed that the murder had been planned for two months, which was further cemented by a fellow farm worker interviewed, who told that he had heard conversations discussing her murder. He originally thought it was a joke, he said, as Vitas Plytnykas talked of killing a woman for her money and cutting off her head. Vitas believed she had £10,000 in her bank account, as she was saving to help her family and move back to Lithuania, so he planned to kill her and take that money from her.
Vitas claimed he was nowhere near her home on the 29th March 2008- when the murder took place – and blamed Skirda solely for her death, but Skirda’s confession revealed to the police how Jolanta’s murder was carried out, and just how involved Vitas Plytnykas was. He told how at 8am on March 29th Jolanta was reading when the two men burst into her room. Skirda told how he wrapped gaffer tape around her hands and ankles whilst Plytnykas held her down and demanded that she tell him the PIN for her bank card. Frightened for her life’s savings, she gave Plytnykas a false number. He headed to a nearby cash machine to withdraw money, and Skirda stood over her so she could not escape, smoking a cigarette. Plytnykas was furious when the PIN was wrong and on his return he physically assaulted here and seeing that she had no choice but to give him what he wanted, Jolanta gave away the correct number. He returned to the cash machine, withdrawing £200. I imagine you could well be thinking the same as me here – that during this time Skirda had two opportunities to do the right thing, to let Jolanta free – but he did not. He told police that no matter if she had given her details or not, Skirda told police that no matter if she had given her details or not, Plytnykas would have murdered her regardless.
With the confirmation that her savings account was now fully in his possession, Plytnykas put a pillow over Jolanta’s face whilst Skirda held down her legs as she was struggling. After a few minutes, Jolanata was no longer breathing.
The men then began their efforts to make the scene appear as though Jolanta had headed back to Lithuania. They cleared personal papers and possessions from her bedroom before dragging her body into the bath. Skirda brought knives in from the kitchen and handed them to Plytnykas, who – and I am sorry to say this is such a matter of fact way when it is clearly anything but – cut off her left hand before severing her right. Skirda said he held the plastic bag open for Plytnykas whilst he dropped her head inside. Their aim was to make her body unidentifiable.
The knives they used and her personal papers were thrown into the South Esk river nearby and her clothes were thrown in wheelie bins in Arboath. A pair of Jolanta’s tracksuit bottoms were later found by Forensic Scientist Alastair Burt, who was able to confirm that the clothing did indeed belong to Jolanta.
Over the next two days, officers studied CCTV footage which showed Plytnykas and Skirda boarding a bus with a plastic LIDL bag – inside were Jolanta’s head and hands. They headed to the beach and found heavy stones to place in the plastic bag, before throwing her head into the water.
Afterward, the two men used Jolanta’s money to go shopping, with Plytnykas buying a pram for one of his six children. Further CCTV showed the pair dragging the suitcase containing the remainder of Jolanta’s body through the streets of Arbroath. Skirda admitted to throwing the suitcase into the harbour and stealing £1,400 from her stolen bank cards. He denied that he was a callous killer, shifting total blame to Plytnykas in an attempt to cut his own sentence, telling officers that he was paid £700 by Plytnykas for his assistance in the murder and the repulsive distribution of her body parts.
However, DNA tests on the knives recovered from South Esk river did not show any evidence of Plytnykas. There was no DNA evidence at the murder scene in Brechin that proved Plytnykas was present, but only on the plastic bags discovered on the coast, with 15 matches discovered by a fingerprints expert.
Was Skirda not the man being told exactly what to do after all?
And eventually, after changing his story a number of times, once the case came to court Aleksandras Skirda told the full truth which is that he had been the one to bound and gag her. He had been the one to hold the pillow over Jolanta’s head and he had been the one to suffocate her. He had carried the knives from the kitchen into her bathroom, had lifted her into the bath and had beheaded her with a bread knife. It took him five minutes to cut through her head and bones, using the same knife to saw at her wrists.
The barrister addressed this in court saying: – “You don’t care. You have shown no remorse at any time, have you? You have never shed a tear and your only concern in this court today is for yourself.”
Skirda only replied with, ‘no’.
“You did act as coolly as you please, didn’t you? You didn’t panic. You weren’t frightened. You were as cool as a cucumber,” the barrister continued to accuse him further. “I tried to hold back my panic and not show it”, claimed Skirda. He admitted that he had told lies when first questioned but had told the truth in court, replying “I felt sorry for what happened.”
The barrister continued to question him on his repeated lies – “There is no DNA evidence at all that links Plytnykas to this murder. Is that just bad luck or what?”. “I don’t know,” said Skirda. “You do know because it was you and you alone that carried out the murder”.
“The reason why there is no DNA link to that man sitting on trial at the High Court ( Plytnykas) is because he was not there.” “No,” repeated Skirda.
On the 13th February 2009, it took the jury of 10 women and five men less than two-and-a-half hours to find Plytynkas and Skirda guilty of murder, theft of £1,400 and attempting to defeat the ends of justice, at the High Court in Edinburgh. Plytnykas was sentenced to a minimum of 28 years, with Skirda serving a minimum of 20 years.
Judge Lord Pentland told Skirda that Jolanta’s murder was a ‘callous plan’, “With chilling composure and determination you put the evil plan into effect… with military style precision”, as Plytynkas sat in the dock with his head bowed. “Jolanta Bledaite must have died in a state of grave terror and distress… it is clear her ordeal at your hands must have lasted a considerable time. She had done neither of you the slightest harm. She was entirely defenceless but you showed her no mercy.”
He also acknowledged that Plytynkas had a clear lack of “respect for human life or decency”.and his only concern in life was money, evident as both murder cases he had been involved with revolved around his financial greed.
Lord Pentland turned to Skirda and said, “At no stage have you shown the slightest sign of remorse… you played a full part in the execution of these dreadful crimes, a willing participant. I’m not persuaded that you have expressed any genuine remorse.”
Inspector Gordon Cryle also made a statement on behalf of Tayside Police: “We are very satisfied with today’s verdict upon what was undoubtedly one of the most horrific murders to have been committed in Angus in living memory,” he said. “From everything we have heard, Jolanta was a hard working, conscientious woman who arrived here with aspirations of making a better life for herself. By every account she was a good woman – an innocent victim far from home. Her killers preyed upon her and we were struck by the level of premeditation that they showed. This was not an impulsive crime, but one that was plotted over several weeks.”
A local resident spoke on behalf of Jolanta’s family telling how Jolanta’s dad’s condition had worsened, and he passed away from his cancer diagnosis before the end of the trial
After the men had been given their sentences, there was outcry across the country at how Plytnykas was allowed entry into the UK following his previous murder conviction in Germany. But this isn’t for us on this podcast, here we are only interested in the human stories, not the politics. I should add that a Home Office spokesperson announced that Plytnykas would be deported back to Lithuania, as he had been given a sentence longer than two years and in 2015 he was deported. But some people just don’t know when to shut up, and Plytnykas was one of those. Inside prison back in Lithuania, in December 2015 he wrote a 14-page letter addressed to the Dundee Courier Newspaper, with a ‘Christmas’ stamp on the envelope featuring a cartoon Santa. He claimed that the guiltiest person involved in the situation was Jolanta herself, as she had stolen his bank card. He continued that his bank card went missing in the start of 2008, and when his girlfriend had gone to Lloyd’s bank to have the card cancelled, she was informed that the card had been used for shopping and money had been withdrawn. He continued that he suspected that it was Jolanta.
“Nobody planned to kill and rob her at all. This was never a planned crime,” the letter read. “This was a lie that Aleksandras Skirda said. He blamed me in all things that he made and even in things that never happened, he said his version of the crime but his thoughts are not the real facts. He said that most of the things were done by me.”
“Because of Skirda’s lies and because your police refused to help me I never appealed the verdict of the court, as I never even thought that the court would believe in all these lies that Skirda said. For the court the most important goal was to put someone into jail and show to the society that monsters will now serve in the jail till they die.” He argued that his life sentence was “too much”, and that he is undeserving of such a lengthy punishment: “I will never be able to stay in jail for such a long time because of my age and health”, he pleaded, “but because of Jolanta’s fault now I will stay all my life in prison”.
So what do you make of what we have heard today?
In a sense, I am not really interested in whose idea the murder was. Both men acted appallingly and frankly, if they are never released from prison that is just fine with me. I wonder if you agree? And once again we hear the self-pity from a man sent to prison for such a terrible crime – no remorse, no seizing the opportunity to explain to hearbroken family and friends what really happened. Just self-pity. His six children must be proud.
But today’s episode isn’t about these two killers, it is about Jolanta. Just 35 wen she died, a gentle, shy and hard working woman doing all she could to help her family back home on Lithuania. Someone who was betrayed by those close to her – she can surely never have suspected this – and then Jolanta suffered the most terrifying death and even after this, her body was showed a terrible lack of respect. We must be grateful for the impact she had on those close to her, but equally, we cry for her early death when she still had so, so much to live for.
This story featured as episode 344 of the UK True Crime Podcast. The following sources were used:
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