A “vile” murderer who dismembered a woman and dumped her body in the sea has sent a letter to a regional daily attempting to blame his victim for his crimes.
The Courier, Dundee, ran extracts of the hand-written 14-page rant from killer Vitas Plytynkas, in which he blamed victim Jolanta Bledaite for the fact he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
With the letter, The Courier received a Christmas card signed by Vitas, which contained a message stating Merry Christmas and New Year.
The letter was used as the basis for a story which ran across pages eight and nine of Tuesday’s edition of the paper.
Dave Lord, Courier assistant editor, told HTFP: “Vitas Plytnykas is a truly vile character and the murder of Jolanta remains one of the most disturbing cases many of us at The Courier have ever reported on.
“That, even now, he feels he can somehow justify the killing shows just how twisted he is.”
In the letter, translated from Lithuanian, Plytnykas claimed that Ms Bledaite is the “guiltiest person in this situation” because she stole his bank card in the weeks before she was killed.
He added the jury believed “false evidence” and “didn’t find all the details” in the letter, adding he now wanted “everyone to know the real story of that crime”.
Plytnykas, pictured above left, and his friend Aleksandras Skirda suffocated and dismembered their fellow Lithuanian in her flat in Brechin before dumping her mutilated body in the sea in March 2008.
Her head was later discovered washed up on Arbroath beach by two young sisters.
Plytnykas said his bank card went missing during the start of 2008 and that when his girlfriend went to cancel it she was informed that it had been used for shopping and withdrawing money.
Plytnykas said he “suspected Jolanta from the beginning” because he had heard that she used to work as a prostitute in Moscow.
He also claimed that he knew that his victim – whom he sarcastically referred to as “our dead hero” – had sex with men and then accused them of raping her, further stating that she would ask for money or she would go to the police.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Jolanta was targeted by the pair because it was believed she had saved up a lot of money.
Plytnykas taped her hands, legs and mouth while they looked for Jolanta’s bank cards. They then threatened to kill her if she didn’t reveal the PIN numbers.
Skirda said that Plytnykas put a pillow over her face while he held her legs. They then carried her to the bathroom and began the process of cutting off her head and hands.
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Having contact with vile people is one of the unfortunate downsides of journalism. I once wrote a Christmas feature on a local prison and was allowed contact with a few of the inmates. One of the most charming and helpful turned out to have drowned a toddler in a bucket of water for ‘fun’. My Christmas wasn’t quite so merry that year.
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This is Scarface, final scene, Nigel Farage with bazookas under each arm, ‘say hello to my little friend!’
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I appreciate that for a newspaper to receive this vile letter was a big deal and I do not contest the fact it was a story.
And yes I know you can’t defame the dead
But is there not a taste problem here with regard to publishing just so much of this letter?
I see two pages were afforded to this and as a journalist I do ‘get’ why this was done
But quite honestly and I am only thinking of the victim here, I don’t know if this was the right thing to do in such unstinting detail.
Above all, may Jolanta rest in peace.
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I fear the prisoner achieved his objective – loads and loads of publicity. The paper was misguided to give it such saturation coverage.
I recall receiving a Christmas card from a convicted murderer I’d reported on. He sent me his love and thanks – I threw the card in the bin!
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