Justina Gaigalaite, the ex-wife of paramedic Mantas Sadauskas, who is suspected of murder, had previously come to the attention of law enforcement authorities almost five years ago, writes “tv3.lt”.
It is reported that In August 2021, a woman contacted the police, claiming that she had received a message from J. Gaigalaites stating that the woman should pay 300 euros for the services provided to her, and a pre-trial investigation into extortion was initiated.
A year later, in August 2022, the Panevezys district prosecutor’s office decided to end the pre-trial investigation because, according to the law enforcement representative, she had not committed a crime.
Despite the fact that Gaigalaite was acquitted of extortion charges, her home was searched during the aforementioned investigation.
What the police discovered in the woman’s home gave them the right to open a separate pre-trial investigation into illegal possession of narcotic or psychotropic substances without intent to distribute them.
At that time, Gaigalaite was on maternity leave.
During the search, 5 pills and 11 ampoules of psychotropic drugs were found in her home.
According to the case file, Gaigalaite purchased the prohibited drugs without intending to sell or otherwise distribute them. The woman bought them from a person whose identity was not identified during the pre-trial investigation.
In court, Gaigalaite fully admitted her guilt – she said that in the fall of 2021, she found an advertisement on the Internet for the sale of vitamins and medicines.
“I decided to buy them, I contacted the person who posted the ad on Facebook and agreed on which vitamins and medicines I would buy. During the conversation, using the Messenger app, the man offered to buy certain medicines cheaper,” she said.
“I knew they were psychotropic drugs, but I decided to buy them for my own needs. I made an appointment and, having met an unknown man who sold drugs, I paid for everything in cash,” Gaigalaite told the court at the time.
The woman said she bought exactly that amount of medicine because she was told there was some left over. When she brought the medicines home, she checked them and saw that some of them had expired.
The court found Gaigalaiti guilty and sentenced her to a fine of 2,550 euros, however, after fully admitting guilt, the fine was reduced by a third – to 1.7 thousand euros.
It was announced earlier that the horrific details of the crime are gradually becoming clearer – the young paramedic Mantas Sadauskas was not only killed, but his body was tried to be burned after it was wrapped in a trampoline.
Law enforcement agencies reported that three people have been arrested, including the paramedic’s ex-wife.
The mother of the detained woman made a comment and said her daughter is “vengeful” and “unpredictable”.
The woman is the champion of Lithuanian, European and international tournaments in bodybuilding and fitness.
After being killed, the man’s body was buried.
“We had to conduct a search, he was not visually visible there. The officers had to dig a lot. After the search, he was hidden,” commented Darjus Pļavga, chief of the Main Police Commissariat of the Panevėžys district.
The man disappeared on Monday morning – he went to a call to help assemble a trampoline. Relatives and friends learned the same day that the order, which purported to be a trampoline for a kindergarten party, had been fabricated to lure the victim into a trap.
Law enforcement agencies announced that three suspects are currently in custody, including the man’s ex-spouse and the woman’s current boyfriend, who is also an athlete.
“Two persons who are currently detained already have previous convictions. One is related to illegal possession of narcotic substances, the other – to a criminal offense – driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol,” says D. Skrebiškis.
Immediately after her husband’s disappearance, relatives and friends identified the paramedic’s ex-wife as the prime suspect.
In addition to active physical training in the gym, the woman worked for some time as an emergency specialist at the same workplace as her ex-husband.
According to the data provided by the law enforcement authorities, the main motive for the murder, according to the suspicions of friends and relatives, was revenge against the ex-spouse. After the divorce, the children of the couple had to live with their father according to the court decision, but the woman was ordered to pay her ex-spouse several tens of thousands of euros.
So far, law enforcement has not revealed whether the killers killed the man where he was found or simply hid the body here, as the man’s car was found in a wooded area a few kilometers away.
It is suspected that the initiator of the crime could have been his ex-wife, compounded by previous attacks she allegedly committed – two cars belonging to the paramedic’s family were set on fire a couple of years ago.
“A pre-trial investigation was launched into these circumstances, but it was stopped after the suspect was not identified. I can inform you that when this pre-trial investigation is organized, these circumstances will be evaluated by a specialized prosecutor,” says D. Skrebiškis.
