Audronė Skučienė, an aunt of Kedys, was also active in the fight against a bailiff and Stankunaitė, who arrived to take the girl from Venckienė’s house. The fighting ceased after Andželika Vezbavičiūtė, an employee of the state children rights service, started to shout, urging a halt to the violence. A video of the 23 March drama was put on the CNN iReport Internet site as well as on Youtube and titled “Terror against the Girl.”
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| Eriko Ovčarenko/15min.lt nuotr./Neringa Venckienė |
Stankūnaitė, Kedys’ ex-girlfriend, showed up with a black eye in a TV studio the next day after the fighting. She said that Kedys’ father hit her during the incident, when 10 police cars with some 30 policemen arrived to Klonių Street 5 in Garliava, which is situated near the city of Kaunas, to protect the handover of the girl. The pro-Kedys crowd shouted at the policemen that they should not obey “criminal orders.”
Tauris Stauskis, a chief officer of the Kaunas police, and Sonata Vaicekauskienė, a bailiff, who were trying to implement the court’s decision at Venckienė’s house, held a press conference later on the same day.
“It was a shock for me as a father. The grandmother jumped on the girl. Then the grandfather jumped on the girl,” Stauskis said, adding that security guards, who are sanctioned by the state to guard Stankūnaitė and the child, tried to protect the girl from injuries during the scuffle (Venckienė says that these state-imposed guards, in masks, tried to help Stankūnaitė take the child from the house).
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| Eriko Ovčarenko/15min.lt nuotr./Laimutė Stankūnaitė |
“The child will have psychological trauma,” Vaicekauskienė said about the possible outcomes in the girl’s case.
On 23 March, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė issued a statement urging people not to use violence against the girl.
Kedys story is the best known Lithuanian criminal case of all time. On 5 October 2009, Kedys, 37, who said his young daughter (she is now eight years old) had been the victim of pedophiles (including businessman Andrius Ūsas, who mysteriously drowned in a shallow wetland in 2010), gunned down (as prosecutors officially suspect) Kaunas Judge Jonas Furmanavičius (who was accused by Kedys of pedophilia) and his former girlfriend’s sister (the aunt of his daughter). Earlier, Kedys publicly blamed both of those allegedly shot by him for being involved in the molestation. After the double murder in Kaunas, Kedys was at large. In 2010, Kedys was found dead near Kaunas. A gun, which was used in the double murder, was found near his corpse. Officials concluded that Kedys died due to choking on vomit caused by alcohol abuse. Kedys and Stankūnaitė had a long fight over their daughter. Since the killings of 5 October 2009, Kedys’ daughter has been living under the temporary custody of Venckienė, his sister.
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| Modesto Patašiaus/Lietuvos rytas nuotr./The image of purple-clad Kedys has become an icon. |
Many Lithuanians do not believe in the official versions of the deaths of Kedys and Ūsas. Darius Kuolys, director of the Civil Society Institute, discussing the mystery surrounding the story, suggested that Ūsas, who was a former politician, could have been an agent of the State Security Department when this secret service allegedly spied on the Labor Party.
According to LNK TV phone-in voting of the 23 March evening news, 70 percent of viewers support the stance of the grandparents of Kedys’ daughter in the incident of 23 March, while 30 percent support the state officials’ action.
