Court acquits Panevėžys resident Tadas Jankūnas accused of killing minor gym student

15 minutes recalls that when the case was referred to the court, already during the first hearing, the prosecutor Valdemara Chodorcevičienė asked the court to hear the case in private. Neither the relatives of the murderer nor the accused and his representative objected to such request at that time.

On Friday, Tadas Jankūnas heard a verdict at the Panevėžys Regional Court. The court acquitted him. The judge, who presented the reasons for such a decision, concluded that there were no objective data in the case that the crime had been committed by Tadas Jankūnas. Nor was a murder tool found.

This means officials may have to re-explain the details of the crime because the real high school killer is still on the run.

After the hearing, neither the prosecutor Valdemara Chodorcevičienė nor the relatives of the murdered child commented on the verdict. Only the defendant’s lawyer, Kristina Rutkauskienė, spoke briefly about the outcome of the case at the Panevėžys Regional Court.

“We are not going to comment on anything, because the verdict has been announced, it has not entered into force. I’m sure the prosecutor will complain. We expected such a verdict from the day of his arrest. I think it’s really legal and reasonable, ”said the lawyer.

The court that acquitted Tadas Jankūnas also dismissed the civil actions brought by all the murderer’s relatives.

The only prick was fatal

A seventeen-year-old student from a gym in Panevėžys was killed on the night of December 10, 2017 on S.Dariaus and S.Girėno streets. Fatal was the only stab with a knife to the chest. Two years later, the murder investigation was completed and the case went to court. The suspect in this case is Tadas Jankūnas, a 19-year-old from Panevėžys.

Although the body of the young man was not found in a remote location, but near an apartment building, the police were called immediately and the “hot traces” of the suspect could not be identified. The investigation team formed worked intensively for almost half a year before the suspect, Tadas Jankūnas, who was still a minor at the time and was now nineteen years old, was arrested. Another young man was initially suspected, but was never arrested. Ultimately, no evidence was gathered that he had contributed to the heinous crime.

The pre-trial investigation into the young man’s murder lasted almost two years. During that time, more than 120 witnesses (many of them minors) were interviewed for assignments and tests, which took a long time to complete.

The file consists of more than 22 volumes. The suspect decided to break the border of law enforcement silence: he exercised his right and refused to testify throughout the pre-trial investigation.

The pre-trial investigation in this case was conducted by a group of officers from the Criminal Police Serious Crimes Investigation Board of the Panevėžys County Police Chief’s Station, and they were led by prosecutors from the First Division of Prosecutor’s Office of the Panevėžys Regional Prosecutor’s Office.