“People do not want him to return to our village from prison. The old ladies are especially afraid of him, because he does not get along with the younger ones. He is a coward – he goes to those who can’t defend themselves, – one girl from Varėni told “Lietuvos rytui”. – When he is not drunk, he is like a normal person.
He is very eloquent, speaks with all kinds of pleasant words, only “pupuliuk, pupuliuk”, and old people are gullible if you talk to them nicely.”
In the village where Juozas (name changed. – Ed.) comes from, there are few residents left, almost exclusively elderly women. The fear that after three years and ten months, the man who scared many elderly women with his lewd acts will return from prison, is present in almost every shed.
A long list of crimes
The first time Juozas was behind bars for rape at the age of 38. Later, he was tried several times for theft and violence.
“He had previously attacked my 82-year-old mother, wanted to rape her. He pushed and beat his mother, but she managed to escape from him. Then he was convicted only for violence. He also used to sneak up on elderly women in neighboring villages. And then he was put on trial for murder.
Such a man had accepted him to live. Both were drinking, maybe they got angry, so Juozas killed him. The court sentenced him to 10 years. One of his brothers has already served his sentence for murder, and now he seems to be living in Alytus,” Varėniškė said.
Juozas was tried in the Vilnius District Court for killing a helpless person and was recognized as a dangerous recidivist. He was released in March 2022.
For a year and a half, he did not catch the eye of law enforcement too much: he found a job, the municipality provided him with social housing. The divorced man lived alone.
“He started working, got money and more entertainment, alcohol,” said people who knew Juoza.
Last September, the man committed the crime for the seventh time and heard the sentence in the Varėna courthouse: three years and ten months of imprisonment.
Insistently offered help
91-year-old Elena (name changed. – Ed.) was walking towards home, leaning on a cane, when a man riding a bicycle caught up with her. The old woman was carrying apples in a basket.
“Perhaps it is difficult to carry a bundle, will I help you?” the cyclist asked after stopping. The woman refused help, but the man still took her bag, hooked it on the bicycle and brought it all the way to the door of the house.
Elena thanked, but did not want to let the stranger inside, although she could see that he seemed to want to enter. Unexpectedly, the cyclist asked the pensioner to lend 5 euros.
He promised to pay the debt in a few days. The old woman, apparently, wanting to get rid of the stranger, gave away all the small change from her wallet – 2 euros and cents.
Saved by a vigilant teenager
Three days later, when it was getting dark outside, someone knocked on Elena’s door. “I brought the debt,” came a man’s voice as the woman asked who had come. The old woman unlocked and opened the door just a little to take the money.
Having taken them, Elena wanted to close the door, but the man pushed it and declared that he would come in for a moment. Joozas, walking deeper into the room, kept pushing Elena until they both ended up in the bedroom. The old woman threatened that if he did not leave, she would call the neighbors for help.
But the intruder ignored the woman’s scare. He pushed Elena onto the bed and began to tear off her clothes. Juozas was kissing and groping an elderly woman.
Elena struggled with her last strength, tore at the attacker’s head and face. Later, Elena said that she did not notice when the pervert managed to take off his pants. When the old woman began to scream loudly, the attacker, having painfully rammed his elbow into the victim’s chest, clamped Elena’s mouth and nose with his hand.
The woman sprinted and defended herself as best she could. A teenager sitting on a bench near Elena’s window heard her scream. He realized that there was an unknown man in the old woman’s apartment whom he had seen entering the house.
The teenager saw through the window that the man was holding Elena by the neck, so he ran to the old woman. The door to her apartment was unlocked.
“Are you all right?” the boy shouted and saw the same stranger coming from the room. He assured that everything was fine, closed and locked the door.
The teenager was still uneasy. He went to the next-door neighbor and asked her to call for help, because bad things were happening in the old woman’s apartment.
Several neighbors came to Elena’s apartment and started knocking loudly on the locked door and rattling the handle. A man in a hat quickly walked past them. He sputtered half-turned so that the crowd could not see his face, got on his bicycle and rode away.
One girl managed to film the stranger running out of the apartment with her phone.
Tried to deny guilt
Police officers quickly arrested the suspect. He denied being at Elena’s apartment. “You are even filmed leaving the apartment,” the officers assured Juoza. “Me?” asked the detainee as if surprised.
He was found to be slightly drunk (0.89 percent).
The suspect testified that he did not intend to have sexual relations with the old woman: “I don’t know what came into my stupid head. I don’t know why I started kissing. I wouldn’t have done that when I was sober. I ran away because I did something wrong. I dug a hole for myself.”
However, the court had no doubts that the man tried to rape a woman of respectable age.
Forensic medicine specialists found numerous injuries on Elena’s body: bruises on the nose, jaw, cheek, ear, sternum, both hands, hand, scratches on the chin.
The victim did not only complain of physical pains. This incident caused her a huge psychological trauma.
But Elena refused to write a request to punish the abuser. “What happened to me will be a shame in front of the neighbors and other villagers,” explained the woman. She did not attend the trial of the attacker.
The old lady’s lawyer explained that the victim’s state of health is still poor due to the pain, stress and humiliation she experienced.
