Lithuanian guilty of severed head woman's murder

A Scottish court convicted a Lithuanian man yesterday of murdering a fellow Lithuanian worker and dumping her severed head and remains in a harbour.

Vitas Plytnykas, 41, suffocated Jolanta Bledaite at her flat in Brechin, eastern Scotland in March last year after forcing her to hand over the pin number for her bank cash card.

His accomplice, Aleksandras Skirda, 20, also from Lithuania, pleaded guilty to murder last October and gave evidence against Plytnykas at the High Court in Edinburgh, the Press Association reported.

"These evil men showed her no mercy whatsoever, blinded by a callous determination to rob her of her hard-earned savings," Detective Inspector Gordon Cryle said after the verdict.

The men had hoped to cover up their crime by cutting up the 35-year-old woman's body and dumping it in the sea.

But they were traced after two young girls found her head in a plastic bag in the harbour at Arbroath, about 25 kilometres away.

Her severed hands were also found on the foreshore and police divers later found a suitcase containing her body nearby.

A CCTV photo released by police showed the men casually crossing a road with the suitcase before dumping it.

Ms Bledaite, from the town of Alytus, 150 kilometres west of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, was thought to have been in Britain for about 18 months before her death.

She had saved around £5,000 and was sending money home where her father was ill with terminal cancer. He died before hearing the outcome of the trial.

The men had withdrawn £1,400 from her account before they were arrested.