A true crime documentary around the infamous Angus ‘head on the beach’ murder of Lithuanian Jolanta Bledaite is to hit the small screen.
The crime which shocked Angus just over a decade ago is part of a CBS Reality series called Murder By The Sea, a study of horror cases around the coast of the UK.
Countrymen Alexsandras Skirda and Vitas Plytnykas were jailed for 20 and 28 years respectively for what the film brands “an act of the most incredible savagery”.
They killed 35-year-old Jolanta in a Brechin flat before dismembering her body and transporting it across Angus in plastic bags and a suitcase before throwing it into the sea at Arbroath.
The murder hunt was sparked by the unimaginably horrific discovery of Jolanta’s head by two young girls playing on the Arbroath foreshore.
An Edinburgh High Court trial heard she had been slain after her killers were unable to access her bank account with her cash card in the hope of raiding it of the savings she had gathered from working on Angus farms.
Genre specialists Monster Films have produced the film, which is presented by Greenock-born Geoffrey Wansall, a true crime author whose books include the official biography of notorious serial killer Fred West.
It includes testimony of a psychology expert and contributions from figures involved in the horrific case, including Angus police detective Bob Stirling and The Courier’s Angus chief reporter Graham Brown.
“Murder By The Sea looks at why the killers may have gravitated to these areas to commit their crime – the end of the road,” said Monster Films producer Bo Channon.
It centres on the evil Plytnykas, who arrived in Angus having previously served a prison term in Germany for killing a man.
The former Red Army soldier was transferred to a prison in his homeland several years into his sentence and later sent a chilling letter protesting what he claimed to be the unfair treatment of Scottish prison authorities and the justice system.
“We have done a lot of work speaking to people who were involved closely with the Jolanta case and are trying to show the impact such crimes have on people connected to them in some way, and the communities where they took place,” added Mr Channon.
The documentary airs on CBS Reality on Tuesday at 10pm and will be repeated on Sunday at 11pm.
