Nov 10 2018
Last month, gardaí said they had upgraded their investigation to one of murder. Earlier this week, they said they had received intelligence from a number of sources about Giedre’s death and, more importantly, about her killers.
However, gardaí had been working in the background on this case for five months – liaising with their Lithuanian counterparts as well as police in England – especially those based in Norfolk – an area Giedre lived in prior to her moving to Louth.
Her reasoning for moving to Ireland has not yet become clear. She did not have a job lined up and ended up working for a clothing charity collection company to get by.
But investigators believe that the break up of her relationship is what caused her to fall in with a bad crowd – a group which included some well-known Lithuanian criminals.
These people are known to gardai and are suspected of being part of a criminal organisation which runs prostitution and drugs across large parts of the country.
Officers are in regular contact with their Lithuanian counterparts as well as Interpol and the UK police.
Giedre’s family members have said that they believe her to be dead and now want her killers to be brought to justice.
The prime suspects in the woman’s murder are two well-known Lithuanian men who are involved in organised crime.
They operate a number of drug dealing rings as well as several brothels in the area. While gardaí currently have no evidence to suggest that Giedre was forced into prostitution or that she was trafficked, they are probing if her reluctance to enter the sex trade is what resulted in her death.
Forensic teams have been combing a property in Laytown in Meath – a place where Giedre was allegedly raped and assaulted before being removed, unconscious, and driven to an area where her body was dumped.
Gardai have received detailed intelligence from a number of people who claim they know what happened that night. It is not known if she died at the house or was brought to another location where she was killed and then dumped.
Officers have two main suspects and a number of people of interest in this case. They are working with Lithuanian police to build a profile of these men. One of them is already in prison in Ireland and will be formally interviewed about Giedre’s disappearance in the coming days.
The other man has gone to ground and gardai are asking UK and Lithuanian police to inform them if he has arrived into either of their jurisdictions. However, it is thought that he is still in Ireland.
How a missing person's case in Louth became an international murder probe spanning three nations
