Ūsas' ATV, found submerged in a swamp in a rural area near Alytus in southern Lithuania. Photo by the Alytus County Police Department.
VILNIUS — Andrius Ūsas, one of the men the late Drąsius Kedys accused of sexually abusing his young daughter, was found dead on Sunday, floating in a swamp near Alytus after his all-terrain vehicle apparently became submerged.
Police say Ūsas was on a weekend getaway with friends in a country cottage, and was driving the ATV by himself on Sunday along a dirt road in a forested, rural area near Alytus in southern Lithuania. He had bought the ATV on Thursday and was not an experienced driver. The dead body was found approximately two hours after the accident by a bypassing woman, who notified authorities.
At a press conference Monday acting General Prosecutor Raimondas Petrauskas said no signs of violence were found on Ūsas’ body and a full autopsy is being conducted. He dismissed any notions that Ūsas was murdered.
“The initial data shows that no conspiracy theories should be hatched,” Petrauskas told reporters. “We can suspect that as he was driving he felt bad and fell down from the vehicle. We constantly hear about such cases.”
However, the Lietuvos Rytas newspaper reported that an anonymous source close to the investigation said that murder had “not been ruled out.” Police did not say whether alcohol was a factor in the crash.
The mystery deepens
Ūsas was placed under police protection in the wake of the double murder in Kaunas last fall, allegedly perpetrated by Kedys as a vigilante killing to protect his daughter from pedophiles. On his now-defunct website www.pedofiliai.com Kedys accused Ūsas of being one of three men that sexually abusing the girl at the behest of her mother Laima Stankūnaitė. Both Ūsas and Stankūnaitė have denied the accusation, and Ūsas voluntarily left police protection shortly before Kedys’ body was found in April. The cause of Kedys’ death remains a mystery.
The swampy spot where Ūsas' body was found along with the ATV. Photo by the Alytus County Police Department.
Of the three men, only Ūsas was charged with molesting the girl by prosecutors. In February the Vilnius Regional Prosecutor’s Office formally pressed charges against Ūsas for the sexual molestation, although not rape of Kedys’ three-year-old daughter. However, the trial’s proceedings have been repeatedly delayed. The first hearing was set for Wednesday.
The case has captivated the Lithuania public, with the general prosecutor resigning and thousands protesting in support of Kedys, believing that he did murder the judge and Stankūnaitė’s sister to protect his daughter from an elite ring of pedophiles that state prosecutors are protecting instead of investigating. Of course, none of that has even been proven in court.
Those close to the case are divided on what caused Ūsas’ death.
Laimutė Kedienė, Kedys’ mother, told Lietuvos Rytas that “perhaps God has punished him,” but said she thought the death was likely an accident, which Kedys’ sister Neringa Venckienė echoed.
However, Andrius’ brother Evaldas Ūsas said he doubted that the death was an accident, saying he was not informed of Andrius’ plans to go ATV driving this weekend. Ūsas’ wife declined to comment to the press.
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