A body found beside a gravel road near Lithuania’s Via Baltica highway in April 2016 triggered an investigation that would take detectives across several countries and become one of the most complex murder cases handled by police in the Baltic state.

The victim had no identification documents and there were no eyewitnesses. At the scene near Marijampolė, investigators found only a few potentially useful clues: a gold cross with Slavic inscriptions, distinctive tattoos and unusual tire tracks.

Forensic examination quickly established that the man had been shot in the head. Detectives also believed the killing had taken place only shortly before the body was discovered.

The victim’s cross and tattoos suggested he was probably not Lithuanian. The location of the crime scene, close to the A5 and the Via Baltica transport corridor connecting the Baltic states with Poland and Western Europe, strengthened the theory that he might have been travelling internationally.

Police began examining the tire marks. Investigators determined that the tread was typical of a commercial vehicle rather than an ordinary passenger car. They suspected that a van or small truck had transported the victim to the remote roadside.

The trail disappeared when the tracks reached the main highway.

Hundreds of vehicles and one crucial van

For several days, police searched hotels, rental properties, roadside areas and businesses across the region. Officers even checked rubbish containers and secluded locations on routes towards the Polish border.

When these efforts failed, police publicly released photographs of the victim’s belongings and tattoos. Numerous tips followed, but none initially led to an identification.

The decisive development came from surveillance cameras belonging to a business near the Via Baltica.

The cameras covered only a small section of the road and the footage was poor. Approximately 350 vehicles passed the camera within just half an hour.

Investigators manually reviewed the recordings, focusing particularly on vans and vehicle transporters.

Eventually, they noticed a van towing a trailer. The vehicle briefly left the main highway in the direction of the murder scene and returned several minutes later.

The discovery allowed police to narrow the possible time of the killing to a window of just seven minutes.

Further surveillance footage from a petrol station revealed the van’s registration plate. The vehicle was registered in Ukraine.

The trail from Finland to Ukraine

Lithuanian investigators established that two men travelling in the van had crossed by ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn before driving south through the Baltic states.

Polish authorities later confirmed that the vehicle had continued towards Ukraine.

Social media provided another crucial clue. Investigators found photographs showing the van’s driver with the victim. In one of the pictures, the victim was wearing the same distinctive cross recovered from the murder scene.

The dead man was identified as Oleksandr Kotsar, a Ukrainian fur trader. Police focused their investigation on his employee and driver, Ruslan Sadovskyi.

Kotsar’s daughter, who had already reported her father missing in Estonia, eventually travelled to Lithuania and formally identified the body.

Investigators then attempted an unusual operation. With the cooperation of the victim’s family, they hoped to persuade Sadovskyi to return to Lithuania to help transport Kotsar’s body to Ukraine.

Detectives hoped he would arrive in the same van and that forensic specialists would find evidence of the murder inside.

Sadovskyi initially appeared willing to make the journey but cancelled at the last moment, claiming the van had broken down.

Arrested in Poland

Lithuania issued an international arrest warrant. About a month later, Sadovskyi was detained by Polish authorities after entering the European Union again.

He was driving the same van.

Yet a detailed forensic examination produced a major disappointment. Investigators found no blood and no DNA evidence connecting the vehicle directly to the killing.

The only physical link was a set of tires matching the type of tread found near the body.

The case changed again when a resident living near the crime scene decided to speak to police.

The witness had initially remained silent because he feared that organised crime might be involved. He eventually told investigators that he had heard a gunshot on the morning of the murder.

His account suggested that Kotsar had not been shot inside the van, as police initially suspected. The shooting had probably taken place outdoors.

Investigators carried out reconstruction experiments involving shots fired both inside a vehicle and in open terrain. Their tests supported the witness’s statement.

Police concluded that Kotsar had been shot at close range with a 9 mm firearm. The murder weapon was never recovered.

A conviction without a confession

Sadovskyi denied killing his employer and gave investigators several different versions of events.

He initially claimed that Kotsar had voluntarily left the van in Tallinn to meet a woman. Later, he alleged that the businessman had become involved in illegal arms trafficking and disappeared after meeting unknown people near Kaunas.

Detectives checked the suspect’s claims against surveillance recordings, travel times and footage from petrol stations.

Their investigation showed that the van had stopped only once during the crucial part of its journey through Lithuania – near the location where Kotsar’s body was found.

Without direct DNA or blood evidence, prosecutors constructed a circumstantial case based on surveillance footage, border and travel records, tire tracks, witness testimony and contradictions in Sadovskyi’s statements.

The Kaunas Regional Court ultimately convicted him of murder and sentenced him to 14 years in prison.

Sadovskyi has never confessed.

The precise motive also remains unclear. Investigators believe the murder may have been connected to disagreements over cross-border business, payments and customs procedures involving the fur trade.

Some detectives who worked on the investigation remain convinced that the convicted man may not have acted entirely alone.

The case, reconstructed by Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT’s programme Sekliai, is now remembered as an example of how a murder investigation with almost no initial evidence was solved through international police cooperation, meticulous examination of surveillance footage and the gradual reconstruction of a suspect’s journey across Europe.