Man and woman deny murdering her husband after he suffered fatal stab wound

A Sheffield Crown Court trial has heard this week how Indre Barysaite, aged 30, of Denman Street, Eastwood, Rotherham, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Zygimantas Kromelys after he was found by police lying wounded at a property on Denman Street, Eastwood, Rotherham.

Dimitrijus Jakimovas, aged 33, also of Denman Street, Eastwood, has also pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Kromelys.

The bodycam footage of South Yorkshire Police officer Pc Matthew Needham was played to the jury today, Tuesday, December 3, showing officers and paramedics arriving at the property on Denman Street during the evening of November 10, 2019.

The footage showed Mr Kromelys lying on the kitchen floor in the arms of Ms Barysaite who was in tears and Mr Jakimovas was seen standing nearby.

Pc Matthew Needham said they had responded to reports that a person had been stabbed in the chest and they went into the house where Ms Barysaite could be heard saying, “Please, help me.”

Ms Barysaite and Mr Jakimovas, who speak Lithuanian, were led into the front room and Ms Barysaite was told to come away from a pool of blood in front of a sofa before she crouched down in tears, according to the footage.

As Ms Barysaite told police someone had come to the property and stabbed her husband before her husband went to the kitchen and fell, and Mr Jakimovas told police he had been in the kitchen at the time.

Mr Jakimovas could also be seen on the footage putting his arm around Ms Barysaite as he tried to comfort her.

Ms Barysaite told police she had seen two men running down the street and she said she had asked a friend to call the police.

On further police footage Ms Barysaite and Mr Jakimovas were filmed separately as they were arrested under suspicion of murdering Mr Kromelys.

Kath Goddard, defending Mr Jakimoras, asked Pc Needham if it had been confusing and if the language barrier had been quite substantial.

Pc Needham replied that the situation had been “tense” and the Google phone translator he had used had not been 100per cent accurate and that it would have been better to have had a Lithuanian interpretor.

Mr Kromelys’s sister Diana Vitkute told the court via video-link her brother had come to the UK from Lithuania when he was aged about 19 and he had worked at a car-wash and had lived with her when she had been in Doncaster before he moved to Rotherham for work.

Mr Kromelys met Ms Barysaite via Facebook, according to Ms Vitkute, and he bought Ms Barysaite an airline ticket so she could come to join him in the UK in July, 2019.

Ms Vitkute added Mr Kromelys had seemed okay the last time she had spoken to him a few days before his death.

She also said that people had been talking about Ms Barysaite being pregnant but Ms Vitkute added that she was not sure if she was expecting a baby or not.

The trial continues.

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