Until the verdict was handed down, the accused Dagnija Baumane was not in custody. Last week, a court sentenced her to 12 years in prison, the accused was arrested in a courtroom and taken to a place of detention.
Photo: Agnese Gulbe / LETA
Artis Drēziņš, “Latvijas Avīze”, JSC “Latvijas Mediji”
Riga City Vidzeme Suburb Court has sentenced lawyer Dagnija Baumane to 12 years in prison for murdering a woman. The court has also decided to recover more than 50,000 euros in compensation for non-pecuniary damage from the accused in favor of the victims. Baumane was arrested in the courtroom and taken to prison after the verdict was handed down.
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Latvijas Avīze wrote about this case two years ago, without mentioning the names of the persons involved (“Unfulfilled feelings, and three bullets in the back…”, “LA” September 4, 2019). Although Dagnija had admitted her guilt in the pre-trial investigation and wanted the trial without examining the evidence, at that time lawyer Uldis Lapiņš asked her client to order an additional psychiatric examination.
Two years ago, when the trial began, I spoke to Dagnia’s mother, who hoped that her daughter would be disqualified and that she would end up in hospital, not prison. Dagnija did go to the hospital, was treated, but was found to be cured and is now convicted.
Last week, after the court ruling, I was addressed again by Dagnia’s mother because she wanted to tell me what the case looked like on their family.
She emphasizes that the daughter is not a hardened murderer, as perhaps according to the media reports.
But first I will remind you what I published in “Latvijas Avīze” two years ago.
Unimaginable murder
On May 12, 2017, around six in the evening in Riga, near Dagnija, a house on K. Valdemāra Street, Dagnija killed her peer – 35-year-old Kristīne (name changed).
As Kristīne’s mother told me two years ago, my daughter was born in Alūksne, but studied English and other foreign languages. Lived in Riga. She obtained two master’s degrees at the University of Latvia and first worked as a teacher at the Nordic Gymnasium, then as a professional translator. She knew several languages, translated various documents for conferences, including state security institutions. In 2012, Kristīne taught English to employees of the Ministry of Finance, including lawyer Dagnija (after that she worked at the Ministry of Education and Science).
According to Kristine’s mother, according to the investigation materials, the two women have not met or communicated in person after the language courses in pairs, but it is known that Dagnija has started to follow Kristīne’s progress in social networks for five years, as well as eight times physically, three times. taking your legally obtained pistol with you.
“I understand that Dagnija had built the image of my daughter as an ideal, and associated her unfulfilled hopes and thoughts with her. If Dagnija had talked to Kristīne, I think my daughter would have helped her.
I read my daughter’s diaries for five years – they don’t show anything about Dagney.
By the way, the daughter was very hopeful to meet the man of her life, wanted children and family. Apparently, while tracking my daughter, Dagny realized that nothing would happen to her and decided to be the judge for my daughter… My child was shot when she carried garbage in the trash. She was very tidy, sorted the garbage – that’s how she died, with clogged plastic bottles in clenched hands, ”Kristine’s mother told me.
There were witnesses to the shooting, who saw Dagnija coming from behind and shooting her in the back three times from a few meters away, getting into her BMW and leaving.
A smart girl in a happy family
Dagnija is the only child in an intelligent and prosperous family. Logged in, as her mother says when she was no longer hoping. It was so developed that she started going to school with the 2nd grade. Has studied well both in gymnasium and university. She will be 39 years old in November.
“We were a happy family of three. Dagnija lived alone for four years before the murder. I am not stuck in her life and belongings. I don’t know if she physiologically likes men or women. Dagnia had a boyfriend for several years, and of course girlfriends. But also loved loneliness.
Quiet, peaceful, kept your apartment in perfect condition. No man said anything bad about him. Did not smoke or drink alcohol.
When I ever came to visit, I was blamed for the slightest dust. I was once angry with me when I bought a cat for scratching. When I found out that Dagnija had shot a man, I started laughing because it was unthinkable, just unbelievable, ”Dagnija’s mother now tells me. After the crime, Dagnija planned to commit suicide, but lacked courage.
Unfortunately, the truth turned out to be harsh. The mother did not know that her daughter had a legal weapon – a pistol. As Dagnija told the police, she bought the gun not for murder, but for her own safety – she took the weapon with her when she walked and photographed various remote places all over Latvia. She has also taken her parents to new places.
Burned out at work
Dagnija has received thanks from the Prime Minister and ministers for her work for the state. Her parents and lawyer think that Dagnia’s problems started in the work of the state – she started to burn out, she often felt bad. He was a man who had taken on many jobs. She has been an auditor at the Ministry of Finance, then worked at the Procurement Monitoring Bureau, been a lawyer at the Ministry of Education and Science, worked on the Law on Higher Education Institutions, participated in government meetings, and represented Latvia at an international auditors’ conference.
According to the mother, strange things happened before the murder: the daughter left the state institutions and said that while working for a real estate company, but there was no such company at her address, but it was seen that she had foreign property keys. The mother thinks that her next victim, Kristine, has also been involved in this business.
Dagnija was officially unemployed. The mother suspects that the daughter may have been tricked into suspicious transactions.
As acquainted with the victim
Dagnija made friends with Kristīne on language courses, entrusting her with her secrets. In 2012, during the course, teacher Kristīne made students play role-playing games and revealed Dagnija’s secrets. Dagny was overwhelmed with horror, despair, and she cried out. Later, he forgave what he had done.
“Already after the murder, my daughter told me that she trusted Kristine very much, but she humiliated and betrayed her. I don’t know exactly what it was about. In my opinion, Dagnija Kristīne idealized: she was brisk, with her men, an apartment, a car. Kristīne once said that Dagnija had a caring brain, ”the mother sometimes remembers what her daughter said.
Subsidiary transformations
Dagnija was detained four months after the crime. She then lived with her parents or was treated in hospital until her judgment.
“Dagny will never be the same again. A little wild boar came to us from the prison. They did not talk for a long time about what happened or the prison. Sometimes I didn’t understand where.
We were always afraid that the daughter would not jump out the window on the fifth floor or do anything else for herself. My husband was literally mad.
I was still holding and holding, even though I was in the sun with one foot – at that time I had a major cancer operation, now I am a first group disabled. It’s all so extremely sad. I also had to receive and talk to Kristine’s mother – thank her for her humanity, for talking to me, for normal contact, whatever that may be. I understand her tremendous pain in losing her daughter. But I have also lost my daughter to some extent, ”says Dagnia’s mother bitterly.
Dagnija has changed a lot since what happened. Depression alternates with aggression, hysteria, crying, laughter. Dagnija talked to herself. The mother had heard phrases such as “they forced me to do it”, “put the gun in my hand”, “I didn’t want to”, “blackmailed me”, “put drugs”, “found me and even beat me in prison”.
Sometimes Dagnija went out for a walk. Collected and cleaned the bushes from empty bottles and other debris, washed the viaduct from its shoes.
“Watch your children”
“I want to say to all parents now: no matter how we are doing and how old our children are, let’s take care of them. Now I blame myself for not noticing something, missing it. Although Dagny seemed a very adequate, wise, thinking man. But it was necessary to feel that the daughter feels shattered and knocked out of the rhythm of life, has inferiority complexes and has lost the self-confidence that something is starting in her head. The doctors also say: she is not confused, but there is something in her head that cannot be taken out, ”says the mother.
The day before the tragedy, her daughter had a terrible headache. On the day of the murder, Dagnija bought in a supermarket, refueled the car and washed it.
On one of the few occasions in public, the daughter said to her mother, “I wanted to go out of my life and take with me what made me inferior to the grass.”
Prosecutor: The criminal acted purposefully
Prosecutor Kaspars Cakuls, who asked the accused Dagnija Baumane to be sentenced to 15 years in prison: “I may not appeal the judgment. There can be no question of Baumane’s innumerability, even limited. This is also pointed out by three experts. Just as there was no state of affect. Than one that would have hindered the awareness and control of one’s actions at the time of the crime.
Baumane acted purposefully: took up arms, drove, tracked down until he committed murder.
Even now Baumane is a healthy person: yes, with his known problems, but he can be tried. The reason for the murder was a personal relationship, a motive: the person did not get what he wanted. ”
Lawyer Uldis Lapiņš, who will ask to mitigate the sentence: “I am waiting for the full sentence to get acquainted with it and to appeal the judgment – the prison sentence should be lower. As a professional lawyer, I cannot deny that Baumane was on trial. Adequate at the time of the crime and also when tried. He was sick in the middle, but cured. However, I can say at once that it was stated in the expert’s judgments that Baumane was not fully aware of his actions at the time of the crime, and this is an attenuating circumstance. “
Themes
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