On the night of October 17,1986, the pastor of Pušalotas, Father Albinas Pipiras (61 years old) was assaulted and seriously injured.
Somewhat earlier, Father Pipiras was harassed over the phone by unknown criminals. In August, during the day, someone broke a window and three men and three women broke into the rectory of the parish of PuSalotas in broad daylight, one of them had a revolver with him and only after they noticed many people in the next room did the burglars flee. The incident was reported to the militia of the Pasvalis Rayon however... they did not react seriously.
About a week before the attack of October 17, the dog guarding the rectory was poisoned.
On the night of October 17, four persons slept in the rectory: The pastor, Albinas Pipiras, a ten-year old relative — the pastor's godson, a sick eighty-year-old old lady — the pastor's aunt and the sacristan, Rimutis Kudarauskas. The assailant, tearing out the window from the street side, broke into the room in which the priest's young relative was sleeping.
After ordering the boy to cover his head and lie still, he broke into the next room where Kudarauskas was sleeping. Kudarauskas was beaten up and knocked unconscious with a blow to the head; a pool of blood was found in the room.
Father Pipiras, hearing the commotion in the neighboring rooms, turned on the light and saw before him a masked man holding in one hand a knife and in the other, a cleaver. Father Pipiras tore the mask from the intruder. His assailant struck and wounded the priest several times with blows to the head. Barely alive and bleeding profusely, his skull fractured and his right arm sprained, Father Pipiras was cast into the basement. For some time, after knocking the recovering Kudarauskas unconscious again with a blow to the head, the assailant took over the rectory. Finally finding 1,500 rubles and taking several tape recorders, he washed the bloodied Kudarauskas himself, bound his wound with a towel and ordered him to drive him to Klaipėda in the pastor's automobile while in his hands he held the knife and axe with which he constantly threatened the driver.
From Klaipėda, he ordered him to drive to Kaunas. After consuming too much alcohol along the way, the murderer fell asleep. With 2 kilometers left to Šilalė, he ran out of gas. Kudarauskas hailed a passing automobile and asked to be driven to the nearest militia station. Arriving, the militia handcuffed the drunken culprit. It was discovered that he was a Georgian, Aleksandr Galas-vil, a product of the militia academy.
On the morning of October 17, when their pastor, Father Pipiras, failed to show up for Mass, the faithful came to the rectory looking for him. They found the seriously injured priest who had spent four hours in the basement. At the Panevėžys Hospital, he required four hours of cranial surgery. After the operation, Father Pipiras did not regain consciousness for several days. Once he did so, Father Pipiras' health began to improve.
The circumstances of the break-in are being investigated...
During the evening of October 16, residents of Pušalotas noticed strangers walking around outside the rectory. Some questions are raised by the fact that on the morning of October 17, militia personnel and the prosecutor of the Rayon of Pasvalis looked over the rectory by themselves and only when people began insisting were public witnesses drafted. A relative of the pastor, a minor, states that on the night when Galasvil broke into his room, through the window, he saw three men with cigarettes running away. The old lady claims that a few minutes after the assailant had left the rectory, an automobile which had been parked not far from the rectory that night drove away. Father Pipiras had also heard people talking outside his window.
On October 23, the Pasvalis Rayon newspaper, Darbas (Work), briefly reported the aforesaid incidents. In the article, Prosecutor S. Bietkis writes:
'For self-serving motives, Albinas Pipiras, a resident of the City of Pušalotas, was assaulted in his home the night of October 16 into the 17. Pipiras was seriously injured and Rimutis Kudarauskas was slightly injured. With the assistance of the public, the assailant was apprehended that same day. It was determined that the assault was carried out by Aleksandr Galasvil, a twenty-nine-year-old citizen of Georgian nationality, residing in the Kaliningrad Region, not employed anywhere. According to available information, he broke into Pipiras' home alone."
