Several police officers and prosecutors involved in the many cases in which the woman pleaded for public assistance and protection have lost office following the woman's death. Zero tolerance for domestic violence has been advocated for. As of the next year, police hope that electronic bracelets will be introduced.
April 16, 2023. It was Sunday and the day Iveta was with her loved ones, her mum and her two children. After tidying up some graves in a remote country cemetery, she got into a car and headed for Jēkabpils. Leons Rusiņš cut in front of them. After his and Iveta's divorce, he had been harassing and terrorizing Iveta. He attacked. Iveta died.
Iveta's mum now lives in a retirement home and is battling trauma. The children are living with relatives.
Rusiņš is now also wanted internationally.
“The fact that this killer hasn't been caught and found naturally causes people both anxiety and insecurity that such a killer is walking around. But I am pleased that, at least, if you look back on this year, understanding of violence and such crimes is changing. I'm not saying there already is a huge change, but it is changing. Slowly. The price has been too high,” said Iveta's lawyer, Iveta's son's legal representative Anna Nore.
The state police emphasize that the search for Rusiņš involves the best investigators. One version is about suicide.
Last Saturday saw widespread neighborhood searches again, with police college students and missing person organization bezvests.lv specialists also involved. Rusiņš' body was looked for both in the woods and in the river, because Ļaudona, where he left the car after the murder, is by the river Aiviekste.
“There are grounds to believe that he is not among the living, and we resumed large-scale search efforts,” State Police Chief Armands Ruks noted.
Iveta's lawyer, meanwhile, is skeptical about the possibility of Rusiņš committing suicide. "If he's alive, I hope he will make a mistake one day."
Last year, police made 200 more decisions about separating the violent from the victim than before Iveta's death. An electronic monitoring system is also expected from January 1. The legal scope has been developed. Also, the law now allows those who violate a court-imposed restraining order to be put behind bars for long periods of time.
