Jeff–Saturday
I truly did
not want to write this post.
On the one
hand Greece is beautiful, its people warm and welcoming, and its reputation as
among the safest nations in the EU well deserved. But on the other hand, converting
unthinkable familial tragedy into dramatic theater is an ancient art form in
Greece, and recent events in Greece’s third largest city, Patras, have true
life imitating art in the most heinous of ways.
I’ve
blogged recently about the Greek pilot who a year ago allegedly murdered his
wife (and dog) in front of his eleven-month-old child and then conjured up a
home-invasion explanation that the police promptly debunked.
As horrific
as that story is, today the country is consumed by a modern-day twist on
Euripides’s Medea. The matter is still under investigation, but the threads of
the story—if true––would turn even Hannibal Lecter’s stomach.
The news story
broke in February and centers upon the deaths of three sisters, ages 6 months,
3 ½ years, and 9 years, in 2019, 2021, and 2022 respectively—all born to the
same parents.
The Greek
media exploded with coverage, including television interviews with the mother
and father.
Rather that
recounting the details, I think I’ll take a hint from the Greek dramatists and
provide you with relevant excerpts from the developing—and far from over—story
as reported in Ekathimerini, Greece’s newspaper of record (reporting, in
part, by Yiannis Souliotis).
February 9,
2022
Investigation
into deaths of three children from same Patra family in three years
Prosecutors
in the western city of Patra have ordered a preliminary investigation into the
deaths of three young girls from the same family who died within three years of
one another.
 |
Georgina, Iris, Malena
|
According
to local news site thebest.gr, the investigation was launched in order to
answer the questions of the girls’ parents as well as doctors.
Another
local site, pelop.gr, reported that the cause of death of the latest fatality,
a 9-year-old who died about 10 days ago, remains unclear.
March 30,
2022
Mother of
three dead children detained by police
Greek
police on Wednesday detained the mother of three young girls who died in the
space of three years.
The
33-year-old woman from the city of Patra in southwestern Greece was expected to
be led before a prosecutor in Athens later in the day.
The
histological and toxicological analyses conducted on the body of 9-year-old
Georgina, the last child of the family who died at the Aglaia Kyriakou
Children’s Hospital in Athens at the end of January 2022, have been completed
and the findings are in the hands of medical examiner Sotiris Bouzianis, who
will determine the cause of death.
The first
forensic examinations concluded last Thursday but Bouzianis ordered a further
examination of the sample due to a “suspicious” substance that was detected in
the body of the 9-year-old.
Georgina
was the third girl of the family to die in since 2019. Her demise was preceded
by the death of her 3.5-year-old sister Malena in the summer of 2019 and of
6-month-old Iris, in 2021.
Prosecutors
in Patra ordered a preliminary investigation into the deaths to answer the
questions of the girls’ parents as well as doctors.
April 1,
2022
Mother’s
strange behavior key to arrest
The arrest
of a 33-year-old woman on Wednesday on charges she intentionally killed her
9-year-old daughter Georgina was preceded by a detailed analysis by police
investigators who heard testimonies from nurses, staff and medical examiners at
the hospital in the western city of Patra where the child died in late January.
The woman
was arrested in her hometown of Patra and was transferred to Attica Police
Headquarters (GADA), where she spent the night. Roula Pispirigou will remain at
GADA until Monday.
An Athens
prosecutor on Thursday gave her until Monday to prepare her defense.
Also on
Thursday, her mother and sister were summoned to GADA, while her estranged
husband is also expected to receive a call.
Georgina
died in hospital on January 29 and postmortem toxicology tests showed she had
received ketamine, an anesthetic drug often used in animal surgeries, which had
not been prescribed by her treating doctors.
According
to the case file, “the only person who was in Georgina’s room for the last 20
minutes of her life, before the side effects of the drug kicked in, was her
mother.”
Georgina
died at noon, with her mother informing doctors at 2.30 p.m. that her daughter
suffered cardiac arrest. A hospital nurse testified to police that she saw the
accused approaching her in search of a nurse. She described, however, that the
way she walked and the fact that she did not call for help initially gave her
the impression that she wanted to ask her for a sheet or something similar. The
nurse also said that the oximeter that had been placed on the child in order to
notify staff in case of a drop in pulse had been mysteriously removed.
Staff also
said that a day before the death, Pispirigou had told them, referring to her
daughter’s heart condition, that they “had seen nothing yet” and that “the big
episode has not taken place yet.”
Among the
list of incidents that raised the suspicions of doctors and nursing staff was
that Pispirigou had asked if there were security cameras in the rooms. What’s
more, whenever Georgina experienced convulsions, bradycardia or other serious
issues, she was alone in the hospital room with her mother. Her death,
indicatively, occurred two days after the girl’s father, Manos Daskalakis, the
estranged husband of Pispirigou, had left the hospital.
[Ed.
Note: It’s also been reported that “The
mother stated that she knew how to administer the drugs and that she wanted to
administer them herself. As Georgina’s health deteriorated, the hospital
ordered that the drugs only be administrated by nurses.”]
April 4,
2022
Woman
accused of killing daughter ordered detained ahead of trial
A woman
accused of killing her hospitalized 9-year-old daughter was ordered held in
pre-trial prison custody late Monday, under enhanced protection measures to
prevent her from being attacked by other inmates.
Earlier the
33-year-old suspect was led under heavy police guard to an Athens court for an
arraignment, as screaming onlookers hurled insults and tried to assault her.
Authorities
are also investigating the deaths of the suspect’s two other daughters.
She has
denied any wrongdoing, and her lawyer said Monday that his client believes the
death she has been charged with may be due to medical error. Hospital officials
denied that.
The case
has gripped public attention in Greece, with most media routinely referring to
the suspect as a murderer — reviling her, among other things, for allegedly
having displayed little emotion at the deaths of her children.
The woman
was arrested last week after an anesthetic drug was found in tissue samples of
her 9-year-old daughter who died in January following a lengthy stay in the
hospital.
A panel of
senior coroners is also leading a review into the deaths of the suspect’s two
other daughters: a 3-year-old from liver failure in 2019 and a 6-month-old in
2021 from a suspected heart defect.
Police had
to fend off aggressive onlookers Monday at a court complex in the Greek capital
to lead the suspect into the public prosecutor’s office to present her defense.
Several in
the crowd ‒ some of whom were awaiting trial for separate alleged offenses ‒
chanted “Death! Death!″ as they tried to break through the police cordon.
Greece has long abolished capital punishment.
Authorities
have not identified the woman, but her lawyers have named her as Roula
Pispirigou from the western port city of Patras.
April 9,
2022
Tablet
retrieved from girl’s grave after magistrate’s order
A tablet
that was buried with a 9-year-old girl whose 33-year-old mother is accused of
killing and which could provide evidence on her demise was retrieved on
Saturday morning, following an order by the magistrate investigating the case.
The tablet
was buried with the girl at the insistence of her mother, Roula Pispirigou,
from the western city of Patra, saying it was her favorite item.
The decision
to open the grave followed the testimony of the father, Manos Daskalakis, who
has stated he supports the accusation against his estranged wife and confirmed
that the tablet had been buried with her.
The girl,
Georgina, died in hospital in late January, and Pispirigou, who has denied the
charges, was arrested last week, after postmortem toxicology tests showed she
had received ketamine, a drug which had not been prescribed by her doctors.
Georgina
was the third girl of the family to die since 2019. The deaths have prompted a
police investigation.
April 12,
2022
New forensic probe ordered over deaths of younger daughters in Patra case
At a
makeshift shrine set up by local residents outside the home where the three
children lived with their mother and father, in Patra, in western Greece,
‘Death to the child killers’ is scrawled on one of the shutters.
The
prosecutors investigating a 33-year-old woman from the western port city of Patra
who stands accused of killing her 9-year-old daughter have asked for an
entirely new forensic probe into the deaths of the woman’s other two girls, in
2021 and 2019.
According
to state broadcaster ERT, forensic investigators will seek to determine whether
foul play may have been involved in the deaths of Irida, who was six months old
when she passed away in the family’s Patra home in March last year, and Malena,
who died in hospital in July 2019 at the age of 3.
Malena’s
death had reportedly been documented as being caused by liver failure, while
the official coroner’s report on Irida has not been completed, as the probe
into her death has only gotten as far as ruling out genetic causes.
Tuesday’s
request for a fresh forensic investigation comes in the wake of findings
indicating that 33-year-old Roula Pispirigkou may have administered a lethal
dose of the drug ketamine to her eldest daughter, Georgina, while the child was
being treated in hospital in January for mysterious symptoms reported by the mother.
Investigators
are also hoping to find clues into the deaths of the three children on
Georgina’s tablet, which was exhumed last week from the young girl’s grave,
where it had been buried along with a few other of her belongings.
The telling of this
dramatic tragedy is far from over…
–Jeff
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