A 35-year-old woman, prosecuted for killing her three daughters in three years, was sentenced Friday in Greece to life imprisonment for the murder of her eldest, a case which sparked an outburst of anger. In pre-trial detention for two years, Roula Pispirigou was found guilty of premeditated intentional homicide and attempted premeditated intentional homicide of her 9-year-old eldest daughter, Georgina, by the Athens Assize Court. In a separate procedure, launched after Georgina's death, the young woman is being prosecuted for the murders of her two other daughters, Malena, 3 and a half years old, in 2019, and Iris, 6 months, in 2021.
Media unpacking
On January 29, 2022, she poisoned Georgina by administering ketamine, a substance used mainly in veterinary surgery as an anesthetic and analgesic. At the time of her death, Georgina was in hospital where she had spent several stays since convulsions left her quadriplegic in April 2021. The court ruled that already, at the time, the mother had tried to kill her daughter. The second child, Malena, was initially declared dead of liver failure, and Iris, of cardiac arrest. But new assessments carried out after Georgina's suspicious death revealed that they had died of asphyxiation.
Pispirigou, a nurse by training, nicknamed by the Greek media
“the Medea of modern times”
or
“the Medea of Patras”
, the city where she is from in western Greece, proclaimed her innocence throughout the trial started in January 2023. This alleged triple infanticide, in a country where this crime is rather rare, sparked fury and great media coverage. The Greek government had to call
for “calm”
in the face of calls for murder made against Roula Pispirigou. Shortly after her arrest, riot police were deployed outside the Athens courthouse, while the roaring crowd shouted
“Killer, confess your crime!”
.