Mother held in child murder case gripping Greece

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ATHENS — A Greek woman whose three daughters died in suspicious circumstances was held pending trial Monday in a case that has gripped the country for weeks.

Roula Pispirigou, 33, was charged with murder and will be jailed in high-security Korydallos prison in Athens until her trial, a judicial source said.

The Patras-based family’s three daughters, aged between six months and nine years old, died within months of each other starting in 2019.

Pispirigou was charged this week after toxicology tests found the presence of ketamine, a general anesthetic mainly used by vets in Greece, in the body of her eldest daughter Tzortzina, who died in January.

A preliminary investigation has also been opened into the deaths of Pispirigou’s other two daughters, and that of the family’s Patras landlady in 2020.

The suspect, who was arrested last week, denies all culpability. Her lawyer Othon Papadopoulos on Monday said his client would “never” admit to killing her children.

Pispirigou’s family had previously blamed the three girls’ deaths on genetic problems.

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