A mixed jurist-juror court on Friday handed down a life sentence against a Patras woman accused of murdering her eldest daughter, nine-year-old Georgina in January 2022 – a case that has shocked the country given that another two younger daughters had also perished under mysterious circumstances.
Under Greece’s more lenient penal code, “life sentence” rarely exceeds 20 to 25 years.
The highly publicized trial ended after 15 months.
The defendant, Roula Pispirigou, 34, has maintained her innocence throughout the investigation and subsequent trial phase. Conversely, prosecutors convinced the jury panelists that Pispirigou administered a lethal dose of ketamine to the child while it was being treated in a Patras hospital’s ICU ward.
The motive given by the prosecution was Pispirigou’s intense jealousy of her estranged husband at the time, as the couple has since divorced.
All three of the couple’s young daughters died under mysterious circumstances.
She will now face another homicide trial for the deaths of her other two daughters.
