Indicted mother to testify as suspect in daughters’ deaths

A woman from Patra accused of intentionally killing her 9-year-old daughter while in hospital in January has been called to testify as a suspect in the investigation over the deaths of her two other children, who also passed away under suspicious circumstances. 

Prosecutors Antonis Eleftherianos and Apostolos Andreou, who are handling the preliminary investigation, have ordered Roula Pirpirigou to explain the deaths of 3.5-year-old Malena and 6-month-old Iris, following a report by two coroners which showed that they both died of asphyxiation instead of natural causes. Malena died from liver failure in 2019 and Iris in 2021 from a suspected heart defect.

Pispirigou is already in pre-trial detention, facing charges of murder for the death of her older daughter, Georgina. The girl died in hospital in late January, and Pispirigou, who has denied the charges, was arrested in in April after postmortem toxicology tests showed she had received ketamine, a drug which had not been prescribed by her doctors.

She has denied any wrongdoing, and her lawyer have pointed to the possibility of medical error.