Fourth robber in Athens home break-in found hiding in closet, eludes arrest

The fourth robber involved in a break-in on the apartment of an elderly woman on Athens’s southern coast on Monday morning was found hiding in one of her closets nearly 14 hours after police were called to the scene, but managed to run off nevertheless.

The suspect was found in a closet that had been dusted for fingerprints but not opened during an hours’ long investigation conducted by around 20 police and crime scene officers inside the Palaio Faliro apartment building where the elderly woman’s flat was located and in the surrounding area.

He is one of four armed men who entered the eighth floor apartment on Monday morning and tied up its elderly resident and her maid with the intent to pillage the flat, but were spotted by the woman’s son who lives on the floor above and had installed security cameras on his mother’s balcony.

Three of the perpetrators ran off when police arrived at the scene, jumping from apartment to apartment to get away. One of the three robbers died after falling from a seventh-floor balcony during the chase. The other two were arrested and police launched a manhunt for the fourth.

However, the fourth robber was eventually found by the woman’s son after she was allowed to return to the apartment late on Monday night. According to reports, the son detected a foul smell and opened the closet to find the robber sitting in his own mess and pointing a gun. He threatened the son and ran off, disappearing into the streets of Palaio Faliro.