By George Vichas
The Cyprus region is watching with bated breath the developments and the tangle that is unfolding around the shocking case of the deaths of the three girls in Patras.
While the investigations into the homicide of 9-year-old Georgina are in full swing and the mother Roula Pispirigou has been taken into custody, the questions that remain unanswered about this case are too many.
One of them concerns how the death of the other two children of the family, Malena and Iris, came about.
Speaking to the Cyprus[/B] Times[/B], the President of the Hellenic Forensic Society Dr. Gregory Leon who, as it turned out, from the very initial stages had realized that there were dark spots in the case, comments on the death of the two other girls. He eloquently notes that the evidence from the examinations leads to the conclusion that the deaths of the two girls were due to an extrinsic factor, being suffocation.
"First of all, in both children it is certain that we have no pathological findings, in the sense that there is no clear pathological cause that led to their deaths. Second, there is no genetic background that essentially caused anything," he says.
Dr. Leo adds that "this could not be the case because in every case the pathological findings of the first child (Malena) are not linked to the second (Iris), whereas in contrast we have common findings that lead to something else."
The evidence points to suffocating death for Malena-Irida
As he explains, both younger children show lesions, i.e. wounds, in the external orifices of the airways. "The first child has lesions on the nose, on the bridge of the nose, i.e. abrasions, while according to a photo from the morgue there seems to be another wound in the parietal region, i.e. on the child's cheek."
At the same time, he tells us that the second child had a wound in the mouth and even on the inside. "But there is not only a wound, there is also, according to the mother's statement, a cloth with some drops of blood, which means that there was bleeding from somewhere, but according to the forensic examination, bleeding does not seem to be present in the child as the only wound is in the mouth, so the cloth to be soaked with blood was found inside the oral cavity of the child," he stressed.
The President of the Forensic Society also referred to some other evidence pointing to a suffocating death. More specifically, he tells us that "in the first child we have cyanosis of the lip bones, we have the severe pulmonary edema, severe pulmonary congestion, as well as the cenotopic degeneration of liver cells."
"All these findings are consistent with a suffocating death," he notes. "In the second child again we have severe pulmonary edema, severe pulmonary congestion, we have some spotty bleeding in the lungs, and also a very very basic finding, the lesions as a result of anoxygenemia of the brain."
The answers that an exhumation can give
Answering a related question regarding the investigations on the landlady of the house where the family lived in Patras and whether a possible exhumation of her body could give answers after so long, Dr. "Certainly an exhumation cannot be the same as an autopsy. In an autopsy, especially when it is done too early, you have the opportunity to study everything. In an exhumation, as we know very well, there is no possibility to investigate everything for the very simple reason that the evidence is altered due to time and advanced decay," he stresses.
He stresses at the same time that "it makes sense to have an exhumation, to find possible skeletal injuries, possible poisoning and I think that this particular case should be investigated in this way for the very simple reason that we must have all the evidence that we do not have at the moment. Of course, all this should be compared with the woman's medical record, it should be compared with the possible hospitalizations she had, it should also be compared from the electronic prescription system with the possible treatment she received."
"All this will at least give us a conclusion with greater certainty or reveal something we did not know until now," he explains.
"The mother described the moments of death of her children"
Finally, when asked about the evidence that led to the arrest of Roula Pispirigou, the course of the investigation and the fact that she was one of the first to express an opinion and give direction, she tells us that it took careful observation of the findings and study. "There are cases where we find evidence that may be common to certain mechanisms of death and there essentially requires the ability to distinguish correctly, what we say in clinical experience, to make a correct differential diagnosis, between 2-3 different causes and from some evidence to say with certainty which may be the most predominant."
As he explains, once he saw the forensic reports he had an opinion. "An opinion that came to be reinforced by the public interventions of the treating doctors who gave us a clear picture, at least for the first child, Malena and the third child, Georgina, who had been hospitalized, as well as essentially by the mother and current accused herself, who with the public interventions she made and with a long television interview she gave, I think she revealed to us a lot of data."
More specifically and by way of example, Dr. Leo states that "the mother described the moments of her children's death, which is something we don't often have, which is someone dying and there is someone else describing that scene to you. All of this together made me think that this is the most prevalent scenario. And when the results of a thorough genetic test and other clinical findings started to come out, there was no longer any doubt that this is where we were headed," he concludes.
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