The cold confession of Irini Mourtzoukou that she killed her two children, her sister, and a friend’s child continues to shock Greek society. Equally shocking are the descriptions she gave to police when asked how she killed the infants.
As Giorgos Kalliakmanis reveals: “When police asked her how she killed the children, she said ‘with my hands, I don’t remember how‘. She might be telling the truth and have erased it from her memory,” he added. “Her relationship with her mother was what made a person become a murderer, and that’s where police focused. I thought it was very likely that police would manage to make her ‘break,'” Mr. Kalliakmanis said characteristically while speaking on Live News, noting “This should have been done earlier.”
What Irini Mourtzoukou had claimed about the deaths of the four infants
Irini Mourtzoukou herself had spoken on television about the four deaths. Here’s what she had claimed:
The first death
February 4, 2021. The then 21-year-old Irini was caring for a friend’s baby daughter when suddenly the infant showed breathing difficulties. “She didn’t tell me about dyspnea, that she made a sound and couldn’t breathe. Just like what happened to her two children and the third one in Amaliada,” the mother of the 6-month-old infant told Mega.
Irini, for her part, had maintained that the child was facing health problems, which is why she was receiving special pharmaceutical treatment.
Irini Mourtzoukou: Her child had epilepsy. She was receiving some medication at home. And even she, until the day before yesterday when we spoke, hasn’t understood what happened. Everything came out crystal clear.
Mother of the infant: And you were present again.
Irini Mourtzoukou: I wasn’t exactly present…
The infant’s mother, on the other hand, insisted that only Irini was at home that afternoon with the baby.
Doctors then told the unfortunate mother that when her baby arrived at the hospital, it was already dead, with the tragic outcome attributed to sudden death.
The second death
June 19, 2022. The 22-year-old Irini, who had become a mother for the first time 19 days earlier, experiences the same nightmare again. Her baby, just 19 days old, “dies” completely unexpectedly in its crib.
“Something happened that night, we don’t know how or what. My mother tells me to call the ambulance immediately. By the time we reached the health center, the child had died,” Irini had said.
“It was night, she calls me and says mom the baby isn’t well, it’s making a strange sound like it’s turning blue, it’s frozen, I tell her notify the ambulance quickly and I’m coming too. I went to the health center, I never made it to the child,” Irini’s mother described.
The grandmother’s words, that the infant was already frozen before the ambulance was called, are also confirmed by Sumon, Irini’s then-roommate who remembered with chilling detail what he experienced that night at home. “One hour at night she talks to mom. Irini what’s the problem… She wasn’t answering… I opened the door, turned on the light and saw the baby was so still… I ask her what happened, she says I don’t know… Such a small baby and it just went…”
“The first child also stayed in the incubator… First it stayed in the incubator and then came home. They told me to do a brain scan. I made an appointment, but we didn’t make it in time,” Irini had maintained.
The death was attributed to probable pneumonia that the infant had, with authorities ruling out the possibility of criminal activity.
The third death
October 17, 2023. Irini loses her second child too, two months after its birth. The 24-year-old would say that this baby, unlike the first, was perfectly healthy, but in mid-September 2023 began showing epileptic episodes. “Later she had some seizures. The Health Center sent us to Patras. They put her in intensive care, I had to go every other day to see her.”
Journalist: How did you realize the child wasn’t well and you left for Karamandaneio? Did she have a seizure?
Yes. Her little eyes rolled back, she was trembling somewhat, she was like a feather completely. The ambulance was notified and she was taken inside.
At Karamandaneio she stayed for 3-4 days. Doctors decided to send the baby to Agia Sophia for further examinations, as apart from a bruise on the eye, they couldn’t find anything else.
The examinations were exhaustive with doctors unable to find what was causing the seizures. “They started, they did tests. They came out clean. They talked about epilepsy, but she didn’t have epilepsy,” Irini noted.
At the Athens hospital, the baby remained for almost a month. On October 17, 2023, the last major episode took place before the fatal outcome. Irini, who was with the baby in the room, had just gotten up to prepare milk when suddenly the monitor alarm sounded. “The machines are beeping… by the time I reached the door, her little heart had stopped,” as the 24-year-old herself had said.
After the second death of her baby, there was prosecutor intervention, while the genetic testing process also began, with doctors estimating that the second baby’s death was probably related to the epileptic episodes she was experiencing.
The fourth death
August 5, 2024. This is the day the fourth and final infant death occurred in the presence of the 24-year-old. Irini and the baby’s mother are at home playing with little Panagiotis when suddenly the baby shows breathing problems.
“I stayed with the baby in the living room and Kalliopi went to the next room to get something,” Irini said.
“By the time I went to another room and came back, I saw that he wasn’t breathing well. He was in his stroller in the living room. I took three minutes. I immediately picked him up to see what I could do. My friend was there and took him from me to save him,” the mother of little Panagiotis said.
“I took him from her hands, put him on the couch and tried to give him artificial respiration,” Mourtzoukou had stated.
The two women maintain that when they took the baby by private car to Amaliada Hospital, he was alive. In contrast to the doctors who state with certainty that the 15-month-old baby they received was dead for at least 30 minutes earlier.
