Nearly four months have passed since the discovery of 54-year-old Maria and her 26-year-old son, Olympios, found dead inside their home in Longos, Aigio. What initially appeared to be a case heading swiftly toward a clear conclusion has since evolved into a complex puzzle, following new findings from laboratory and technical examinations. The 65-year-old Italian national, Maria’s partner, was arrested and remanded in custody in June on charges of double murder — charges he has denied from the very beginning. Both the examining magistrate and the prosecutor were unconvinced by his claims and ordered his pretrial detention. His defense team has now filed a bail application, requesting a reassessment of the pretrial detention in light of new evidence that has emerged in recent months. This development comes as the investigation into what took place behind the closed doors of the Longos home remains exceptionally complex.
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Aigio: What authorities found at the scene
Maria and Olympios were discovered dead inside their residence. The 26-year-old was found in his bedroom, while his mother was found at the entrance to the same room. Their injuries pointed to an exceptionally violent incident. Olympios had sustained multiple stab wounds as well as a gunshot wound, while the 54-year-old bore more than 20 knife wounds.
The 65-year-old Italian was also present in the house. He claimed he had been sleeping in a separate room and had not noticed what was happening. As he later stated during his deposition, when he woke up he went looking for Maria, knowing she had planned to take Olympios to a doctor’s appointment, and made his way toward the young man’s room. There, according to his own account, he first noticed Maria lying on the floor and then saw Olympios on the bed.
The pretrial detention and the financial motive theory
Investigators focused their attention on the 65-year-old, and on June 13, following a lengthy deposition, he was remanded in pretrial custody. He had been charged with premeditated double murder in a calm state of mind.
One of the scenarios examined at the time was the possibility of a financial motive. The 65-year-old rejected this outright. In his deposition, he argued that the house had already been transferred to Olympios and that he himself had been financially supporting the family for years, insisting he had no financial reason to kill his partner and her son.
He also pressed a point that had raised a fundamental question from the very first days: how could two people have suffered such a violent attack inside the same house without him hearing anything at all.
Laboratory results begin adding new pieces to the puzzle
With the pretrial detention in place, however, the investigation did not conclude. Evidence continued to be examined, while the results of laboratory, forensic, and technical analyses were still pending.
Information began to emerge regarding DNA test results, which the defense used to reinforce its position that the facts of the case were not as clear-cut as they had appeared in the early days.
The version put forward by the 65-year-old from prison
In July, the 65-year-old maintained his innocence from behind bars and now advanced the claim that it was Maria who had shot Olympios before taking her own life. It was also reported that toxicological tests conducted on the 65-year-old had revealed the presence of powerful sedative substances in his system — a finding his side connected to the assertion that he had been unaware of what was happening in the adjacent room.
At that point, the scenario of a mother who killed her son before committing suicide remained solely the defendant’s claim and had not been accepted by the judicial authorities who had ordered his detention.
The September development
In early September, however, a development emerged that added a new dimension to the case. According to reports, officers from the Homicide Division who had studied the forensic examination findings assessed that the evidence was converging toward the scenario that the 54-year-old had taken her son’s life before ending her own.
This information carries significant weight for the progression of the case, though it does not in itself constitute a judicial ruling on the 65-year-old’s innocence.
For the first time, nonetheless, a scenario that until then had been advanced primarily by the detained suspect and his defense team appeared, according to the same reports, to be receiving serious consideration from investigators studying the more recent data.
And so, the case that had sent a man to prison in June began once again to open up unanswered questions.
What really happened inside that room?
The central challenge remains reconstructing the final moments in the lives of mother and son. Who was injured first? How are the gunshot wound and the stab wounds connected? Who used each weapon? How is the position in which the two bodies were found explained? And crucially, can the forensic and laboratory data provide a single, coherent answer that is consistent with the crime scene?
These are the questions that the technical reports and the totality of the evidence must answer. Because in the Longos case, the picture that existed in the early days did not remain static. New results were added, different interpretations were put forward, and an alternative scenario returned to the forefront.
The bail application
It is against this backdrop that the bail application for the 65-year-old has now been filed. His defense team is asking the competent judicial authorities to reconsider the necessity of continuing pretrial detention, taking into account both the initial evidence and everything that has come to light in the intervening period.
The application does not prejudge the outcome, nor does it mean the 65-year-old is absolved of the charges. Until a different judicial ruling is handed down, he remains in pretrial custody.
The most important question in the Longos case is whether the evidence gathered in the months that followed confirms the initial picture that led to the 65-year-old’s pretrial detention — or whether it can lead the judicial investigation toward a different reading of what truly happened that night inside Maria and Olympios’s home.
