This pretty, young woman was pulled lifeless from the sea after being beaten and pushed off a cliff into the water while still alive, according to the latest findings from her autopsy.
The shocking incident took place on Folegandros, a tiny green island in the Aegean Sea, where Garyfallia Psarakou, 26, was pushed off a cliff last Friday.
Her corpse was pulled from the water some seven hours later by local fishermen.
Her 30-year-old boyfriend has allegedly confessed to killing the young woman by pushing her off the cliff.
He has been arrested and remanded in custody pending trial.
The medical examiner has now released details regarding the condition of the victim’s body.
The corpse was found to bear the marks of a serious beating including a blow to Garyfallia’s eye that came from a fist.
Local media reports that the marks on her body “show incredible violence”, including abrasions which led the medical examiner to believe that she was dragged by her killer.
The medical examiner also stated that the young woman was conscious when she was pushed into the sea and that the cause of death was drowning.
The medical examiner is currently attempting to determine if other injuries to the victim’s body were sustained in the beating or if they occurred after she was pushed off the cliff.
According to Greek newspaper Proto Thema, there was also a wound to the right side of her head measuring between four and five centimetres.
The experts have passed on their report to the prosecutor’s office, pending a final report that will be handed over after they have received results from toxicological tests.
The 30-year-old suspect, whose name has not been released, was taken to hospital on Wednesday evening (21st July) after allegedly suffering a “drop in consciousness”. He was checked by doctors, treated, and discharged on Thursday morning.
The head of the hospital in Nexos, a nearby Greek island where he was being treated, Vassilis Raptakis, told local media outlet Mega that the patient had been discharged from hospital but he did not say whether or not he tried to take his own life. There are unconfirmed reports that the alleged killer tried to kill himself in his cell.
Local media say that the defence statements reveal that the alleged killer plans to argue that he was suffering from a pre-existing mental illness.
Alexis Kougias, a lawyer for the family of 26-year-old Garyfallia, who was murdered while on holiday, released a statement on behalf of the young woman’s family, saying: “Both the perpetrator of the crime against the late daughter of my clients and his lawyer should be very careful, because the same comic allegations about mental illness had been made by the Greek perpetrator of the heinous murder against the late Eleni Topaloudi […].”
He added that in that case the court had given the perpetrator a life sentence and ignored “his allegations of a psychopathic personality”.
Eleni Topaloudi was a 21-year-old Greek student who was tortured, raped and murdered on the Greek island of Rhodes in 2018.
