A young man pushed his girl friend into death over a rocky slope of 30 meters on the island of Folegandros and ran away. He was arrested a day later. He confessed claiming that “the phase was foiled, it was the bad time.” The homicide, in fact another femicide in a long series of murders against women in the country, outrages the society.
The couple from two villages in Corinth were together for six months and on short vacation on the Cyclades island.
The crime took place on Friday afternoon and was discovered when the body of the 26-year-old victim was spotted floating in the sea, near the beach of Lygaria on the northern side of the island.
Initial evidence found by the coast guard pointed out at a crime. Blood traces were on the rocks, the girl’s necklace was broken, an earring was on the rocks, the ID card of the young man was found in the victim’s purse.
But the man was nowhere nearby. Authorities distributed a picture of the man to locals and visitors.
Saturday evening, a woman spotted the man near the crime scene and called the police. The 30-year-old perpetrator was arrested, he was dehydrated and seemed confused and was wearing his bathing suit. He quickly confessed to the crime.
He claimed “the heat of the moment” following an argument and reportedly told police that he pushed his girl friend over the rocky beach. He claimed further that he jumped into the water to help her but he saw she was unconscious and “so he left.”
He added, among others, that they had several arguments since they arrived on the island and that she wanted that they separate. “She was challenging me all the time,” he is said to have told the police, media report.
“The phase was foiled, it was the bad time,” he said using the popular slang word “φάση” among young people for “relationship,” or “situation.”
A preliminary autopsy conducted by the coroner in an Athens hospital on Sunday morning found that the cause of death was drowning and that the victim was still alive in the water. Her body had multiple injuries possibly caused by the fall on the rocks. Investigation will continue.
Prior to the crime, eye witnesses had seen how the car getting off the way and into a slope and that the girl left the car with a back bag and started walking tow rads the sea.
A case is being filed against the murderer and he is to be transferred to the prosecutor’s office on the island of Naxos later on Sunday.
The victim Garyfalia had studied to be a pharmacist and was about to open her own pharmacy in the area of her home village Velo.
Garyfalia is the latest victim of a series of murders against women in the country. Ten femicides in 2019-20 alone. In May this year, 20-year-old British-born young mother Caroline Grouch was murdered by her 33-year-old Greek husband who is in jail pending trial. He staged a fake robbery scene and stuck to it until smart watch of the victim foiled his plan. The motive remains still a mystery. According to unconfirmed reports, the victim wanted to leave him.
In several femicide cases, the victims were young women killed by their also young partners or rapists. Many recalled another femicide case, the one of 20-year-old Eleni Topaloudi who was brutally raped and beaten by two young men in their early 20’s and thrown over the rocks of a beach to die.
Speaking to Skai TV, the victim’s mourning mother called the murderer a “coward.”
She appealed to other mothers, saying “”Teach your boys to be manly, to respect women. To not be thugs. I wish I could say a last I Love you to my daughter.”
She added “I don’t believe in the bad moment. I believe in bad people and bad behaviors. We’ll do something for Garyfalia so that no other girls die like that. It is a femicide.”
It was the first time, Garyfalia went for vacations alone.
The family hired one of the country’s top lawyers to secure that the murderer will not easily get away with the crime claiming “heat of the moment” and receive heavy punishment.