Mom and boyfriend arrested for allegedly killing son, 7, and hiding body in toolbox
Police arrested a mother and her boyfriend in Athens, Greece, who had murdered her seven-year-old son in 2017. Police took both suspects to court on Sunday, February 13. Currently, both of them are in custody, awaiting trial on charges of child abuse and attempted murder. The boy was brutally murdered by taping up his mouth with duct tape and hiding his body in a toolbox, which the boyfriend took to work.
Christina-Claudia Maniataki, 29, and her 33-year-old partner from Kypseli area of Athens murdered Maniataki's seven-year-old Andreas in 2017 as he was misbehaving. Before hiding the kid's body in the toolbox, the suspects are alleged to have hidden his corpse in a specially built concrete grave on the patio of their home.
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Protothema reports that when the couple moved house after being evicted, the Polish man carried the remains of the boy in his tool box, and even took it to work. During their relationship he was allegedly abusive to his two stepchildren and was also a drug user, police say.
According to EPT news, the stepfather described to police what happened when he killed the boy. "I put an insulating tape in his mouth and at the same time I closed his nose with my hands, because I wanted to calm him down, because he was constantly making trouble," he reportedly told officers. "As soon as I realised that the child was dead, I made a makeshift 'grave' with bricks on the roof.When we were later evicted from the apartment, I put his bones in a toolbox and took them with me wherever I went, as I was homeless for a while."
Maniataki told her son’s school that he had gone back to the Poland with his dad. She also has an eight-year-old girl, who was taken into care after she turned up to school with visible signs of being abused. The couple have now been arrested after police were tipped off that the boy had been killed. Horrified cops pulled apart the makeshift grave to reveal where the youngster’s body was buried.
According to Protothema, she told investigators she was playing video games when her son was killed. One police source told the paper that the man “said he placed duct tape on the child's face, that he was at home and showed where he hid the body, and the suspect is the type of person who starts crying, puts his head down, expresses remorse and says he made a mistake”.
According to the cops, the man “seems to cover for her and not blame her” adding “he says she was there but did not participate”. Police said, “It is obvious she is lying because she says illogical things, such as that she had not seen the duct tape on the child's mouth.“Also that she didn't see him place the duct tape on the victim's mouth. That is definitely a lie.”