“They call me cold. When Georgina came out of intensive care I looked at her and tried to hide my sadness, not to show it, not to cry. I had to manage a thousand emotions.” Roula Pispirigou, who apologized for the second day at the MOD, without arriving at specific answers in what is attributed to her for the attempt to murder Georgina and then her murder with ketamine, by apologizing in this way she wanted to answer what the witnesses testified about the way she dealt with the situation with her daughter.

The accused unleashed insults against nurses and doctors, targeting mainly the intensivist throughout the second part of her apology. head of the Children’s ICU in Rio, Andreas Iliadis.

In her apology, which was not completed today, she referred to what happened after she and Manos Daskalakis had been informed that the child had encephalopathy with spastic quadriplegia and was in Rio after the attack he suffered in Karamandanio. An objection which, according to the case file, was the product of her own intervention. She, however, described the events essentially denying her own participation in the tragic development of the child from the episodes onwards.

With particular charge, she referred to an incident that came to her attention in Rio, when she unwittingly heard the head of the ICU Andreas Iliadis say about her that “Georgina’s mom is doing something” and that “she has never met such a cold mother before”.

Pispirigou described how she asked him to explain what she heard: “I said to him why are you saying that? Have you seen anything? And he told me about me and Mano that ‘it’s not the behavior of intensive care parents.’ I replied that I was applying exactly what he advised me. Not to cry in front of the child, not to show anything. I remember telling him that if I want to cry, I have marbles of two children in the cemetery to go and cry. “I’m a pillar of ice,” I told him. In front of Georgina I will not cry.”

In her narration, Pispirigou chose to refer to another incident with the particular doctor, who had asked her if they believe in God. “We told him we believed and then he told us that there was a priest available at the Hospital for Georgina to receive communion. We said yes. I had sent the clothes that Georgina was wearing when she had the seizure to the priest who had baptized her to read them. I wondered but in the midst of COVID, how will the father come to receive the child’s communion. And how will the procedure take place since the child was with tubes. I was so anxious. We had placed all our hopes in God. In God and Mr. Iliadis. The “what he said was gospel”.

He also commented on the testimonies of nurses who described her as “cold”, saying of the witnesses: “They came and said I wasn’t excited when they put pigtails on her. And the child had a huge gash behind the head from lying down. Didn’t they see that? I was going to the hospital and I felt that Big Brother was watching me, that because of what Mr. Iliadis was saying, all eyes were on me.”

The defendant then proceeded to the next station on Georgina’s path to death, referring to the transfer of the child to Onasio.

“It was agreed that Mr. Iliadis would take the child to Onasio to be fitted with a pacemaker and then he would return to Rio. We entered Onasio. He had a visit at noon. I was calm that everything would be organized and that in a few days we would be back in Rio. But that same night I got a call that she had an episode and was intubated. I froze! I couldn’t believe it!”

As the defendant said, the little girl ended up staying at Onassios for more days than planned, as she developed three infections. Ms. Pispirigou then said that when the child returned to Rio, physical therapy began.

Pulling out a folder of photos she had taken herself, the visibly irritated 35-year-old gave them to the court: “Here! I found my child, thus bound like Jesus Christ. I took pictures to send to my sister who knew physical therapists to see if that was the case. Look at the wounds from the bandages. I saw my child like this, an eight-year-old boy, and I asked Mr. Iliadis “what are you doing?” And he replied “this is how physical therapy is done”. This man came here and said “it’s Georgina’s voice”. Georgina has a mother and a father. We are her voice, not Mr. Iliadis”.

A little later the 35-year-old returned to Mr. Iliadis about whom she said that “I still can’t understand why this man got so angry. He is the one who created the issue with the ‘Minchausen syndrome’. He even interfered in the autopsy. I don’t know why .Was it about organ donation?”

At another time, referring to her last meeting with the witness outside the courtroom, she said: “He was accusing me in here and when I came out he stopped me in the corridor excited and handcuffed me and said ‘for Georgina’s truth’! And I asked him while I was crying “why Mr. Iliadis?” and he didn’t answer. So much theater… I really can’t understand. What did I spoil for him? I don’t understand this doctor’s anger, while our conversations were perfect. I never believed what I heard here and what happened behind my back,” he said.

Towards the end of today’s proceedings, the defendant referred to the return of Georgina, who is now a quadriplegic, to the house and to all the changes in the child’s room that preceded it. Roula Pispirigou focused on the enormous help the child received from a certain physiotherapist who “once again this year ran the marathon with my Georgina’s photo on his shirt. This child loved it so much”.

In a broken voice the accused said of Georgina and the efforts she made when they returned home, how this child had “so much strength, so much will… I saw her and I felt her telling me ‘I’m here’. And I acclimated quickly, to feed her, wash her, everything. It was like having her as a baby again”.

Before today’s proceedings ended, the defendant showed the court a series of Georgina’s drawings.

The hearing will continue on Wednesday, November 29.