Aristidis Pagratidis (Greek: Αριστείδης Παγκρατίδης; May 1940 – 16 February 1968) was a Greek man who was accused of committing a series of murders and predatory attacks on couples in the forest area of Seikh Sou in 1959.
He was arrested in December 1963 after he attacked a 12-year-old in the "Alexander the Great" orphanage. He was tried in October 1964 and sentenced to nine years in prison. During interrogations, he confessed to being the notorious "Ogre of Seikh Sou". He was retried in February 1966 and sentenced to death as a "dangerous person for public safety", and was executed on 16 February 1968.
Pagratidis quickly recanted his confession, claiming he was psychologically pressured and beaten, and until the moment of his execution, he remained firm in his innocence. Since then, whether he was innocent or not remains debatable, with most claiming he was innocent.
Early life He was born in May 1940 in the village of Langadikia, the youngest of three children to poor farmers. His father, Charalambos Pagratidis, captain of the Greek army in World War II, was assassinated by ELAS guerillas during the civil war period in 1945. The family (Aristidis' brother Pangratis, his sister Marika, himself and their mother Eleni), having lost their basic support, left Langadikia and settled in Toumba. The mother tried to preserve the family by taking any available work, later acquainting with a bus collector, Evgenios Alexiadis, marrying him and keeping with them Aristidis, while the older children were sent to live with relatives in Piraeus. Aristidis, or Aristos as some called him, attended only the first two grades of primary school (of which the first grade took three years to finish), and had problems with writing and reading. He worked various menial jobs, from a lemon seller to a glazier, from a shredder to a waiter and from a hammock at the Thessaloniki harbour, to an assistant in amusement parks. At the age of 10, he was sexually assaulted by a chemist for drachmas. Since then, when hunger threatened his life, he was used this way to make money. One of his first clients was a blacksmith named Vasilis Baradazoglou, who, in his court statement said with the lure of the little money he gave him, Pagratidis let him laugh: This child, Pagratidis, I met ten years ago. He sold his body for ten drachmas. He was coming with me and doing the job. I approached him. I knew it was a sign. We went to Rendzhi, I gave him 15 drachmas. I've been with him many times. So have other men in the harbour. In 1955, he stole 120 drachmas from the canteen of the P.A.O.K. gymnasium, was arrested and put under a child welfare program. In the same year, he stole and sold two bikes along with a friend, and with the money he planned to move to Athens. But both were apprehended, tried by the Minority Court of Thessaloniki and sent to the Minor Restoration Center in Vido. In 1957 he left the institution, returned to Thessaloniki and resumed work at the port. He also worked as a waiter in a country house, a waiter in a cafeteria, and any other work that he could find. In 1959, while working in the city circus, he was drafted into the army. In 1960, he was put into the 20th Armored Cavalry Division. After his desertion in May 1961, he was dismissed as mentally disturbed due to his drug addiction. He often visited prostitutes, but was also issued to men willing to pay as a cross-dresser, smoking hashish and drinking wine. In a typical way at the time, the court prosecutor wrote: "Pangratidis, in no case of diligence and education, has been turned into a way of corruption, having acquired a great deal of anomalous character and confused ... He was an energetic homosexual, voyeur, a robber, an outsider, a drinker, a deserter, and a hashish abuser."
"Ogre of Seikh Sou" attacks and Pagratidis' arrest
"The Ogre of Seikh Sou" In February 1958, in the area of the Panorama forest, a young woman was killed with a stone by an unknown young man. The accidental presence of a car that was going up in the woods, however, blew the perpetrator out.
A year later, on 19 February 1959, the perpetrator attacked again, this time a couple – Athanasios Panagiotou and Eleonora Vlachogianni – isolated in the forest, who suffered heavy injuries, which they however survived. In the next few months, the perpetrator attacked another two couples in the area, but they survived as well without any significant injuries. On 6 March 1959, another attack was made in Mikra, in which the killer murdered Konstantinos Raisis and raped his girlfriend Evdokia Paliogiannis. On 3 April of the same year, the Ogre entered the Municipal Hospital of Thessaloniki and killed one of the foundation's nurses, Melpomeni Patrikio, again using a stone. While he was leaving the building, he attacked another nurse who crossed paths with him, Faney Tsambazi, threatening to kill her before leaving.Εφημερίδα «Μακεδονία» φύλλο της 15/12/1963, σελ. 8
In March 1959, a prize of 100,000 drachmas was announced for the killer's capture. The money would be given as a fee for arresting the perpetrator or providing specific information that would lead to his arrest.
"Alexander the Great" incident and Pagratidis' arrest At 3:00 on 7 December 1963, Pagratidis secretly entered the "Alexander the Great" orphanage carrying a stone, and attempted to smite and rape a 12-year-old girl at the orphanage's sickroom. The child's screaming, however, frightened him and he fled the scene, escaping the orphanage. Along the way, he came across a city bus driver, who saw him running and stopped the man. Pagratidis managed to flee, but the driver alerted the police. A police officer remembered seeing a man who matched Pagratidis' description spying around the orphanage some hours before the break-in and asked for details, managing to uncover his identity. Three hours after the attack, the police arrived at his home in Upper Toumba's 'German' area, not far from the orphanage, and arrested him. Pagratidis did not resist, and after he was recognized by the victim and the bus driver, he confessed to the break-in. The newspapers, at the very first mention of the crime, connected Pagratidis with an until-then-unknown criminal called the "Ogre of Seikh Sou".
Interrogation The arrested and detained in the Thessaloniki Security Subdivision for the attempted rape of 12-year-old child Aikaterini Sourpa at the Thessaloniki Teenagers Orphanage "Alexander the Great", Aristidis Pagratidis, 23 years old, confessed to an interrogator in the presence of the Thessaloniki prosecutor that he had committed the following offences in the past:
- Escaping after an attempted manslaughter against Athanasios Panagiotu and Eleonora Vlachogianni in Seikh Sou on 18 February 1959
- Homicide following a robbery at the expense of Konstantinos Raisis and Evdokia Paliogiannis in a rural area near Mikra airport
- Homicide at the expense of Melpomeni Patrikio in a residence of the Municipal Hospital of Thessaloniki
The perpetrator of the filed cases is referred to the competent prosecutor today.
Director A. Petaεφημερίδα «Ελευθερία» φύλλο της 15/12/1963, σελ. 1 Because of his life, Pagratidis was already known to the police. Since his adolescence he had been involved with them, first with bicycle theft, and then with petty thefts, possession and use of hashish, allegations of hunter-gatherer behaviour, and attacks on young girls and young men. From the very first moment of his arrest, the newspapers (with or without the police's encouragement) have pointed him out as the "Ogre of Seikh Sou", aggressively stressing the point that he had used the same weapon as the Ogre while attempting to rape the girl. In the following days, he was isolated in the General Security Detention Facilities in Thessaloniki, the survivors of the attacks were called upon to identify him, but none were able to do so with certainty. For five whole days and nights after his arrest, Pagratidis was questioned. The investigation was carried out by Deputy Prosecutor Athanasopoulos along with General Security Commander of Thessaloniki, Tzavaras. On December 11, 1963, Pagratidis confessed to the crimes he was accused of. The news was not given to the public immediately, rather than three days later - on December 15, - since, in the meantime, the police received a full confession with many previously unknown details. Specifically, Pagratidis led the police officers to the site of the Mikra site, and showed them how he killed Raisis (two strikes with the stone to his head), how he stunned his girlfriend, raped her and stole Raisis' lighter, leaving afterwards. The next day he went to the Municipal Hospital, where he killed, raped and robbed the young Patrikio. Then, he narrated the attempted murder of nurse Tsambazi, who had failed to positively recognize him. The competent prosecutor described the attack on the 12-year-old and in conjunction with the "4000 Law", referred the case (enclosing the 1953 crime files) to the regular investigator to proceed to the next stage of the trial, regular interrogation.
As soon as his own people took care of lawyers, M. Sapountzis and D. Lazo, and now he was in the hands of the judiciary, he immediately recalled his confession. He claimed that not only were the confessions forced, but the orphanage attack did not take place as disclosed by the police. Pagratidis informed his lawyers that he was subjected to physical and mental abuse, saying the following: "At 9 o'clock at night, they said I should confess, and put me in a room, splashing water on me. Then we went to another room, where they only gave a nut to eat. There they kept me up until 10 AM. I was asking for water and they did not give me. 'Tell us', they were telling me, 'that you are the ogre and we will give you'... In the meantime, by thirst, I stammered. For a moment I did not stand. 'Give me water', I said, 'and I will tell you what you want." Pagratidis told his lawyers that during the six days of the interrogation, he only drank two glasses of water and a glass of tea, and ate four slices of bread, three sandwiches, a plate of potatoes, and a spinach dish. Surprised by what the lawyers said, on 18 December, judicial authorities forbid any further reference or photograph of this case to all newspapers in Thessaloniki and Athens.
The trial for attempted rape On 5 October 1964, while the regular investigation into the Seikh Sou forest murders was not yet over, Aristidis was tried in the Heptapyrgion prison by the Thessaloniki Court for the attempted rape of 12-year-old Aikaterini Sourpa. The victim, orphanage employees and friends of Pagratidis were present. Pagratidis' friends testified that in the past hours, they were all together in a tavern where they drank heavily, and when they separated, Aristos was drunk. This was also claimed to by his attorneys, which eventually succeeded in persuading the jury, who changed the accusation from "rape attempt" to "coercion into futility". Based on this decision, his court imposed a nine-year prison sentence, a five-year deprivation of his civil rights, and a pecuniary allowance of 7,000 drachmas to the victim. Pagratidis said in his apology:
"What they say about the crimes is lies. I did not kill everybody. I admit that I went to the 'Alexander the Great' orphanage to hurt the girl, but was because of the wine and hashish. I did this and I confess it. But I did not kill to get money.
I was tortured as a teen. I was selling my body for 10 drachmas to eat. I was selling my blood to the Red Cross to get money to eat. I'm not a criminal. If I wanted to become a criminal, I would kill my father's killer who lives today in our village. I confess that I was wrong. I was wrong a lot. And that's why I want you to try me. Inside the prison I saw a lot and learned a lot. Now I have changed and that's why I want to be punished."Εφ. «Μακεδονία», φύλλο της 7/10/1964, σελ. 3
The trial