Ekaterini Dimetrea

Ekaterini Dimetrea (; 1920 – April 10, 1965), known as The Poisoner of Mani , was a Greek serial killer who fatally poisoned four family members with parathion from May to September 1962. After her arrest, she confessed to the killings and claimed that she intended to poison her entire village out of personal spite, because she had allegedly been mistreated by them. As a result, Dimetrea was convicted and sentenced to death for each murder, for which she was subsequently executed in 1965. She was the last woman to be executed in Greece.

Early life Little is known of Ekaterini Dimetrea's life. Born in 1920 in the small village of Neochori, Lefktro, she was one of several children from a rural family. At some point in her life, she married and had a daughter, but later divorced her husband and struggled financially as a result, surviving on a 200 drachma welfare check.

Murders On May 27, 1962, Dimetrea was doing some chores around the house when she was suddenly visited by her mother, 80-year-old Stefoula Loukarea. In what appeared to be a friendly gesture, she offered to serve her a plate of spaghetti, with the latter unaware that it had been laced with parathion. The boy died on the way to the hospital in Kalamata, and due to the sudden nature of his death and the fact that he had no prior health issues, it raised great suspicion. A subsequent autopsy found a lethal quantity of parathion in his stomach, leading coroners from the toxicology laboratory in Athens to conclude that the boy had been poisoned. The previous three victims' bodies were also exhumed and examined, with all three showing traces of parathion in them.

Trial and execution News of the case spread around the national and international media due to its sensational claims, some of which led people to believe that Dimetrea was mentally unsound. As a result, she was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation at the Public Psychiatric Hospital in Dafni.