Antonis Daglis was convicted in January 1997 of killing three women in Athens and of attacking several more. He was in his early twenties, a driver from Nikaia, in Piraeus. The women he attacked were working on the streets of central Athens, and he approached them as a customer. Two of the killings, in the autumn and winter of 1995, led to his arrest in January 1996; under questioning he also admitted an earlier killing that police had been unable to solve. The Greek press called him the Athens Ripper, "ο Αντεροβγάλτης των Αθηνών", and compared his case to that of Jack the Ripper.
The Mixed Jury Court of Athens found him guilty on every count without mitigating circumstances and sentenced him to life imprisonment thirteen times, plus 25 years. In August 1997 he died in Korydallos prison. In Greek his surname is written Δαγκλής; English-language references usually give it as Daglis.
Daglis was born in 1974 in Kokkinia, in the municipality of Nikaia, according to a 2016 profile in the Hellenic Police's own review, Αστυνομική Ανασκόπηση, written by a police officer, Αντώνης Τζιβανόπουλος. The family was poor. The same profile says his father abused his mother, his brother and him, and that the abuse ended only when his father died, when Daglis was 12. The death left the family in debt. Money troubles pushed him out of school, and he went to work as a driver.
He was in trouble early. At 14 he was charged with an offense involving a minor and spent six months in pre-trial detention in the juvenile unit at Korydallos before he was acquitted. Soon after his release he was arrested again, this time for carrying a weapon: he had been seen at night in the gardens of the Zappeion, in central Athens, with a knife. The police review describes his record as one of delinquent behavior.
The profile ties his later crimes to his family. While he was in juvenile detention, it says, his mother took a job in a bar of poor reputation, and a neighbor told him about it. Daglis later told interrogators that each time he attacked a woman he believed he was killing his mother: "Κάθε φορά νόμιζα πως σκότωνα εκείνη" ("Every time I thought I was killing her"). To Vima, in a 2016 survey of major Greek crimes, gave the same account of his statement in court: that in his victims he was killing his mother, whose work at a nightclub he had objected to. To Vima also reported that he was engaged at the time of his arrest.
By the mid-1990s he lived with his mother in a ground-floor flat in Nikaia and worked as a driver at a factory in Rentis. In the evenings he drove a white van.
The earliest of the three killings went unsolved for years. In 1993, according to the police review, or in October 1992, according to iefimerida, Daglis killed a woman in Athens. He was 18. Both accounts give her age as about 35. The police did not identify her; the police review says she may have been a foreign national. Daglis spoke of this killing only after his arrest in 1996.
In September and October 1995 a young man in a white van attacked a series of women who worked on the streets of central Athens. The police review counts at least eight attacks in about two months. In each, he approached a woman as a customer and then attacked and robbed her. All of them survived.
None of the women went to the police at first. One, the review says, was too frightened for her life to report it. Without a complaint the police had nothing to act on, and the attacks went on.
In late October 1995 the body of Eleni Panagiotopoulou, 29, was found. She had been strangled. Her death spread fear among the women working the Athens streets, the police review says, but the man responsible was still unknown.
On Christmas Day 1995 passersby found the body of Athina Lazarou, 26, in Votanikos, a district of western Athens. She too had been strangled. After this second death, the police concluded that they were dealing with a serial killer.
The second death changed the investigation. After Athina Lazarou was found, women who had survived attacks that autumn began to file complaints with the Security Police (Ασφάλεια). Their descriptions of the attacker and his van let detectives build a picture of the man they wanted. Officers then showed the women photographs of men with criminal records, and they picked out Antonis Daglis, then 22.
Detectives placed him under watch. They followed the white van and kept discreet observation on the flat in Nikaia where he lived with his mother.
In January 1996 officers saw Daglis on a street in Athens, trying to approach women working there, and arrested him. The police review dates the arrest to January 24, 1996; iefimerida gives January 21. To Vima reported the arrest only as January 1996.
In the van police found a small handmade cross that, the police review says, had belonged to Eleni Panagiotopoulou.
Under questioning Daglis admitted the two killings of 1995. He then admitted the unsolved killing from earlier in the decade, the woman whose name was not known. To Vima reported in 2016 that he was arrested for the murder of three women.
The trial was held before the Mixed Jury Court of Athens (Μικτό Ορκωτό Δικαστήριο Αθηνών) from January 15 to 23, 1997. According to the police review, the indictment listed three counts of murder, eight of attempted murder, ten of robbery and two of attempted robbery, with charges of rape, illegal possession of a weapon and desecration of the dead.
Only one of the women he had attacked gave evidence in court, the review says, and she testified about the attack on her.
The only witness for the defense was his mother. While she was testifying she fell ill and was taken to hospital. A photograph published with the police review shows mother and son together at the trial, dated January 14, 1997.
Psychiatric evidence was central. The psychiatrists who examined Daglis found no mental illness, according to the police review; they described a sexual disorder, which did not remove his responsibility. The court treated him as fully responsible for his actions.
Daglis spoke at length in his own defense. iefimerida, in a 2019 retrospective, quoted his statements to the court. "Μισούσα όλες τις ιερόδουλες και συνεχίζω να τις μισώ," he said ("I hated all the prostitutes and I still hate them"). When he went to them, he said, other images came into his mind, and "Άκουγα φωνές οι οποίες με διέταζαν να σκοτώνω" ("I heard voices ordering me to kill"). He said he had once thought of drowning his fiancée but had held himself back. He told the court that the women reminded him of his mother.
Shortly before the verdict he tried to take back his confession. The court did not accept the retraction.
On January 23, 1997, the court found Daglis guilty on all counts and refused him any mitigating circumstances. He was 23. He was sentenced to life imprisonment thirteen times and to 25 years of fixed-term imprisonment, the sentences to be served together, according to the police review. Athens Voice, marking the anniversary in 2015, described the verdict as covering the murder of three women and the attempted murder of six others; iefimerida in 2019 likewise gave three murders, six attempted murders and other offenses.
When the sentence was read, Daglis said only: "Δεν με κρίνατε δίκαια" ("You did not judge me fairly").
Daglis was held in the psychiatric unit of the judicial prisons at Korydallos, in Piraeus. In the early hours of Saturday, August 2, 1997, he was found dead there. His death was reported as suicide. iefimerida reported that a second prisoner held with him was found dead at the same time. To Vima, in 2016, wrote that he had taken his own life in prison a year after his arrest.
No appeal is known to have been lodged before his death.
The case has been revisited in the Greek press many times. In 2004 Ta Nea, writing about a later murder case, grouped the crimes of Antonis Daglis with those of Dimitris Vakrinos as examples of killers who had seemed to be ordinary people. To Vima included him in 2016 in a survey of the gravest crimes in Greece in recent decades. The Hellenic Police review profiled him in 2016 in its series on crimes that shook the whole country. Athens Voice and iefimerida marked the anniversary of the verdict in 2015 and 2019.
The year of the first killing. The police review places it in 1993, when Daglis was 18; iefimerida places it in October 1992. The woman was not identified in either account.
The date of arrest. The police review gives January 24, 1996; iefimerida gives January 21, 1996. Both agree that he was arrested in Athens in January 1996, as To Vima also reported.
The number of attempted murders. The indictment, as summarized by the police review, listed eight. Athens Voice and iefimerida give six attempted murders in the verdict. The police review says he was found guilty on all counts, without giving a separate figure.
His motive. The account that Daglis was killing his mother through his victims comes from his own statements to police and to the court, as reported by To Vima, iefimerida and the police review. He also told the court that he heard voices, and he later tried to retract his confession. The psychiatric evidence accepted by the court found no mental illness.
The label. Greek newspapers called him the Athens Ripper. The name is a press label and does not appear in the charges.
1974: Antonis Daglis is born in Kokkinia, Nikaia.
Age 12: his father dies.
Age 14: he is held for six months in juvenile detention at Korydallos on a charge involving a minor; he is acquitted. Soon after, he is arrested for carrying a knife in the Zappeion gardens.
October 1992 or 1993: a woman of about 35 is killed in Athens; she is not identified.
September to October 1995: at least eight women are attacked and robbed in central Athens by a man in a white van.
Late October 1995: Eleni Panagiotopoulou, 29, is found dead.
December 25, 1995: Athina Lazarou, 26, is found dead in Votanikos, Athens.
Late 1995 to January 1996: surviving women file complaints and identify Daglis from police photographs; he is put under watch.
January 1996 (January 21 or 24): Daglis is arrested in Athens. He admits the two 1995 killings and the earlier killing.
January 14, 1997: Daglis and his mother are photographed at the trial.
January 15 to 23, 1997: trial before the Mixed Jury Court of Athens.
January 23, 1997: found guilty on all counts without mitigating circumstances; sentenced to life imprisonment thirteen times plus 25 years.
August 2, 1997: Daglis dies in Korydallos prison; his death is reported as suicide.