ATHENS – With Greece fixed by the saga of how two children in the same family died after their mother denied any wrongdoing, a report by coroners said that suffocation and not natural cases was the reason.

The report by Nikos Karakoukis and Nikos Kalogrias into the mysterious deaths of 3 1/2-year-old Malena and 6-month-old Iris Daskalaki-Pispirigou in Patra, western Greece, was ordered after the death of a third child 9-year-old Georgina in January.

The girls’ mother, Roula Pispirigou, was accused of killing Georgina after an anesthetic drug for cats was found in tissue samples of her daughter who died following a lengthy stay in hospital.

She was arrested in April and has been detained pending trial but her lawyer said she didn’t do it and there was the possibility of a medical error, said Kathimerini, no indication why coroners didn’t catch the cause of death of her two sisters earlier.

Manos Daskalakis, Pirpirigou’s estranged husband, testified to the police and homicide police officers were in Patra to take testimonies from Pispirigou’s parents and other witnesses who live there, the paper said in its report.