ATHENS – A 33-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman arrested as suspects for killing the woman’s seven-year-old son are to appear before the 12th examining magistrate on charges of acting in concert to commit murder. The couple allegedly killed the boy in 2017 and then concealed his body for five years, taking it with them from place to place. Police investigating the boy’s disappearance found his bones stored in a toolbox in the couple’s flat in the Athens district of Kypseli on Saturday.

The mother of the slain boy was led before a public prosecutor on Sunday morning, while her partner was led before a prosecutor on Saturday night.

She allegedly confessed to killing the boy with her partner in 2017, when they had blocked his nose and mouth using duct tape, to stop him complaining about a harsh punishment imposed on him. They then allegedly took the boy’s body with them whenever they moved houses, including during a period of homelessness.

According to Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) sources in the police, the 33-year-old Polish national confessed to covering the boy’s mouth with duct tape and then using his hands to cover his nose in order to “discipline” him. The murder was committed in January 2017, in an apartment where he lived with the boy’s mother, a Greek national, also in Kypseli.

“As soon as I realised that the boy was dead, I made a makeshift grave with bricks on the roof. Later, when we were evicted from the apartment, I put the bones in a toolbox and I had them with me wherever I went, as I was homeless for a time,” the suspect added.

According to the same sources, the mother initially confessed to the murder and later retracted, saying that she had not been present when the murder took place.