ATHENS – The murder of wives and partners in Greece is continuing – it had been averaging one a month – but this time saw two more victims slain in less than 24 hours, illustrating the problem of femicide in the country.

The first murder occurred in Ano Malaki in Rethymno on Cretey morning, when a 60-year-old man stabbed to death his 56-year-old wife, the mother of four after he said she was going to divorce him.

The couple had been in a relationship since she was 16 and the husband reportedly said that, “She demolished me,” and said in his defense that before he killed her hadn’t put a hand on her, said Kathimerini.

The victim, a hairdresser, was highly respected in her local community, which was in utter shock at the gruesome murder, the paper said without giving any details about how she was killed.

The second was on the island of Zakynthos, where a 49-year-old man who isn’t Greek but whose ethnicity wasn’t given was charged with killing his 41-year-old wife and mother of his three children.

The paper said he was known for being violent and said the victim filed a complaint of domestic violence in June and the night she was murdered, the couple being separated and an injunction barring him from entering their home.

The report said she went to the police a few minutes after being beaten again but it wasn’t said what, if anything, they did to help her and that her husband came to the house in a rage, shouting he was going to kill her.

It wasn’t revealed how she was killed although she was taken to a hospital in an ambulance and pronounced dead, no details being reported and no names given in either of the cases.

The paper said the husband was arrested at a building site where he was employed and reportedly behaved as if nothing had happened but said he killed her because she was cheating on him although they were separated

In June, a 53-year-old man allegedly stabbed his wife to death in Athens and drove off a cliff in an apparent suicide attempt while trying to flee.

He was not identified in keeping with Greek privacy laws often violated when it involves celebrities or politicians, nor was she named but Kathimerini said the alleged murder happened in Koukaki, near the Acropolis.

Police sources not named told the paper that she was found in a pool of blood by the couple’s 24-year-old son who called them. It wasn’t said what type of knife was used nor how many times she was stabbed.