Search parties looking for bodies in two locations to continue work all day Saturday

Search parties, looking for the bodies of victims of a 35-year old self-confessed serial murderer, are continuing their work in earnest at two locations.

The search in lake Memi, at Xyliatou, to locate the body of a six-year old, Siera, daughter of Mari Rose, has been at the moment halted.

At Kokkini Limni (Red lake) a diver has been searching the bed of the lake for over an hour, while three locations in the lake have been marked. A boat is also in the lake.

The search will continue all day Saturday, through a corridor marked in the lake focusing on the point where a suitcase has been found with a child’s body.

So far five bodies have been recovered – of four women and one child. Two women were found in an abandoned mine shaft, one in a dry well at Orounta firing range and one at Kokkini Limni (Red Lake), at Mitsero. A second body of an eight year old girl was also pulled from the depths of Kokkini Limni.

Authorities have been combing the lake for days using divers, a robotic camera and state of the art sonar equipment in their search for murder victims.

Search parties indicate that divers will dive one at a time to search the lake bed of the marked corridor.

At lake Memi, the data collected so far from the sonar scan will be examined in order to identify the priority points, to enable a diver to search the marked locations.

On Monday, the self-confessed murderer will appear again before the court for a renewal of his remand order.

A Greek Cypriot army officer who has reportedly confessed to killing five women and two children, has told police he had put the bodies of three of his victims — a mother and daughter and another woman — in suitcases and thrown them in Kokkini Limni.

Divers have recovered the bodies of the mother and daughter but are still looking for the third victim. They are also still looking for the body of a six year old girl which the suspect said he had thrown into a lake at Xyliatou.

The case has shocked public opinion and led to the resignation of the Justice Minister and the sacking of the police chief. An independent inquiry is underway as to how police handled the case of women and children reported missing and later found to be dead. Critics say that had police properly investigated the disappearances then lives could have been saved.