A 43-year-old mother of three missing since Sunday has been found shot dead in a hidden vehicle in rural Crete, a day after her ex-partner died by suicide as police closed in on him as the prime suspect.
The victim, identified by authorities as Eleftheria, had been reported missing from the village of Dafnes.
Her body was discovered in the back seat of her car, which had been concealed in dense vegetation near the village of Agia Varvara.
The medical examiner determined she had been shot point-blank in the head with a 9mm handgun while sitting in the driver's seat before her body was moved.
Her 38-year-old ex-partner was found dead outside a local chapel from a self-inflicted shotgun wound.
He had given a formal statement to police before his death denying any involvement in her disappearance and claiming their relationship had ended two months earlier.
Investigators used security camera footage and witness accounts to reconstruct his movements on the day of the murder.
The footage showed a deliberate effort to cover his tracks.
After staging a motorcycle accident near the Agios Panteleimon chapel, he abandoned the bike, took a taxi home and retrieved his own vehicle.
Cameras then captured him returning to the chapel, taking the victim's car and driving it toward the Heraklion-Moires highway, where he hid it in vegetation before fleeing by taxi.
Authorities believe he took his own life after realizing the investigation was rapidly narrowing around him.
The case has drawn wide attention in Greece, where femicide and intimate partner violence have become subjects of increasing public and political concern following a series of high-profile killings in recent years.