Glasgow Crime Stories: Murder of Eleni Pachou in Di Maggio's

The late Thursday night silence was broken by a single piercing scream. Local residents in Glasgow's West End, woken by its chilling sound, must have wondered where it had come from. 

Hours later they got their answer as police officers swooped on Di Maggio's Pizzeria in Ruthven Lane, just off Byres Road, shortly before 8:30am the next day. 

There more than 13 years ago they found the battered blood-stained body of 25-year-old Eleni Pachou, on the kitchen floor. 

She had moved to Scotland three years earlier from her home in Athens, Greece, to make a new life for herself following the death of her mother. Her two brothers Mark and Spiro had also moved there to study. 

She quickly made friends and excelled at her job with her vivacious and warm nature. 

Her talents were quickly spotted by Di Maggio owners who promoted her to trainee manager. 

Eleni's death shocked residents in Glasgow's bustling and affluent West End where she had become a well-known figure. 

She had been brutally stabbed to death and around £1300 stolen from one of the restaurant’s two sages. 

Who would be so desperate to commit such a dreadful crime for such a relatively small sum of money? 

Strathclyde Police launched a major investigation for her killer or killers. 

Around 100 uniform and detective officers were put on the case working around the clock. 

It was clear even at this early stage that robbery had been the main motive, but was it the only one? 

Over the next few weeks, they spoke to more than 2000 people including 1,700 motorists, 80 taxi drivers and 400 pedestrians, hoping to jog people's memories. 

However, no one had seen anything of significance that late at night. 

Though neighbours spoke of that single piercing scream.  

Had that been tragic Eleni as the killer struck unexpectedly? 

At this stage there were few indications as to the identity of the killer or killers. 

One of Eleni's colleagues told police the dead girl had volunteered to lock up that night, because she was waiting for a lift to her city centre flat. They did not know from whom. 

Was he or she the killer? 

Had someone been lying in wait for the last customer to leave and struck as Eleni was cashing up. 

Her father, Yiannis Pachos, 65, flew from Athens, a week later, to make an impassioned plea for the killer to give himself up. 

He said: "Although I have spent 22 years at sea as a seafarer, I was never given the opportunity to visit Glasgow. 

"My older son Mark got his degree in this city a few years ago and my younger son Spiro is still studying here and until recently my daughter Eleni was working here. 

"I had the dream to visit Glasgow upon Spiro's graduation but, as we all saw, someone else had different plans. 

"I am now here - a year earlier - under these circumstances." 

As the police investigation went on a clearer picture of Eleni emerged and her terrifying last moments. 

She had become friends with a former assistant manager Juan Carlos Crispin, 37, who was married with two children and lived in the north side of the city. 

Even when he left to work in the Cafe Andaluz Restaurant in St Vincent Street, the pair kept in touch and socialised together in their adopted city. 

On the surface he appeared a devoted father… but he had a secret debt and had been plotting a brutal solution. 

It was said that he had been demoted to barman at Cafe Andaluz after money went missing from the Ruthven Lane till. 

He also appeared to harbour a grudge against his employers claiming that they owed him money. 

On the night of May 29, 2008, a Monday, Crispin had asked if he could meet Eleni for an after work drink and chat at the Ruthven Lane venue. 

He joined her around midnight after the last of the customers had left and she had tidied up. 

They laughed and joked for about an hour with Crispin drinking beer and Eleni, Rum and Coke. 

Suddenly and without warning Crispin pulled on a pair of gloves and stabbed her in the back, face and neck. 

She was knifed a total of 17 times with heavy force, cutting through her face, spleen, kidney and other internal organs. 

The deepest wound penetrated five inches and passed through her lung, diaphragm, and into her liver.  

The stabs were so hard that the handle of the £4 kitchen knife, bought from nearby Woolworths in Byres Road, broke off during the attack.  

What she hadn't known was that her friend and work colleague was in serious financial difficulties with debts of almost £14,000. 

He thought, wrongly, that she had the keys restaurant's main safe, which could have held up to £10,000 in cash.  

His aim was to murder Eleni and make it look like a robbery. 

Instead, he left Di Maggio's that night with £1320m having been unable to access the second safe in the pizzeria   

The 37-year-old father of two had moved to Glasgow 12 years earlier after meeting a Scottish woman on the holiday island of Gran Canaria where he lived. 

On the surface, he appeared a devoted father, working long hours in busy restaurants to keep his wife and children in comfort. 

What Eleni didn't know that another colleague Marion Hinshelwood, 43, who was a cleaner at Di Maggio's in Ruthven Lane, was in on the plot to kill her. 

She and Crispin had been having a passionate and stormy affair for around two years. 

Though he had moved Cafe Andaluz in Glasgow city centre, he had kept up his affair with Hinshelwood. 

When they had worked together, colleagues recalled them arguing together like a married couple and disappearing on nights out. 

She had checked the rota for Crispin to make sure that she was on duty that night and on her own. She had even bought the knife to be used in the stabbing. 

Hinshelwood would be the person who would find the body when she reported for work as normal in the morning and who would then phone the police. 

But she was clearly unprepared for the sight of Eleni's blood stained remains.  

During the 999 call she made quickly after the discovery, she was so hysterical that she could hardly say her own name.  

She had to pass the phone to a local builder who was passing at the time. 

He went to inspect the body on the floor and told the operator that he thought the woman to be dead. 

In the immediate aftermath, a panicking Crispin made repeated calls to Hinshelwood telling her to stay calm and tell police nothing.  

One of the calls was made minutes after she found the body.  

Hinshelwood, whose son was at private school, also had money worries after her former partner's business collapsed and she was in arrears on her rent and to the school. 

However, Crispin had made a crucial mistake in the stabbing attack, one of many. 

He had used such force stabbing Eleni through the neck that the knife had plunged into his right thumb,  

This in turn ripped the glove that he wore, which allowed his blood to mingle with that of his victim's.  

As the murder of Eleni became public knowledge, Crispin told colleagues at Cafe Andaluz that he had cut his thumb after visiting her at the restaurant the night she died,  

He conjured up a bizarre story that he fell back on to a meat slicer as he went to the toilet. 

He also cried along with his workmates who were coming to terms with that morning's terrible news.  

However the police weren't fooled and they quickly unravelled the various pieces of the tangled web that had been weaved, including the multiple phone calls made by Crispin to Hinshelwood. 

These calls were analysed by police experts and formed part of the compelling case against him. 

There was also a minefield of incriminating forensic evidence. 

Police discovered that Crispin had left gloved impressions at the murder scene which contained his blood mixed with that of Eleni. 

His DNA was found on her left cheek and on the strap of the rucksack she was wearing when she was killed.  

The same DNA was also found mixed with Eleni's on the safe, the safe key and the floor. 

Colleagues were stunned when the pair were arrested for her murder the following month. 

In June that year the two work colleagues appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court charged with murder. 

In a dramatic twist in December 2008 at the High Court in Glasgow Hinshelwood pled guilty to the reduced culpable homicide of the victim on the basis that she had provided the knife and checked her name on the rota to ensure that she was closing up alone.  

She had struck the plea deal in exchange for giving evidence against her former lover.  

The following May Crispin stood trial at the High Court in Glasgow. 

Hinshelwood, who admitted she was obsessed by Crispin, went into the witness box and told  how he robbed the restaurant and killed Eleni. 

The cleaner confirmed Crispin had tricked the young woman into a late-night meeting at Di Maggio's. 

Hinshelwood said that he was desperate for money and planned to kill her then rob the restaurant. 

She claimed Crispin, had tried to persuade her to kill Eleni, before carrying out the murder himself. 

Hinshelwood also admitted she was in debt but said: "Not that desperate to kill someone."  

On the night of the murder Crispin had left her flat with the knife she had bought him. 

He returned at around 2.30am "agitated and sweating" with the same knife, which was missing its handle, and a bag of money. 

Crispin had left her dead body to be found by Hinshelwood the next day when she opened up the restaurant.  

He also confirmed that minutes after she found Eleni's body, Crispin phoned her on her mobile. 

Hinshelwood said: "He asked me are the police there and told me not to panic or say anything. 

"I said I couldn't speak and hung up."  

The court was told that in the six days following Ms Pachou's death, Crispin phoned her more than 20 times.  

Spiro, a naval architecture postgraduate student at Glasgow University, gave evidence, telling the jury that he was not happy that his sister held keys to the restaurant and locked up the premises alone late at night.  

After he took the stand, he attended court most days to hear the grim details of his sister's death, often with Yiannis by his side. 

The jury learned that the murder victim may have fought for her life while being stabbed so many times. 

Eleni who weighed 9st and was only 5ft 3in, suffered extensive wounds to her hands defending herself 

The jury was also told that the injuries to Eleni's hands and arms may have been sustained by grabbing the knife or trying to ward off a blow. 

When one forensic expert described in detail the horrific injuries, her father, looking visibly distressed had to leave the court. 

The trial was also shown evidence that on May 30, 2008, Juan Crispin owed £13,524.51 to bank and credit card firms.  

In his evidence, Crispin denied murdering Eleni and said she was still alive when he left the restaurant. 

He claimed she had been stabbed to death by Hinshelwood, who then tried to frame him for the murder.  

Crispin told the court he had no reason to kill Eleni because she was a "good friend". 

He then claimed that Hinshelwood had killed her because she was jealous of their relationship. 

Crispin said he was not in financial difficulties at the time and that he had taken out a £4300 bank loan to pay for a summer holiday for his family in Gran Canaria. 

The court also heard he had £42,000 equity on his family home and his mother had won 25,000 euros in a lottery in Gran Canaria in 2005. 

He said that if he had been in dire straits he could have approached his mother for money. 

It was through the restaurant the Spaniard met cleaner Marion Hinshelwood. 

Hinshelwood had claimed that she and Crispin ended their relationship after his partner found out about them. 

However, Crispin claimed the pair were still lovers until the day of the murder. 

The jury took two-and-a-half hours to return a unanimous guilty verdict of murdering Eleni and robbing Di Maggio's. 

The judge Lord Turnbull ordered to serve at least 20 years of a life sentence, before being eligible for parole. 

Before sentencing he told Crispin: "You deliberately selected a night on which she would be alone. 

"Having taken a large knife with you, you then callously sat with her, chatting and drinking.  

"What you then did to that young woman defies belief. You took her life in a torrent of determined, vicious and horrific blows."  

At the end of the trial Mario Gizzi, director of the Di Maggio's chain, paid tribute to his employee saying: "Eleni was extremely well-regarded by her colleagues and made a very valuable contribution to our business.  

"She would certainly have gone on to become a real success but had that snatched away from her in a brutal and cowardly attack."  

He added: "This has been a nightmarish experience for everyone involved. 

 "The sense of shock and grief felt by all of us here is still enormous and there's not a day goes by without us remembering her.  

"The only consolation, and it is a very small one, is that the jury returned a guilty verdict and her murderer will go to jail for a very, very long time. 

When asked after sentencing if 20 years was enough, Eleni's brother, Spiro, shook his head and said: "No. There is no sentence that could ever bring my sister back." 

The following month, also at the High Court in Glasgow, Hinshelwood was jailed for four and a half years for culpable homicide, reduced from six years, because of her guilty plea six months earlier . 

In 2010 she was set free on parole having served half her sentence and it was later reported that she had moved back into the area. 

The previous year Crispin failed in a bid to have his prison sentence cut for the brutal slaying of his work colleague. 

He claimed the 20-year minimum term he must serve under a life sentence for the murder was excessive. 

But judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh said the sentence was "entirely appropriate" even for a first offender. 

Lady Paton, hearing the appeal with Lord Carloway, added: "It was a truly appalling and despicable crime with many aggravating features, not least that an accomplished young woman lost her life in a nightmare attack."