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Exclusive by Dan Bloom dbloom@thekmgroup.co.uk TRAIN tickets. A VHS of Mad Max. Paint samples. Pokemon cards. An open pack of cashew nuts. These are the possessions of a forgotten man. Konstantinos Georgakopolos lay dead in his kitchen for almost two years before anyone came looking for him. Mr Georgakopolos was 75, an eccentric man with thickrimmed glasses and thick black hair. He would talk for hours about his life in Greece. He drank with friends in Chatham’s pubs. But when he vanished, no one raised the alarm. Thousands of people passed his terraced home in Luton Road, Chatham, but no one knew what lay within.
Neighbour Only Maria Bruce, the manager at Linda Matthews lettings next door, had a nagging feeling. Mr Georgakopolos had dropped in on his neighbour, who looked after his house when he was away, and chirpily said he’d see her in a few days. He never came back. She told police of her fears. They knocked at his door. They looked through his letterbox. But they did not break the door down, because they could not smell a body. Finally, the law found Mr Georgakopolos where human compassion had not – he owed money in solicitors’ fees. On September 26 last year, Miss Bruce joined a bailiff and two locksmiths who forced their way into the house he owned. Classic FM was still playing on the stereo. The heating was still on. A small window was open to
The house where Konstantinos Georgakopolos was found and the neighbouring Linda Matthews lettings Picture: Andy Payton FM2595603
‘It’s so sad that someone was gone for two years’ the world outside. A garden strimmer from B&Q, the receipt dated November 2, 2010, was still in its carrier bag. On a table were his passport and plane tickets for November 14, 2010, never used. Post piled high at the door. Mr Georgakopolos’s remains lay in the basement kitchen, infested with maggots and flies. Locksmith Derek Chandler saw him first; he told everyone to get out. Mr Georgakopolos had to be identified by comparing the DNA on his cigarette holders and lighters to a scrap of his leg bones. For 24-year-old Miss Bruce the guilt remains. She finds it hard to look in the window of the blue house
next door. We’d known him for years and years,” she said. “He was more than just a client. He was an eccentric, in a lovely way. “He once had a little rhyme to tell me how to remember his phone number. If you went over to his house, you knew it wouldn’t be a little five-minute visit. You could be there for hours. “He didn’t look 75 – he looked about 50. He was a very good man. He split his time between his home here and in Greece. “He had his shop in Greece. I think he ran it with his niece, so I’m not sure why they didn’t raise the alarm over there. The whole thing is unbelievable.” The inquest into Mr Georgakopolos’s death, held this week, heard how the Medway coroner’s office eventually tracked down the family. None of them knew what Mr Georgakopolos had done for a living. No one attended the inquest.
‘I WISH I’D KNOWN. WE ARE SO CLOSE TO IT’ The Greek national brought a little piece of his home country to Chatham by getting blue and white tiles outside his house. A shop owner who knew him said: “It was very distinctive so I noticed it. He would come
in, buy tea and coffee then disappear for four or five months. I thought he was in Greece.” Abdul Hannan, 44, who owns nearby Sani Globe Food, said: “I always used to look at that
house and think, ‘I wonder who owns it?’ I wish I’d known. We are so close to it. People round here are generally very nice. They all help each other. Maybe no one noticed because it’s a main road.”
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MPs vote in favour of EU referendum MEDWAY’S three MPs were among 116 Tories who backed a Commons vote designed to force an in-out referendum on EU membership into law. The move was defeated by 277 votes to 131 as the Lib Dems and Labour opposed it. The proposed amendment “expressed regret” that a bill paving the way for a referendum
in 2017, as previously pledged by David Cameron, was not included in the Queen’s Speech. The 116 Tory MPs who backed it represent half of all the party’s backbenchers. Conservative backbenchers were given a free vote on Wednesday. Chatham MP Tracey Crouch, Gillingham and Rainham MP Rehman Chishti and Rochester
and Strood MP Mark Reckless all backed the amendment. As the Medway Messenger went to press, Conservative MPs were hoping a draft bill to pave the way for a referendum by 2017 would be adopted by Eurosceptic MP James Wharton (Con), who has topped this year’s ballot of private member’s bills.
Miss Bruce said she helped find the family, making repeated calls to the Greek embassy. “We must be the only people who raised the alarm,” she said. “It’s like something you would watch on television. The problem was because he spent half his time in Greece, I thought
Friday, May 17, 2013 Medway Messenger (MM)
something must have happened to him there. “We had many a discussion about how we wanted to make sure he was OK, but we trusted what the police said. I won’t again. “I still feel so guilty. It’s so sad that someone was gone for two years. I kept thinking, oh my gosh, that’s two Christmases.” The inquest heard Mr Georgakopolos, who had a stroke in Greece before he returned to the UK, lived a basic existence. Sgt Michelle Burgess told the hearing: “No valuables were found at all. He lived quite a poor life really. “There was tea and coffee in the main room, but no food items.” Mid Kent and Medway coroner Patricia Harding passed her condolences to the family. But the mystery of Mr Georgakopolos’s death is no closer to being solved. She said: “There is no evidence of third-party involvement in this death, despite the fact that there was a small window open. “I am unable to establish the cause of death given the state of decomposition, and therefore I have no option but to record an open verdict.”
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But Konstantinos Georgakopolos was no hermit or pauper, it has been revealed.
Konstantinos Georgakopolos, also know as Gus, in his trademark dark glasses, lay dead in his Chatham home for two years
SEE PAGE 4
SEE PAGE 7
THIS is the man who lay dead in his kitchen, forgotten for almost two years.
In Friday’s Medway Messenger, we reported how Kostas had died at his home in Luton Road, Chatham, in 2010, but remained undiscovered until September last year. When he was finally found, classical music was still playing and the heating was on. We passed details of his sad demise to a journalist in his native Greece and she has found out more about him. Kostas or “Gus”, as he was known, was a selfmade businessman, never without his trademark dark glasses. He founded a boutique called Playboy in Kartali Street, Volos, the downtown heart of a port city, a little smaller than Medway.
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He drove a Lotus sports car, which was found still parked outside his Greek apartment. It seemed Kostas’ fate was a consequence of living in two countries. Brits thought he was safe and well in Volos; Greeks thought he was getting on with his life in Chatham. He divided his time between both places, often disappearing for months at a time. n Full story, page 5
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news special: dead in house for 2 years
REVEALED The Medway Messenger front page, covering the lonely death of Konstantinos Georgakopolos, and the front page of Greek newspaper Taxydromos
The true story behind the body in the basement by Dan Bloom dbloom@thekmgroup.co.uk
SOMEONE, somewhere, failed in their duty to find Konstantinos Georgakopolos. So say his distraught family. The 75-year-old lay dead in his kitchen at number 18 Luton Road, Chatham, for almost two years. When bailiffs finally forced their way in, Classic FM was still playing on the stereo. The heating was on. After a long search, the Messenger has tracked down his nephews and niece in Greece, who passionately denied they did not do enough to find him. Quite the opposite, they said. Kostas or Gus, as everyone called him, had two sisters, four nieces and nephews and six great-nieces and nephews. Even his 87-year-old stepfather George is alive and well in the coastal city of Volos. All the family live there, and they all raised fears for him. The eccentric businessman’s remains were finally returned to Volos last month, but his family are in limbo, unable to hold a funeral. They say the Greek authorities won’t let them bury him without a death certificate from the British coroner, which hasn’t arrived. His niece said: “I loved him. We did everything to find him. This has happened because of someone else’s inability to finish the job. “He never even got the chance to meet my kids. We just want the truth out there because it hurts. It really really hurts.” Kostas’ niece asked not to be named because of the shocked reactions in Volos, where she lives with her three children. She said Volos was a community were almost everyone knew each other, adding: “Kostas was a cad, a personality, so they knew him.”
His story has touched the people of Medway – an unknown man lying dead in his terraced home for two years. But ‘Kostas’ Georgakopolos was no hermit or recluse. He was a gregarious eccentric whose lifestyle meant he went unnoticed for so long. Dan Bloom has pieced together an extraordinary life that ended in a lonely death. LEFT: Volos in Greece, where Konstantinos Georgakopolos owned a boutique; and below his Lotus sports car, which was still parked outside his apartment
The family only raised the alarm after a few months, she said, because he only used to call a few times a year. His passport and plane tickets to Greece for November 14, 2010, were found on the table in his living room. They had not been used. His niece said: “He loved all his relatives, but he was a man who liked to live on his own. His usual thing was ‘I will call you from wherever I am, but I will call when I want to call’. When he did he would talk for hours.
No answer “We knew Kostas would fly from London on November 14. We called him. We tried to reach him. There was no answer. “During his stays he never mentioned any friend or gave us any other phone number. That’s why we couldn’t contact anybody. The only contact we had was the embassy.” They asked Greek television to issue a missing people alert,
but they wouldn’t because Kostas was not senile, she said. They went to Greek police, but the officers knew Kostas’ jet-setting lifestyle and told her not to worry. Eventually, she claimed, Interpol put out an alert on November 23, 2011. Kostas had already been dead for a year. She said: “My aunt gave the address, gave the phone number and asked them ‘go there and find him. Go to his doorstep and try to force in and find if he’s there’.” Kent Police say they have no log of it, with a spokesman adding: “We have found no records of any contact in regards to concern for the welfare of Konstantinos Georgakapolos prior to the discovery of his body on September
26, 2012, nor was he reported missing to Kent Police at any time.” This is despite the evidence of Maria Bruce, the 24-year-old manager at Linda Matthews lettings next door. She was probably the last person to see him, when he chirpily dropped in days before his death. She was among those who found the body. She told police she had asked patrol officers to check on Kostas. They looked through the letterbox, but left because they could not smell a body. Neighbours said there were more flies than usual, but none made the connection. The family found out four days after Kostas was found. His niece said: “We were shocked. We didn’t know if we
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Nathan Brabon, 16, student, from Chatham: “It is a bit disturbing that something like this happened and a shame. “I talk to my neighbours and if it was a prolonged period of time, like a month, then I would start to worry.”
stay in one place. He travelled the world. In America, he picked up his favourite pair of cowboy boots. He bought his Luton Road home on October 18, 1994, and renovated property in Thanet. He had thick black hair, perhaps a wig as it was too dark for his age. He wore thickrimmed glasses, smoked heavily and spoke of his Greek life in Chatham’s pubs. He told relatives he liked the lifestyle here; he felt at home.
Married
Clockwise from above, Konstantinos Georgakopolos; a young Kostas; and 18 Luton Road where his body laid undiscovered in the kitchen for two years
had to make a complaint to the embassy, or the local police, or the British police, or Interpol. We didn’t know who didn’t do their job for Kostas.” Kostas’ two sisters did not speak English, she said, and she was seven months pregnant with twins when her uncle’s body was found. That was why they did not attend last week’s inquest. The hearing was told Kostas’ family was unsure what his job was, but she said: “We knew exactly what he did for a living.” Konstantinos Georgakopolos
was born in Greece on July 19, 1937. His father was killed by the occupying German army in the Second World War. His mother remarried a man called George, 14 years Kostas’ senior, and together the men founded the groundbreaking Playboy clothes shop in downtown Kartali Street. It was the first men’s boutique in town – before that, men had to buy raw materials to make clothes themselves. They expanded, opening another shop in Athens, but Kostas could not
He was married once, about 35 years ago, to a woman 20 years his junior, but they divorced after she left to study in Italy. Shopkeepers in Luton Road remember his quirky mannerisms. Alongside his tea and coffee in his basket would be exotic items like prunes. At one point, he brought his prized Rolls Royce to Britain. It is gone now, but his Lotus sports car is still parked outside his modern, open-plan apartment in Volos. He made his British home a little more Greek by adding blue and white tiles. His niece said: “He was different from the Greek community. He was eccentric in a good way. He would never offend you. He would never do something that would make you uneasy.” His meagre possessions are still strewn across his home in Luton Road. Old train tickets from Gatwick sit next to piles of post. Filthy pairs of glasses are on an open pack of cashew nuts, remarkably preserved. There are Pokemon cards and VHS videos. A small window was open when Kostas was found. Was he attacked? No one knows. His body was so infested with maggots and flies, the coroner was forced to record an open verdict. The inquest heard there was no sign of a struggle, but could not be sure. It is likely no one will ever know. He had been in hospital in Greece after having a stroke. Perhaps he had another, and fell down the stairs. All the police knew was the post, piled high at his door, dated to November 2, 2010. A strimmer he bought from B&Q on the same day was still in its bag. His glory had faded. These banal possessions were all he had left.
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Elisa Blackwell, 51, from Rochester: “I know a lot of my neighbours, but I think there are some areas where people don’t really know each other. Society has changed
Caroline Hardihan, 53, a health and social care worker, from Rochester: “I think a lot of people don’t want to get
involved with anyone these days. “It is just a very British thing to do. People tend to mind their own business. When I heard about the story I thought it was very sad. I would notice if my neighbours had disappeared.”
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How well do you know your neighbours? and people have busy lives, whereas 50 years ago, woman stayed home more and now everyone is working. People are too wrapped up in their own lives really. Two years is a long time to be left.”
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Henry Skeels, 60, from Rochester: “I keep a look out for my neighbours and they always look out for me. It’s very important to look after your neighbours, but not everyone does. It’s a sad reflection on society that a man was left dead in his home for two years.”
Friday, May 24, 2013 Medway Messenger (MM)
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