THE 45-year-old Paphos district man who shot dead two villagers on Thursday, apparently told police he’d killed his victims because he had been the butt of village teasing.
Michalis Artemis, who was yesterday remanded in custody for eight days in connection with the murder of Socrates Kyprianou, 76, and Myrianthi Stylianou, 45, in Holetria village, allegedly told investigators he used to be teased by his fellow villagers. He also denied that the shotgun he’d used in the shooting belonged to him and said he’d found it in a field.
“He confessed to the killing and gave a statement. The excuses he gave to explain his actions were not exactly based on serious grounds,” police said.
Artemis, who was described by neighbours as suffering from emotional problems after his son was killed in a freak accident four years ago, had not been under the supervision of the Social Welfare Services.
“We cannot know everyone who is suffering from emotional or psychological problems,” a social worker, who wished to remain unnamed, said.
“There are thousands of people with problems or who lose a child and we can’t know if they are going to go and do something illegal.”
She said the Welfare Service usually helped people who came to them for help directly or were reported by someone in the person’s immediate family or by someone who knew them well.
“If someone is reported to us we’ll look into it. Sometimes we’ll look into cases if we hear about them in the media,” she said.
The social worker said that even had Artemis been in the system, his diminishing mental state might very well have been missed.
“We are so understaffed and it’s hard to see people every six months the way we should. There are thousands of people that we don’t see for years and they just get their [welfare] cheque in the post. Therefore even had he been under the Social Welfare Services’ supervision he might not have received the adequate care,” she said.
A police officer also said that even if Artemis had been known to suffer from mental problems, there was nothing the force could have done to have prevented Thursday afternoon’s shocking murders.
“You can’t arrest someone without a reason. They need to commit a criminal offense to be arrested to indicate that they are a danger. Just because his son died, it did not mean he was going to commit a crime. He would only have been arrested had he become very unstable and had started committing offenses,” the officer said.
The incident occurred at 4pm in Holetria village. Artemis first shot 76-year-old Kyprianou in the abdomen outside a grocery shop and then proceeded to follow his victim as he staggered into the grocery shop to ask for help. There, he shot Stylianou in the throat. As he walked out, he came face-to-face with a customer who was entering and told him to leave if he didn’t want to suffer the same fate.
Artemis, who divorced after his son’s death, then came out and fired shots at the car of a neighbouring village priest who tried to intervene. Shortly afterwards, he surrendered to police.
