4.6 • 5.8K Ratings
🗓️ 5 August 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Rachel Sylvester travels to Greece to investigate whether genetic science could change the story in the case of Roula Pispirigou – a mother who was convicted of killing her three young children just last year.
Our thanks to The Francis Crick Institute for sharing recordings and insights.
Reporter: Rachel Sylvester
Producer: Gary Marshall
Music supervisor: Karla Patella
Sound design: Rowan Bishop
Podcast artwork: Lola Williams
Executive producer: Basia Cummings
This episode is sponsored by The Life of Chuck. Join us across the UK for a preview screening on Wednesday 13 August, before it hits cinemas nationwide on 20 August. Find the locations and book now at SEEITFIRST.COM and enter the code CHUCK.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, it's Rachel here. I'm the reporter on The Lab Detective. Thank you for listening. |
| 0:06.1 | If you want to hear more of our investigations, you can listen to previous series right here on Tortus Investigates from the Observer. |
| 0:13.9 | To hear more from the Observer's Newsroom, you can search for the Observer wherever you listen to your podcasts. |
| 0:20.5 | And if you'd like to get early access and add free listening to all Observer podcasts, |
| 0:26.0 | subscribe to The Observer Plus on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or by downloading the Tortoise app. |
| 0:37.1 | The Observer. |
| 0:44.3 | Last time, on the lab detective. |
| 0:48.8 | Are there any cases you're working on yourself? |
| 0:52.2 | I have contributed to a few cases and recently to a case in Greece, for example, where... |
| 0:58.1 | The lesson I think should be that the legal system, if you've got scientists who are suddenly |
| 1:02.0 | coming on board saying something's wrong, then those scientists need to be listened to. |
| 1:06.7 | And what was the upshot of that? |
| 1:10.4 | Well, that mother was sadly condemned to life in prison. |
| 1:21.6 | Well, it would be hard to live in Greece and not to have heard of it. |
| 1:33.3 | Rulapisirigu is the most hated woman in Greece. |
| 1:38.3 | From the moment we heard of her case, which was when her third child died, she was in the news constantly. |
| 1:47.6 | I'm sitting opposite Katerina Bakoyani. She's an investigative journalist based in Athens. |
| 1:54.4 | I've been wanting to speak to her ever since the geneticist, Kirola Vinuessa, told me about a case |
| 2:00.4 | she's been working on in Greece. |
| 2:03.8 | This all came up towards the end of my interview with Corolla back when I started this investigation. |
| 2:10.7 | I asked her whether she thought there were any other possible miscarriages of justice that could be overturned by genetics. |
| 2:18.1 | And that's when she told me about Rulipis Birigou, a mother who maintains her innocence, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Observer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Observer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.