Love and marriage

In the summer of 2015, Professor Premislav Jezorski was counting down two years of a relationship with his contemporary Nadia. From the moment they had met through a dating app, they became a couple, married, and had their twin children, a boy and a girl. That summer, the young couple in love had decided to have a unique experience by traveling for three months in Europe and Asia.

Leaving California, they rented their home on the Airbnb platform, however, they quickly realized that several management issues were arising. For the Polish marketing professor and the Greek economist, the problem spawned a brilliant business idea that quickly took shape: they set up a short-term rental property management company and service provider that caters to every maintenance need. Now, as stated on the company’s website, they work with over one million short-term rental property owners.

The company took off, the couple acquired two homes in the U.S., and eventually settled with the twins in Greece in 2020, maintaining the business operations. But things didn’t work out the way they wanted, as a year later, the rift between them was final. He asked for a divorce and returned to the US, pursuing an academic career as a professor of marketing at the famous UC Berkeley.

The relationship between the former couple became explosive: arguments over children and the property they had acquired. According to the court order, the professor was allowed to see his children every year at Christmas and for one month in the summer. Now, after the arrest of their mother, the children are under the prosecutor’s order in a hospital where they are being monitored by specialists, while in the coming days their grandmother and uncle on their father’s side are expected to file a petition to take custody of them.

Last March, the 43-year-old made it known to Nadia that he planned to take the children to America for the month he was entitled to be with them. She took legal action against him to have the children banned from going to the US. As the professor’s killer, Nandia’s partner, claimed in his apology, she was “afraid that he would take the children away from her forever” because Yezorsky “had connections and money,” and if that happened, she would die.

The war between the ex-spouses developed on two levels: at the end of June, Nadija’s injunction against the children going to the US with their father was heard, and there were pending injunctions that Jezorski had made to her because, his brother testified, his ex-wife had previously tried to empty the money from their joint companies’ bank accounts in the US. However, she was unable to get the money because of restrictions imposed by the bank.

The victim’s brother, who arrived in Greece after the crime, proved to be a key witness, as he described in detail the relationship not only between the two ex-wives, but also the involvement of the 35-year-old man who was now living with Nadia and her two children – occasionally his 14-year-old son from a previous marriage also lived with them.

Yezorski’s brother even testified that the professor had sued the 35-year-old for beating the man, which was quickly confirmed by officers from the Homicide Division tracking down the complaint he had filed last May at the Constitution Police Station. The same witness testified that Nadia, at a dinner with her three children and her partner, had told Yezorski that she had debts of 50,000 euros, something that has yet to be cross-checked by the police to see if it is indeed true.

Professor Jezorski

Yezorski arrived in Athens on the eve of the hearing of his ex-wife’s injunction against his children’s trip to the US and was present at the proceedings. One day later, on July 1, his brother testified, they all had dinner together: the professor, Nadia, their children, the wife’s partner, and his 14-year-old son from his previous marriage. On 3 July, the day before the murder, which, as the 35-year-old confessed, he had already decided to commit and had therefore obtained the gun from the Omonia area, Nadia was notified of the decision rejecting her application for injunctive relief.

According to his CV, the Polish professor had over 15 years of research and teaching experience and was considered a leading expert in quantitative marketing, industrial organization, and applied microeconomics. As a professor, he had guided over 1,500 MBA and PhD students. He specialized in consumer marketing, healthcare marketing, digital marketing, AI applications, and pricing. He holds a PhD in Economics from Stanford, a Master’s in Economics from the University of Arizona, and a BA in Economics from the University of Warsaw.

The Lover

All of these academic parchments combined with his poor relationship with Nadia made Jezorski look like “a mean, curious man who thought he knew everything” in the eyes of her new partner.

The 35-year-old has so far taken full responsibility for the crime. He is defending his partner and confirms with his words her claim that he knew absolutely nothing and has no involvement in the murder of her ex-husband and father of her children. When he felt the noose tightening around him, as stated in the case file and as is evident from his statements, he contacted one of his three foreign co-defendant accomplices through a lawyer to tell him that if they got into trouble and needed a lawyer, Nadia would pay for it.

The economist’s new partner had nothing in common with her ex-husband. Her partner, who was eight years younger than her, was of low educational level and worked as an unskilled labourer until she hired him to work for her company, doing various jobs. At only 21 years of age, the man from Amalia was already married and the father of a boy, now 14 years old, whom he used in his absence to learn the movements of the professor in the crucial hours before the crime. According to reports, the 35-year-old sought relationships with older women, and his previous partner had denounced him for being obsessed with her.

The confessed killer has previously been charged with domestic violence, theft and weapons offences, disturbing the peace in the home, and damaging property belonging to others. On the evening of May 15, 2024, Yezorski had filed a complaint against him for assault and threatening. Once arrested, he very quickly broke and pleaded guilty. He is said to be in a very bad state mentally and cries constantly.

Nadia

The 43-year-old economist started her studies in Ioannina, continued at the University of Warsaw, and completed her academic education in the USA. There she met and married Premislav, there their children were born, and there they founded their two companies. Nadia allegedly claims that it was all her ideas that the Pole exploited.

The professor was described as addicted to alcohol, violent, abrupt, and indifferent to their children. In the injunction application she had filed against him, she claimed that the children developed an anxiety disorder when they were around their father. After her application was dismissed, she asked for all of them – parents and children – to go together to the child psychologist who was seeing the twins to prepare them for the trip to America. At the same time, however, the final steps were being taken to set up the death row for the professor.

Nadia has taken a tough stance during her examination by officers at the Homicide Department. She denies everything, any involvement, any relationship, any knowledge of what her partner was planning, who, it seems, was dependent on her, emotionally and financially. He was convinced that all the problems were caused by the ex-husband of the woman he was living with, and it is telling that to convince the three foreigners to help him, he had told them that he would pay them to beat up “a man who raped children”.

The three foreigners, aged between 16 and 30, as shown by the videos in police’s possession, appear to be telling the truth that they did not know that Christos aimed to kill the professor and that he had used them to create a false alibi: he left his car and cell phone in Argolida, they drove him to Athens covered in the back seat of their car with a towel so that no third passenger would be recorded by any camera, he threatened them when he got out of the Porsche to kill, and they abandoned him when they saw what he did. The 35-year-old returned by taxi to Argolida.

For Nadia, the foreigners say they are convinced that she had full knowledge of the crime and that she instructed the physical perpetrator. The Bulgarian says that she gave a lot of money to Christos to kill her ex-husband. She was, however, the last person to speak to Jezorski: a minute before the murder, at 16.09 on 4 July, Nadia had phoned him while waiting for him to pick up the children. Four minutes earlier, Christos had phoned his son to find out if the Pole had arrived. For the police, the two calls are linked.

The relationship with her ex-husband was the only negative in the economist’s life, since in her professional life everything was bright: an award-winning businesswoman with many prizes, nominated for even more, a “Greek woman who promised much” in her field.

“A Greek entrepreneur who was one of the most promising people in her field.
Police in the case file against the five accused point out that the perpetrators, from the time they arrived at the place where the session with the child psychologist was taking place until the murder, had the appropriate knowledge, information, and intelligence.

Based on this, they point to Nadia as the only person who had the knowledge and necessary information, which she indirectly gave to her partner through the “innocent channel”, which was his son. The child even confirmed the communications, but in the meantime, he had changed his phone and deleted the Signal app through which they had been made…

The clue

The murder of Premyslav Jezorski is one of those cases that, for experienced Homicide officers, are considered easy to solve. The killers may have thought that they had planned everything and foreseen every detail so as not to be betrayed – even a false alibi with electronic traces had been foreseen, which is why the 35-year-old left his mobile phone and car in Argolida – but the police officers’ main weapon, which is common sense, thwarted all plans.

Common sense is what guides investigations and poses the key questions to be answered in the process of solving any crime. From the moment the victim was identified, the key question was who and why would kill in Athens an academic professor residing in the US, who has never been of concern to the authorities anywhere, and is well-off. With whom could a man with this profile have deadly differences?

The answer was provided by the victim’s brother, who arrived in Athens from Poland. He described his brother’s quarrel with his ex-wife, he talked about the beating and threats he had received from his ex-wife’s partner, and the lawsuit he had filed against him.

The information he gave was verified, and now the police have identified the motive. Besides, for the Homicide Department, a perfect crime is not perceived as a criminal act; otherwise, there is always the possibility of finding the perpetrator. In this case, the crime had been committed in the middle of nowhere and within a few feet of the accused killers’ home.

The defendants are expected to plead today in the murder of the 43-year-old Polish professor in Agia Paraskevi, after a deadline they requested and received.

The Chronicle

According to the file, the events unfolded as follows:

■ On the evening of 3 July, and after the decision to reject the injunction had been notified, the 35-year-old contacted his 30-year-old Bulgarian acquaintance in Argolida, and from him, he contacted one of the two Albanians, from whom he asked for help to scare the professor. That evening, he gave the Bulgarian a bag in which he had the pistol with which he had killed the Pole. The gun was hidden inside a toolbox that the 35-year-old had in a green bag.

■ The next morning, the two Albanians picked up the natural perpetrator of the murder from a hotel in Nafplio in one of their cars, drove to Petrograd, and rented the grey Porsche Cayenne there.

■ Leaving Nafplio, the confessed murderer gave the keys of the car and his mobile phone to his Bulgarian accomplice so that the latter could use it on the day of the crime.

■ During the journey from Nafplio to Petroupoli, the 35-year-old was lying on the back seat of the car and covered with a blue towel, while he stayed in the car until the lease pickup of the Porsche from the two Albanians was completed.

■ Immediately after receiving the Porsche, the three, on the 35-year-old’s instructions, went to Haidari at a time when the session with the child psychologist was in progress and waited near her office.

■ In Haidari and while remaining in the car, the 35-year-old put on the clothes he was wearing when he committed the murder.

■ At 14.47 Nadia photographed the victim at the moment she was waiting in the Haidari area. It was found that the Porsche Cayenne was moving via Attiki Street to Agia Paraskevi. One hour and 11 minutes before the murder, the Porsche Cayenne was parked at the junction of Irini and Evergetou Yavasis Streets (on Irini), at a point from which it is possible to monitor the pick-up point for the children.

During the waiting period, the murderer contacted his son using the phone of an accomplice, since his phone was in Argolida.

The threat

Their communications focused on the imminent arrival of the professor in Agia Paraskevi, with the last communication allegedly informing the killer of his arrival.

■ At the moment he got out of the Porsche Cayenne, the 35-year-old armed a pistol and threatened the two Albanians that if they spoke, he would shoot them too.

■ Immediately after committing the murder, the two foreigners left in the Porsche Cayenne and went to the house of a friend of one of them in Chalandri, whom they asked to keep the green bag, but he refused. Eventually, they threw the bag into a garbage bin.

Immediately after the crime, the 35-year-old returned to the Argolida area by taxi, but the exact point of his boarding and disembarkation has not been determined.

After the murder, the Bulgarian defendant received a call from a lawyer whom the 35-year-old had visited. During their communication, the lawyer asked the 30-year-old Bulgarian to cover for the killer in case he was called by the police. In this case, Nadia would cover the costs of legal support.