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a photo of Penelope, taken by her brother, Peter, for her maternity shoot, two weeks before her death June 17th, 1984 - August 28th, 2009
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Penelope Kythira (Πηνελόπη Κύθηρα; Pinelópi Kýthira) was a pregnant Greek woman who went missing and was found dead three days later with her children missing.
Penelope was born in Larissa, Greece, the older of two children. By all accounts, Penelope had a normal childhood, went to school, had friends, got decent enough grades, all that. She ended up with a broken arm after crashing her bike when she was eight, but it healed well. When she was twenty-two, she began dating Ajax Florakis (Άγιαξ Φλωράκης; Ágiax Florákis).
They would end up splitting up on civil terms after three years of dating, but shortly thereafter, Penelope found out she was pregnant. Ajax agreed to support her the whole way and Penelope's family was very supportive as well, especially after finding out they were going to have twins. When finding out they were going to have boy-girl twins, they decided on the names Artemis and Apollo (Άρτεμις και Απόλλωνας; Ártemis kai Apóllonas).
On August 25th, 2009, two days before Penelope's due date, she and her younger brother, Peter Kythira (Πέτρος Κύθηρα; Pétros Kýthira) were walking around Larissa. They ended up splitting up, Penelope saying she was going to grab a bite to eat, Peter saying he was going to go check out a nearby store.
Afterwards, when Peter tried to get in contact with Penelope, he was unable. He contacted Ajax, who also tried to contact Penelope. They then contacted the Kythira parents but they were also unable to contact Penelope.
"I thought her phone had maybe just run out of charge, so, I didn't worry too much." Peter said, in a 2018 interview. "I thought the worst case scenario was she'd gone into labor and went to the hospital. Then, she'd call us."
Three days later, Penelope's body was found in a dumpster in Athens, with a gunshot wound to the head. She was quickly identified and also determined to have given birth. Her twins were nowhere to be found and to this day, are still considered missing.
"This may sound pessimistic, but I don't think they'll ever not be missing." Ajax said in a 2018 interview. "They're probably missing in plain sight, best case scenario. I don't think I'll ever know what happened to my children."
