Forty-four-year-old Christos Saristavros was a self-made millionaire, a Greek Australian who made his fortune crafting handmade dips based on his family recipes. His company, Black Swan, eventually sold its popular products in supermarkets nationwide, and later diversified into yogurts, guacamole, and hummus.
Christos lived with his beloved wife Tammy in a mansion in Black Rock, a wealthy coastal suburb of Melbourne. The couple had two grown sons who were planning to continue the family business.
On the night of October 22nd, 2000, Christos and his wife had been at the Athenian Tavern in Cyprus, attending a charity event for disabled children. They left the function shortly after ten p.m., and as they got into their car, they were approached by a lone assailant.
The attacker was described as a slim Asian man between twenty-five and forty years old, wearing glasses, a dark-colored jacket, white tennis shoes, and a black, knitted beanie. Christos engaged in a verbal altercation with the man, and during the argument, he was shot once in the abdomen with a pistol, after which the shooter ran off. Christos chased the man for eight or nine yards, but the perpetrator then shot Christos in the head. The victim collapsed to the ground, and he died in his wife’s arms before emergency services could intervene.
During the investigation, police discovered CCTV footage showing the suspected killer in a nearby 7-Eleven store about fifteen minutes before the murder. It was theorized that he had been planning to rob the store but changed his mind for some unknown reason. According to this footage, the man spoke good English with a Southeast Asian accent, possibly Indonesian, Malaysian, or Singaporean.
The motive for the slaying was unclear, as Christos was a well-liked figure in the community who was active in charity work, had no association with the criminal underworld, and had no known enemies. Because authorities believed the shooter had sought to rob the convenience store before the murder, it was surmised that Christos was simply a victim of opportunity, but this is by no means certain.
The Saristavros family is offering a one-million-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Christos’s killer. An additional $100,000 reward is also on offer from the Victoria Police. As of this writing, however, neither of these rewards has been claimed.
Crime Immemorial 