Widow of John Macris looking to start new life in Sydney
The widow of gunned down gangster John Macris is understood to have ruled out going back to Greece in hope of making a new life in an exclusive Sydney suburb. Viktoria Karida has told friends that she fears for her life after she saw John executed.
Friends of Viktoria Karida — the widow of slain gangster John Macris — say she fears for her life in Greece and has applied for a temporary visa in Australia with a plan to stay permanently to raise her family in Mosman with her in-laws’ help.
“She’s not going back to Greece, no way,” a source close to the family said. “She saw John get gunned down that day, she’s finished with Greece.”
The source said she felt safe in the exclusive Sydney suburb, where her husband enjoyed a privileged upbringing.
Yesterday, the father of Macris broke down as he told of his pain at burying his son in a grave beside his daughter, sobbing: “I’ve watched both my children die in front of me.”
Steeling himself, Stelios Macris, 82, a former musician, told The Daily Telegraph from his whitewashed mansion in Sydney’s Lower North Shore: “I’m so upset, I saw my son die in front of me.
“Do you know what it’s like to have to bury your own blood? I’ve lost two children now, two. I watched them both die.”
One-time archrival of the Ibrahim family, Marcis, 46, was laid to rest in a secret ceremony on Saturday at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney’s west next to his sister Vicki who died of leukaemia more than 30 years ago.
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Today, relatives, many bearing flowers, visited the family home in Mosman to pay their respects.
Macris’ brother Alex and his new girlfriend spent the morning with his parents.
Ukrainian-born reality-TV star and former Playboy playmate, Ms Karida, said she was too upset to speak and spent yesterday morning at the house with the couple’s young children, Alexandra and Achilles.
Dressed in black and holding her son Achilles’ hand, she visited the gravesite in a car driven by Macris’ mother.
CCTV footage released last week by Athens newspaper Kathimerini shows a man dressed in grey and black, running towards a black Smart car while pumping three shots through the passenger’s side into Macris chest outside his home in the seaside suburb of Voula in the Greek capital city on October 31.
The burial came a week after he was farewelled in a traditional Greek Orthodox funeral service at the Agios Nektarios church in the suburb of Voula in southern Athens.
Close family and friends accompanied Macris’ body home to Sydney on an overnight flight from Athens on Wednesday.
There are no eulogies or speeches at traditional Greek Orthodox funeral.
Twice, when the casket was opened as is traditional in Greece, Viktoria, repeatedly whispered softly, caressed, stroked and kissed her dead husband's face.
Unusually for Greek funerals, she brought their two children, both aged under six, to the ceremony.
Former Sydney gangster Macris was living the high life in self-imposed exile in Athens, socialising with the super rich and famous, while secretly suspected of importing large amounts of drugs into Australia through his Sydney connections.
Police are probing the Athens underworld for clues to his execution.
Macris was gunned down in front of his wife in their quiet residential street.
His father Stelios was one of the first on the scene and seen weeping on his son’s body, crying, “Please tell me my son’s not dead.”
A warrant for Macris’ arrest was issued in 2013, stating he would be arrested as soon as he set foot in Australia, after failing to show up for sentencing for driving while disqualified until September 2018.
Since relocating to Athens, Macris was a partner in My Services, a company offering private security, but also hospitality and cleaning staff.
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