Fake cop Theodoros Tsalkos, 61, jailed over St Kilda rape cold case

A man who posed as an undercover cop to rape two teenage girls in St Kilda has finally been jailed – 35 years later.

Cold-case rapist Theodoros Tsalkos. Picture: Josie Hayden

A man who posed as an undercover cop to rape two teenage girls in St Kilda has been jailed for his “sadistic” crimes, after advances in DNA technology helped crack the 35-year-old cold case.

Theodoros Tsalkos, 61, was sentenced in the County Court on Tuesday to 13 years and six months behind bars with a non-parole period of eight years and two months after he was found guilty of charges including rape and kidnapping.

The cold-case rapist assaulted the two vulnerable schoolgirls, aged 15 and 16, while pretending to be a “corrupt policeman” on May 7, 1987.

The teenagers had days earlier begun a “brief foray” into sex work when Tsalkos, aged 25, picked them up in St Kilda and drove them to a dark laneway near an Elwood canal.

He then brutally raped one of his victims in the car, while threatening to “stab or shoot” the pair if they did not comply with his sick demands.

“You subjected them to a protracted, frightening and degrading ordeal involving threats of violence and multiple unprotected sex acts,” Judge Rosemary Carlin said.

“All the while ignoring their distress and maintaining the lie that you were a policeman.

“What you did was pure evil … and it is no less evil because the girls were at that time engaging in sex work.”

The court heard how he told them he had to “teach prostitutes a lesson” and could not drop them back at Fitzroy St because then he would have to arrest them.

Tsalkos then drove to an isolated toilet block in Balaclava where he raped the other girl and forced them to perform sex acts on each other.

The pair were eventually dropped back at Grey St and were forensically examined within hours, after making a report to police.

But the case sat dormant for 25 years, until forensic experts began analysing hundreds of frozen DNA samples linked to cold cases with advanced technology in 2012.

Swabs taken from the girls at the time were matched to Tsalkos, who was a person of interest, and he was arrested and charged in March 2020.

He faced a seven-day trial last year, having pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape, two counts of kidnapping and four counts of gross indecency with a person under the age of 16.

The greying 61-year-old, who appeared via video link from the Melbourne Remand Centre, heard Judge Carlin describe his offending as “vile”.

One of his victims, who watched her attacker be sentenced, had previously told the court she has not healed from his “sick, sadistic game”.

“Most people get to move on from the mistakes they made in their teenage years – because of you, I’ve never been able to,” she said.

“I forgive myself. I will never forgive you.”

His other victim has since died of a rare illness, but her daughter had also told the court she was devastated her mother “couldn’t see justice with her own eyes”.

Judge Carlin on Tuesday detailed how Tsalkos, a year before the St Kilda attack, kidnapped another woman while driving a taxi and assaulted her, resulting in her biting his tongue.

The father was described in character references by his loved ones as a “family man”, who was “honest and hardworking” and had not committed any further offences since May 1987.

“It is indeed hard to reconcile the man that your family and friends know with the person who committed such crimes against two innocent girls,” Judge Carlin said.

“But the fact is, you are one and the same.”

The court heard he will have his permanent resident visa cancelled and, upon release, may be deported back to Greece, where he lived as a child.

With time already served, he will be eligible for parole in late 2030.