By Carla Jaeger
This story contains graphic imagery.
The day Helen Moraitis was entombed, she was supposed to be buried with her favourite flowers in her hands, gold jewellery adorning her body, and dressed in black clothing.
Instead, a court has heard, her mother, Teresa Moraitis, was “broken and destroyed” to discover her daughter had been buried naked inside a blue plastic body bag. There was no jewellery or flowers, her body was riddled with maggots and flies, and the lining of her casket was ripped.
Teresa Moraitis and her nephew Jim Moraitis attend a hearing at the Supreme Court.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Moraitis detailed the state of her daughter’s remains during testimony on Thursday in the Supreme Court of Victoria during a defamation trial launched by funeral director Peter Tziotzis.
Tziotzis is suing The Age and A Current Affair for defamation over news reports made when Helen’s family had her body exhumed.
Helen was 57 years old when she died in her sleep on June 27, 2022.
Soon after her death Moraitis, who was then 81 years old, hired funeral director Peter Tziotzis and his company, Melbourne Orthodox Funeral Services, to carry out a traditional Greek Orthodox funeral and a trisagion – a viewing usually held the night before the funeral.
At a meeting on July 2, Moraitis said she specified to Tziotzis she wanted Helen’s body to be embalmed, and for there to be an open casket at the funeral. She also handed over black clothing and gold jewellery for Helen to be dressed and buried in.
“She was a person who liked to dress up nicely ... so I decided to give the jewellery so she looked nice in the view as well so she would look nice for the final goodbye,” Moraitis said.
Moraitis told the court she decided to exhume Helen’s body after she became concerned that the body was missing from Helen casket. She said she became suspicious after Tziotzis refused to open the casket at Helen’s funeral, held on August 16, 2022.
Midway through the service, Moraitis realised her daughter’s casket was not open. “At the beginning, I didn’t take much notice. But then I thought ‘why is the casket … closed?’ When I go to a funeral, the casket is always open during the service,” she said.
The court heard that upon realising this, Moraitis called out to Tziotzis to open the casket.
Moraitis told the court that Tziotzis told her the casket could not be opened and began waving a document he said was an order from the coroner that the casket must remain shut.
“He was banging a document on his hand, and he was very upset about it because I was crying and begging him, ‘please open the casket so I can say my final goodbye to her.’
“I wanted to say the last goodbye to my daughter … he denied me to do that. He denied all the relatives saying the last goodbye to my daughter.”
Moraitis contacted the Coroners Court the following day. She said the court told her no order had been made to keep the casket locked, spurring her decision to have Helen’s body exhumed in November 2022.
Moraitis began to cry as she told the court Helen’s body was so badly decomposed she was advised not to look. She was told her daughter had not been embalmed, despite the family paying for the service. Instead, she was buried in a blue body bag and was naked. Maggots and flies covered her body.
“I was a broken and destroyed to see my daughter in the casket as she was. It was very upsetting.”
The court heard that since the exhumation, Moraitis has suffered from anxiety, panic attacks that have left her hospitalised, and can no longer attend church. “I used to enjoy going every Sunday there … [but] every time I go I imagine my Helen being in there.”
The court also heard that during the funeral service, Moraitis planned to place a bouquet of red roses, her daughter’s favourite flowers, into her hands and give her a final kiss goodbye.
But on the morning of the funeral, Moraitis claimed that Tziotzis snatched the bouquet out of her hands and said it would not be possible to place inside the casket. Instead, she told the court, Tziotzis grabbed a roll of sticky tape and stuck the flowers on top of the casket.
The funeral director previously told the court Helen’s body was unable to be embalmed and presented in an open casket for a viewing because the family took weeks to secure a crypt, and his practice was to not begin formal arrangements until this was done.
Tziotzis says media reporting of the matter had damaged his reputation, and he denies stealing or deliberately retaining the clothing and jewellery later found at his business premises by police.
The trial continues.
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