Biotechnology Center of the TU Dresden(NEW YORK) — Greek police are questioning a suspect in the murder of the American biologist who was found dead in an abandoned World War II bunker on the island of Crete last week.
The suspect is a 27-year-old man from Kissamos, a town about 20 miles away from Chania, where Suzanne Eaton was attending a conference, Eleni Papathanassiou, spokesperson for Crete’s police department, told ABC News. He was detained just days after police obtained DNA evidence from nearly a dozen people who live nearby.
Crucial evidence left behind in the bunker, which was built by Nazis after they occupied Crete in 1941, may have led to the man’s detainment. A high level police source, who spoke to ABC News on Sunday on the condition of anonymity, would not give details on exactly what the evidence was, but said it would shed more light on the identity of the killer.
Eaton, a U.S. citizen and a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, was in Crete to attend a conference and vanished on July 2.
Investigators were searching for men with muscular builds and the ability to overpower Eaton, who was an avid runner and held a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. They also requested data records from local mobile phone companies in hopes that they may identify the person or people who left Eaton’s body in the bunker.
Eaton fought for her life when she was attacked with someone with a knife, a police source told ABC News. Her body had substantial injuries from a knife that was “defensive” in nature, the source said.
Her cause of death was ruled a murder by asphyxiation, police said.
Coroner Antonis Papadomanolakis told Greece’s ANT1 News that “something complicated happened” during Eaton’s death, stating that it was “not immediate” and “there was duration involved.”
It has not been determined whether Eaton died in the bunker or if she was killed somewhere else and had her body left there.
Eaton is native of Oakland, California, and is survived by her husband and two sons. Her remains will be returned to the U.S. for burial.
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