Santorini Sea
Cases unlock in order, like levels. This is case 32 of 100.
Yacht Thalassa, anchored in the Santorini caldera, Greece, 11:40 pm. The deckhand found a slipper on the stern platform and raised the alarm. At 12:10 am, shipowner Stavros Kallergis, 68, was pulled from the sea, lifeless.
The coast guard is calling it an accidental fall after a dinner with wine. But the stern railing is 1.10 meters high, and the nails on Stavros's right hand were broken, as if he had clung to someone.
No one else came aboard: the only tender was with the deckhand at the Fira quay, from 10:50 pm to 11:35 pm, with witnesses.
Three people remain on the yacht. One of them was not where they claim.
The yacht's main saloon, white leather sofas, the lights of Fira twinkling high on the cliff.
Suspects
Spyros MavridisCaptain of the yacht, 61
Orestis KallergisThe shipowner's son, 34
Kalliopi DoukaThe yacht's chef, 41
The real case
The deaths at sea of Robert Maxwell and Natalie Wood
Canary Islands, 1991, and California, 1981
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
In November 1991, press baron Robert Maxwell disappeared overnight from his own yacht off the Canary Islands; his body was found in the sea hours later. The Spanish autopsy concluded that the death was accidental. Weeks later it emerged that he had diverted hundreds of millions of pounds from his companies' pension funds.
Ten years earlier, actress Natalie Wood drowned after a night aboard a yacht near Catalina Island, in California. Her death was recorded as an accident; in 2012 the cause was changed to undetermined. No charges were ever filed.
The game borrows the nighttime fall of a powerful person from their own yacht after a dinner with drinks, and the official account of an accident. Characters, motive and outcome are fiction.
Sources
Case glossary
Words from this case you might not know.
- caldera
- A large basin formed when a volcano collapses; in Santorini it is flooded by the sea and ringed by cliffs.
- Fira
- The main town of Santorini, built on the clifftop above the caldera.