For Greek Police homicide detectives the simple of question of why someone would gun down a man, a Polish national in this case, who lives and works in the United States and who had just arrived in the country immediately led to an initial assumption: the motive had to be personal.

The victim was quickly identified as 43-year-old UC Berkeley business professor Przemyslaw Jeziorski. The circumstances were also quickly established: he was shot by a lone gunman while walking to the home of his ex-wife to visit or pick up his two 10-year-old children, a boy and girl twins.

In quick order it emerged that a custody battle had been waged by Jeziorski and his ex-wife – whose been widely identified in foreign and local news media but has not officially been named by Greek authorities. The latest custody ruling by a court in Athens, in fact, vindicated the academic one day before he was killed, confirming his right to take his two children abroad for the summer. A session with a child psychologist with the attendance of the parents and the two children, before they were taken abroa,d was a demand made by the ex-wife to the court, which acquiesced. A subsequent two-hour session was conducted cross-town from where the twins lived with their mother only hours before Jeziorski was hit by five rounds fired from an automatic handgun.

Here was a man who permanently lived in northern California and who was in Greece for few days on this occasion. No apparent robbery or quarrel was evident on a sunny July 4 afternoon in the upper to middle-class district of Aghia Paraskevi, a leafy and quiet suburb in the northeast corner of the expansive greater Athens agglomeration.

For all intents and purposes, the focus turned to the ex-wife, and as subsequent reports would add: Jeziorski’s disgruntled business partner. The pair had founded and ostensibly co-managed an online company called Keybee, billed on its website as “…a dynamic, forward-thinking tech company that is here to change the short-term rental industry.”

Ex-wife’s companion admits to shooting victim

Another individual that immediately drew attention was the ex-wife’s current partner, a man eight years her junior, with Greek Police quickly establishing that he had been named in a May 2024 lawsuit by Jeziorski as previously assaulting him. The US-based Polish academic’s relatives this week also posted that the latter faced threats and blackmail by his ex-wife, and even death threats by her companion, also a Greek national.

CCTV footage of the quiet streets around the spot where the execution-style slaying took place and surrounding major thoroughfares quickly revealed a suspicious vehicle, a high-end Porsche SUV that served as both the transport and getaway car. The latter was traced to a rental agency and police soon had two suspects, two Albanian nationals, 24 and 16.

Testimony by the pair first led another foreign national, a Bulgarian man, and finally to the alleged gunman, “C.D.”, the current companion of Jeziorski’s ex-wife.

Another apparent “linchpin” in the “breaking” the case was the 14-year-old son of the self-confessed shooter from a previous marriage. The suspect, who is now jailed with his companion and the three foreign nationals, is accused of using his son as the “go-between” in communications ahead of the shooting.

In a bid to establish an alibi, the shooter gave his cell phone and car to one of the three accomplices with the instruction to drive around the southern prefecture of Argolida and make calls using his phone. While in Athens, however, the suspect would call his son’s cell phone to learn about the whereabouts of Jeziorski, which were provided by the ex-wife, herself using another cell phone and not her own.

The teen was also the recipient of a photo ostensibly taken by the ex-wife, “N.M.” as per her social media accounts, which showed the ill-fated professor waiting to pass the time on a street below his ex-wife’s apartment before a 4 p.m. scheduled pickup. She allegedly sent the photo via an encrypted message app (Signal) and then deleted it from the cell phone she used, with Greek Police, however, later recovering the image.

On Thursday, police said four out of the five suspects had confessed to their part in the killing, with only the 43-year-old woman denying any involvement.

All five have requested and received a continuance by an investigating magistrate to provide a first testimony to a magistrate under oath.

Initial confession

In his initial statement to police, the 35-year-old confessed shooter said the killing was his idea, an attempt to protect his companion.

“This summer Przemek (using the victim’s shortened first name) wanted to take the children to America. But N. did not agree and so she again took Przemek to court. A month and a half ago I made the decision to end this torment that we were experiencing once and for all. I went to Omonia (a central square in Athens) and bought a weapon from a gypsy whose name I don’t know, and some bullets.

“Last week, N. and Przemek had the trial here in Athens about what will finally happen to the children this summer. Namely, if Przemek could take the children. We were both afraid that he could take them away from Greece forever. Przemek even came to Greece for the trial, so we were even more afraid. The trial, if I remember correctly, was on June 30, 2025 and the judgment was issued on Thursday, July 3, 2025 (the day before the murder).”

The plan

“That night I told N. that I would leave Athens and go to Nafplio for holiday. Since Przemek was in Athens, I thought it was a good opportunity to get rid of him once and for all. So, I took N.’s car, a VW Polo and went to Tolo, near Nafplio, and found a friend of mine, Giorgo, who is from Bulgaria.

“I asked him to bring me to Athens the next day and help me because as I told him I wanted to find Przemek and scare him, so he wouldn’t take the children away from us. He told me he couldn’t and introduced me to two of his friends, who are from Albania, who I met for the first time that night. One is called Andreas and the other Flavio.”