On 20 December 1981, while she was looking for customers, Papachronis followed her without her realizing and stabbed the woman in the back, but her screaming attracted passers-by and he quickly fled.
But he eventually changed his mind and left the woman alive, who was the first victim to give the police a precise and detailed description of Papachronis.
He left her there naked, stealing all her personal belongings and throwing them away near the Menemeni train station, keeping only her lighter (which would later link him beyond doubt to the murder of the girl).
The involvement of military authorities in search of the killer, with the detailed conduct of investigations and monitoring of the movements of suspected soldiers, led to his arrest a few days after his last murder attempt.
Papachronis refused to admit guilt on all charges at first, but the many inaccuracies, his erroneous answers, the heaps of recognitions from his victims, the lack of an alibi, and fatigue from the interrogations eventually led him to confess to everything he had done.
The trial, as expected, was largely covered by newspapers and television, with almost all the well-known journalists of the time, to deal with and comment on what was happening every day.
He tried to justify his actions by constantly referring to his manhood, his courage, his natural rhyme and good looks, even reaching the point of rejecting the advocacy line of his lawyers, saying that ... "I have not built so many years this body to be destroyed by psychiatrists.
Psychiatrists said that he was mentally and spiritually healthy - the court did not admit to any mitigating effect that his lawyers had advocated (neither the incomprehensibility of the acts, nor the lack of criminal record, nor his young age, nor the boiling of the soul), and sentenced him "to death", with 20 years imprisonment.
After his trial, he was briefly held in a military prison in Thessaloniki, where he was also troublesome, and in a fit of rage that lasted for hours, he completely destroyed his cell.
In 2000, when he was tried by the Three-Member Court of Appeal of Thessaloniki and the offences he had committed during his imprisonment, he was charged with: "the sentence of life imprisonment and a temporary imprisonment of 23 years and 9 months for intentional and collusive homicide crimes, attempted manslaughter intentionally and by collision, dangerous personal injury, attempted rape, confinement, theft, illegal artillery, continuation of weapons of mass destruction, the theft of objects belonging to the State at a time of continuity, the illegal possession of weapons, the deliberate and violent explosion, the attempted explosion and arson with intent from which it could pose human risk in complicity with common fraudulently".
In his written statement to the press, he wrote: "Twenty-two years ago, drifting away from age, and especially from my terrible encounters, we all sold our souls to Lucifer - like Faust - and I personally lost, taking an exorbitant legal obedience.
In particular, he argued that at the age of 14, while visiting a brothel in Xanthi, the rejection and embarrassment he experienced from the prostitute when he was unable to perform the sexual act gave birth to his hatred towards women.
Psychiatrists who examined him said that the masochistic need to torment his body in order to reach the limits of his endurance drove him, since for Papachronis the physical rhyme was the only proof of masculinity.
The narcissistic structure of his personality, on the other hand, created a host of other features such as intense anxiety, social immaturity, distrust and individualism.