MAFIA RULE #1: When Going on a Hit, Leave Dog at Home

May 4, 2001 Athens, Greece

Susan Mary Aristidi, 49, was carrying a home-made nail bomb in the front seat of her BMW yesterday when her pet rottweiler in the back seat sat on the remote control trigger.

Ms. Aristidi, an affluent British businesswoman with ties to the Grigoratos crime family in Athens, is believed to have been on her way to plant the bomb as a retaliatory strike against another criminal group that had murdered two Grigoratos family members recently.

The bomb detonated just several hundred yards from the woman's seaside villa, killing the dog and destroying the vehicle.

Ms. Aristidi, who was apparently aware of the bomb going live just seconds before the blast, attempted to scramble out of the car, but she, too, perished in the explosion, leaving the driver's side door open.

Police had initially feared that the bomb was a terrorist act, somehow related to Pope John Paul's visit to Athens today, but they soon surmised that “this was definitely a criminal attack that had gone wrong.”

"This was not terrorism, it is clear it is a case of common crime," an official said.

Ms. Aristidi, known to some as the "Black Widow", was the owner of a nightclub in the southern coastal suburbs.  Members of the Grigoratos family in the past have been charged with running a protection-racket in the Athens club scene.

When police entered her 3-story home in Voula where she allegedly lived with a prominent member of the Grigoratos family, they found the kitchen to be filled with an assortment of electronic switches, grenades and masonry nails.

David Weymouth, Ms. Aristidi's 74-year-old father said at his London home last night that he was stunned to learn of his daughter’s connections with organized crime.

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