Christina Onassis Buried on Island Next to Her Father

Shipping heiress Christina Onassis was buried on the family’s island Saturday, outside the chapel where her father, Aristotle, married Jacqueline Kennedy 20 years ago.

About 100 relatives and friends, including Onassis’ fourth ex-husband, Thierry Roussel, attended a private Greek Orthodox ceremony followed by her burial next to her father and brother in the family mausoleum.

Onassis, 37, died in Argentina on Nov. 19 from an apparent heart attack. The cause of death is still under investigation.

Roussel wept as the silver-lined mahogany casket was placed by pallbearers in the white marble mausoleum.

The burial service ended with a procession from the chapel to the main house on the lush 400-acre Ionian island. The chapel was the site of her father’s celebrated 1968 wedding to Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

$1-Billion Fortune

Onassis’ brother Alexander was killed in a 1973 air crash, and her father, founder of a giant shipping and business empire, died two years later. He left a fortune estimated at $1 billion, half of which went to a charitable foundation and the remainder to Christina.

Her mother, Athena, daughter of a shipping magnate, died under mysterious circumstances in Paris in 1974. A coroner’s report at the time said she had died of a heart attack apparently brought on by an overdose of barbiturates.

Onassis’ 3-year-old daughter Athena, from her marriage with Roussel, is her sole heir. The estate will be held in trust until Athena turns 18. The child was not present at the burial.