Murder-Suicide Leaves Greek Community Shaken : Family: Son finds mother dead, apparently at hands of his father, who is found dead at the bottom of a 600-foot embankment.

After the threats, the beatings, and even a divorce three years ago, Kalliope Popi Evangelidis finally told her ex-husband that she wanted out.

But Alex Evangelidis couldn’t bear to let her go.

When their 22-year-old son, George, got home from school about 6:20 p.m. Monday, he found his mother in the living room, dead from stab wounds to the neck and chest, police said. He didn’t know it at the time, but his father was also dead.

About 4:45 p.m., Alex Evangelidis stabbed himself in the neck and drove off a 600-foot embankment on California 94, about a mile west of Tecate. He was found covered in blood, with what police believe is the murder weapon by his side.

Despite a temporary break-up in 1989, the family lived together in the 4300 block of Clairemont Mesa Boulevard. Though Kalliope Popi Evangelidis had talked about leaving for two months, she was afraid to act on it. Over the weekend, George finally told his father that he was taking his mother and moving elsewhere, a leader of the Greek community said Tuesday.

Evangelidis, a boat mechanic and all-around fix-it man, died in a Volkswagen he had purchased three days earlier and planned to restore and sell.

Although his former boss at Mission Bay’s Seaforth Boat Rental described Evangelidis as hard-working, soft-spoken and gentle, those privy to his family life said he was jealous and cruel to his wife of 23 years, known in the Greek community as “Popi.”

While Popi rose at 3 a.m. to work at a bakery and provide for her son--a soccer player at Point Loma Nazarene College--Evangelidis worked sporadically, never gave money to his family, and often beat and threatened to kill Popi, said Jim Sidiropoulos--an 18-year San Diego resident and patriarch of the Greek community.

“He many times hit her, and many times say, ‘I kill you. I kill you. I kill you,’ ” Sidiropoulos said Tuesday.

Sidiropoulos, known by most as “Jim the Tailor,” spoke to Alex Evangelidis just hours before the stabbing, and encouraged him to spend the day at his Pacific Beach tailor shop for fear that Evangelidis planned to harm his wife, he said Tuesday.

Sidiropoulos had made a point of calling the Evangelidis family daily to check on them, and he even held a special meeting with the family recently to try to resolve their dispute.

When Alex Evangelidis told Sidiropoulos on Monday about his son’s plans to leave with Popi, the patriarch told him to come to his store to talk.

“I said, ‘Leave them go. What’s the problem? You’re already divorced,’ ” Sidiropoulos said. “I said, ‘Why don’t you listen to your son? They say they want to go live alone. Leave her alone for three months, and maybe she’ll come back. You need to try to change.’ ”

About 11:30, however, Evangelidis told Sidiropoulos he had to go fix a used car he had just bought.

“I said, ‘Stay here and leave alone the Popi.’ I was worried, but then I said, ‘Oh, forget it. He won’t do anything,’ ” Sidiropoulos said.

The phone rang on and off all day at the tailor shop Tuesday as members of the Greek community heard the news of the murder-suicide and called to contribute to funeral services and the welfare of George Evangelidis, now living at his girlfriend’s home.

“All the Greek friends say, ‘Don’t worry. Put me down for $50, or $100,’ ” Sidiropoulos said.

The Evangelidis family left Greece about 10 years ago, friends said, and came to San Diego about five years ago after living in Maryland with Popi’s mother.

The couple had problems on and off throughout their marriage, Sidiropoulos said, and in 1988 Alex filed for divorce. In brief uncontested divorce proceedings, he got the bank accounts, a motor home and a 1979 Volkswagen. She got $400 a month, a 1975 Volkswagen and the family furniture.

But the separation was short-lived.

The family moved to the Clairemont Mesa home together more than a year ago, friends said.

Sidiropoulos described Evangelidis’ visits as confessional sessions, when the distraught mechanic would reveal everything from beatings and threats on his wife’s life, to his lack of involvement with his son.

Although Popi got up at 3 a.m. to go to work, Evangelidis would often get home at 1 in the morning and wake her up. “He would tell her, ‘Get up now. I found something that I’m going to use to kill you,’ ” Sidiropoulos said.

He would also follow her to work and to her exercise classes, hoping to catch her in some infidelity, Sidiropoulos said.

While he said Popi never called police out of fear for her life, she pleaded with Sidiropoulos and his wife to help her get out of the house.

“My wife today cry all day, because she told Popi, ‘Take your son and come to my home to live.’ But (Popi) said, ‘No. (Alex) will give us problems,” Sidiropoulos said.

“Most Greek people live to give a good life to their kids. (Alex) had a bad life. He no listen to nobody. This is the problem. He kill the poor lady for nothing,” Sidiropoulos said. “For Alex’s life, I don’t care, believe me. Nobody should have to pay for him to be in jail. But I am very sorry for the lady and for the kid.”

Sidiropoulos said the family tensions had mounted unbearably over the last two months, but Andy Kurtz, the owner of Seaforth Boat Rentals who employed Evangelidis until last winter, described him as quiet and caring, with a good sense of humor.

The news came as a shock to Kurtz and another former co-worker Tuesday.

“He was a very pleasant guy. I never heard the man raise his voice, let alone get violent,” said Kurtz, who bought a used Volkswagen from Evangelidis and helped him file his divorce papers in 1988 because his English skills were poor.

“I was an employer and a friend. I would help him with what he wanted and not ask too many questions,” he said. “He was one hell of a resourceful guy. He could fix outboard motors. He could fix electronics, pretty much anything . . . cars, washing machines, anything that was broken, he could fix it.”

Although the murder-suicide left Kurtz mystified, as far as the San Diego Police Department is concerned, the Evangelidis case has been resolved.

“We’re in the process of matching that weapon with the wounds on her body,” Lt. John Welter said. “We’re still doing some background work as to what may have motivated him to kill his wife and kill himself. But there’s not a lot left to do in the case.”