The bizarre killing of an 80-year-old man, found dead late on Tuesday in the folk art museum where he had been curator in Paiania, eastern Attica, was being attributed by police yesterday to a robbery gone wrong.

The unnamed octogenarian, reportedly a friend of the late Archbishop Christodoulos, was found dead in a pool of blood by his niece who visited the museum at his wife’s request after he failed to return home on Tuesday night. He had been gagged, his feet and hands bound and he had been shot three times in the head, according to a coroner.

Police said that although there was no sign of a break-in, parts of the museum appear to have been searched. Though it was not immediately clear whether anything had been taken, officers said they believed the perpetrators had planned a robbery and probably killed the elderly man because he had recognized them.