Caroline Crouch, 20, the young mother whose husband confessed to her murder at the Glyka Nera suburb of Athens on May 11, had “an agonizing” death, according to the coroner’s report included in the case file forwarded to the investigating magistrate on Friday.
The young woman of British descent, whose husband, a pilot by profession, confessed on Thursday to murdering her after setting up the incident to look like a robbery, died between 04:00 and 05:00 and was found on their bed with a cloth tied around her neck, her hands tied in the back, and her baby sleeping against her back.
According to file information, before she was killed by suffocation and specifically between 00:37 and 00:38 she had done three searches on the Booking platform for housing.
The 26-page report sent by the police to the court contains details of what police investigators found at the house after her husband, Babis Anagnostopoulos, 33, called the police around 06:20 alleging he had been tied by robbers to the floor next to the bed and they had killed his wife because she was screaming for them not to hurt her baby.
According to her husband’s testimony, she had been behaving erratically after her miscarriage and they had started going to a therapist, a woman who has been accused of practising without a license.
Photo: Instagram
Also included in the file are notes and Crouch’s diary in code, in which she appears to have trouble managing the loss of their first baby, and in December 2019 spoke of leaving her husband after a fight whom she loved “even if this relationship is not good for me.” In July 2020, on their daughter’s first-month birthday, she said she had told Anagnostopoulos she wanted to leave and had found a house in Halandri, another Athens suburb. She also noted other arguments, blaming her hormones, and said she had hit him and told him she didn’t want her baby, but next day was feeling better and said she was “not well, I’m depressed, I obviously would never hurt my baby, my love for it is greater than for anything in this world” and again mentioned she was ashamed to tell her husband her hormones affected her so strongly.
Notes included in the file are also of her mother’s testimony, who said she had not noticed particular issues in the couple. She added that between November 2020 and February 2021 the couple had contacted a specialist to handle the miscarriage and the new pregnancy, for their current child, which had complications.
Police said ther is no evidence of other peole being present in the crime scene
Photo: APE-MPE
An Athens prosecutor gave Babis Anagnostopoulos, self-confessed murderer of his young wife at Glyka Nera, until 10:00 on Tuesday to prepare his defense, it was reported on Friday.
Earlier in the day a prosecutor for the execution of judgements in Athens executed an arrest warrant for the 33-year-old husband pilot, who confessed the murder of his wife late on Thursday.
On Friday Anagnostopoulos was charged with the murder of Caroline Crouch, his 20-year-old wife and mother of their 11-month infant, after appearing before a public prosecutor in Athens. He will also face a criminal charge of animal abuse for the killing of the family’s dog and lesser charges for giving false testimony to the police and casting suspicion on others for his actions.
Vassilis Spirou, the pilot’s lawyer, told reporters that his client “said he is shattered by the fact of Caroline’s death.” Spirou added that his client “feels relieved” after confessing his crime.
Anagnostopoulos had originally told police that his wife was murdered by gun-wielding assailants who had broken into the couple’s home. Late on Thursday, he confessed to killing his 20-year-old wife in their house in Glyka Nera after police confronted him with irrefutable evidence and of staging a robbery/murder.
Police briefing
The 33-year-old man told police he staged a robbery that led authorities astray “to be able to stay out of jail with my child,” police said at a briefing on Friday.
Police said that he had confessed to the crime, to staging the death and the robbery and to removing evidence from the surveillance camera.
Anagnostopoulos had told police that robbers broke into their house, tied and gagged him by the feet of the bed where they killed Caroline Crouch, 20, his wife of British descent, by suffocation. Police said they had found their infant on the bed next to its dead mother.
At the briefing, police spokespersons described how he had called them at 6:20 am on May 11 to report a robbery and murder. They said they were “puzzled” by conflicting evidence early in the case, including the fact that there was hardly any evidence of a struggle on him, and that the ties on the husband’s feet and hands appeared to have left very light marks, given the time he said he had remained immobilized. Police were also puzzled by the killing of the dog, which was found hanging off the balustrade.
The police said they turned their full focus on him after being unable to find evidence of other adults having been in the house. Additional evidence also became available that contradicted his claims, including a missing memory chip on the house’s surveillance camera, evidence from Crouch’s smartwatch that monitored her pulse, and evidence from both their mobiles.
