Suspect held over strangling of British mum
A SUSPECT in the murder of a young British mother in a burglary in Athens was arrested yesterday.
Caroline Crouch, 20, was strangled in front of her 11-monthold daughter Lydia. The gang held a gun to the baby’s head.
The suspect, a Georgian man, was seized in a car heading for the Bulgarian border with Greece.
He was arrested during a routine check and found to be using a fake passport. He has been linked by DNA to another violent burglary near to where Caroline was killed.
Her husband, UK-trained Greek pilot Babis Anagnostopolous, 33, was bound and gagged in the raid.
He dialled for help on a phone by using his nose. Their pet dog was hanged with its lead.
Babis said later: “We begged the thieves not to harm us.We told them where our money was.” Officers have linked the murder to 12 violent break-ins around Athens. They believe Caroline, a black belt kickboxer, was killed because she fought back and may have seen an attacker’s face when his balaclava slipped.
Babis is also understood to have got a glimpse of one of the raiders. Today police are expected to show him mugshots of 30 suspects.
One line of inquiry is that the robberies have been carried out by an Albanian crime gang which may have included other nationalities. They escaped with £20,000 of jewellery and £10,000 in banknotes hidden in a Monopoly box which the family had got out to pay builders.
Caroline grew up on the island of Alonissos, across the water from Skopelos, the setting for the movie Mamma Mia!
Her British father David, 78, had worked in the Armed Forces and the oil industry, but he fell in love with the island and built a villa there.