Mother tortured and murdered in front of her baby
Briton, 20, strangled in raid at Greek home
A BRITISH mum aged just 20 was tortured and murdered in front of her baby daughter yesterday by armed robbers in Greece.
Caroline Crouch was strangled to death while her husband, Charalambos ‘Babis’ Anagnostopoulos, was tied to a chair at their home in an affluent Athens suburb.
The hooded thugs are even said to have turned a gun on the couple’s 11-month old daughter as they demanded the couple’s valuables.
They then stole cash and jewellery worth £30,000 during the raid in the early hours.
Last night, Mr Anagnostopoulos, a 33-year-old helicopter flight instructor, said: ‘I wish no one ever goes through what we went to though last night. It was a nightmare.
‘We begged the thieves not to harm us. We told them where the money was and asked them to leave us alone. The police will catch them.’
Miss Crouch, a university student with a British father and a Filipina mother, was born in
‘Her husband was tied to a chair’
Greece but held a British passport. Detectives claimed her murder was one of the ‘most heinous’ they had investigated.
They said three men armed with pistols broke in through a downstairs window at around 5am, while a fourth stood guard outside.
The thugs tied Mr Anagnostopoulos up when he fought them and found Miss Crouch, who enjoyed kick-boxing, in the attic with her baby.
They tortured her for an hour to get her to hand over valuables, and strangled her when she began screaming for help.
After they fled with around £10,000 in cash and jewellery worth £20,500, Mr Anagnostopoulos dragged himself to a phone to call the police.
He is said to have told police: ‘They shouted and threatened in broken Greek... asking repeatedly, “Where is the money?”. I told them where the money was to get the torture over with. We had bought a piece of land and I had the money at home to pay for some works.
‘When I managed to break free, I rushed upstairs to the attic to find my wife on the floor facing down, and the baby next to her wailing.’
The robbers killed their dog and left it hanging outside the house in Glyka Nera, police revealed.
Neighbour Ilias Andreikos said: ‘They were quiet. She had been here around a year.’
Police have offered a £258,000 reward. A spokesman said ‘extreme ferocity’ was used in the attack, adding: ‘Such barbarism is rare for Greece.’ Miss Crouch, a student at the University of Piraeus, grew up on the isle of Alonnisos, where she met Mr Anagnostopoulos. They wed in July 2019 and their child was born in June last year. Her father, David Crouch, 78, was born in Liverpool but retired to Alonnisos after a career in the Armed Forces and the oil industry.
Her mother Susan, who runs a cleaning firm on the island, is said to have heard about her daughter’s murder from the news.
Dimitris Skianis, deputy mayor of Alonissos, said: ‘Everyone knew the girl on the island. She was a brilliant girl, a diamond.’