TECH, COP INSTINCTS UNRAVEL PILOT’S TALE THAT BURGLARS SLEW HIS WIFE, A FIL-BRIT CHILD

THE death of a young British woman of Filipino ancestry on a Greek island has shocked Greeks and Filipinos alike after police cracked the supposed burglary-homicide case and nabbed the husband who confessed to the brutal murder.

Babis Anagnostopoulos, 32, confessed to murdering his wife, Caroline Crouch, 20, after an eight-hour grueling investigation, according to the BBC.

The “gut feel” of veteran police investigators, combined with the help of the latest technology, helped pin down Babis, who faces a life sentence if convicted.

When police arrived at the couple’s residence, they found Caroline strangled, her lifeless body next to her crying 11-month-old daughter in an upscale Athens suburb.

The police found Babis handcuffed to the floor near Caroline, with duct tape over his eyes and mouth.

Speaking to reporters on May 14, Babis said that he had discovered his wife had been murdered when police officers removed the tape covering his eyes.

His hands supposedly wriggled free enough to be able to call the police on his mobile phone at dawn of May 11.

He initially told police that a gang of Albanian criminals had broken into their home in Glyka nera on May 11.

According to accounts, Babis told reporters that he “begged” the criminals not to hurt his wife and child after they threatened to kill the infant if they did not hand over the money.

He said he ended up giving them €15,000 (£13,000; $18,000).

Cops’ instinct

HOWEVER, police probers were intrigued by the orderliness of the room, as burglary and murder is usually marked by struggle, resulting in a topsyturvy crime scene.

Following a month-long investigation, police said Babis’s story did not add up. They found no trace of the gang he claimed had tied him up, suffocated his wife and stolen cash.

George Kalliakmanis, president of police in Attica, was quoted in a report by the Mail online as saying officers had compared Babis to a “Greek Oscar Pistorius”—the South African athlete convicted of shooting dead girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at their home in 2013, despite proclaiming his innocence.

On June 17, Babis confessed to policemen who picked him up after a memorial service for Caroline. He said he killed his wife after she threatened to leave him.

At the homicide department of Athens’s police headquarters, he told police he handcuffed himself and placed duct tape on his eyes and mouth to simulate a burglary.

“The culprit is her 33-year-old husband who has confessed to the act,” the authorities said in a statement released on June 17. They described Babis as a “top class actor” who staged the elaborate crime scene “and keeping up with the sick charade as the grieving widower for over a month,” according to the Mail.

The helicopter pilot attempted to add “details” to the crime scene— drowning the family dog and hanging it from a stairs banister to pin the blame on the burglars.

Technology seals pilot’s fate

BESIDES the veteran cops’ instinct, 21st century technology helped police connect the dots.

The BBC report said police examined Caroline’s smartwatch with pulse monitor, and reckoned that she had long been dead at the time her husband said she was killed by burglars.

Police were also quoted saying, “An app on the pilot’s phone designed to count his steps revealed repeated movements from the attic to the basement of the home at the time he claimed to be tied and blindfolded.” Caroline’s biometric watch showed her heart had stopped beating hours before the time Babis claimed she must have been murdered.

“It has emerged that the brave Brit fought her husband for 10 minutes before her pulse stopped,” the Mail said.

Babis’s timeline of events was further discredited when police discovered the memory card in the security camera of the couple’s maisonette—a two-story flat with its own entrance door—had been removed at 1:20 a.m.

Cops travelled to the island of Alonnisos where a memorial service for Caroline took place on June 17 and told Babis to follow them, as there had been a breakthrough in the inquiry and they wanted to identify a suspect.

Babis—in a show of utter innocence—hugged and said goodbye to his grieving mother-in-law, Susan dela Cuesta, then went with the police on a helicopter to Athens, where he was told that he was the suspect.

“He confessed after eight hours of questioning,” the police said.

He told police they had often argued in recent months.

On June 17, Babis said he strangled his 20-year-old wife when she vowed to leave him, and staged the crime scene.

Babis remains in custody at Hellenic Police Attica Headquarters. Pinay mom, Brit father CAROLINE’S parents had moved to the Greek island of Alonissos when Caroline was just 8 years old, and she enrolled at the University of Piraeus. Her mother, of Filipino ancestry, had married a former British serviceman, and they ran a cleaning service on the island.

On May 17, Susan commented on social media on her daughter’s death: “There are no words that can express my pain,” she said.

“So many people have spoken about Caroline and what a lovely person she was.