I BEGGED KILLERS NOT TO HURT WIFE
Gang ‘held gun to baby’s head’
BY
THE husband of the British woman tortured and killed during a burglary has told how he begged the armed gang not to hurt his family.
Charalambos Anagnostopoulos, 32, said he pleaded with the men as they held a gun to his baby daughter’s temple.
The helicopter pilot was asleep at his home on Tuesday, as were wife Caroline Crouch, 20, and their 11-month-old girl when thieves broke in at about 5am.
ATTACKERS
The dad, known as Babis, said the masked attackers tied him and Caroline up before demanding “Where’s the money?” in broken Greek.
He is said to have told police: “I heard my wife screaming for help, tied to the bed. We screamed not to be hurt.
“The baby was crying, my wife was crying and someone or some people were searching the house to find more money and jewellery. Suddenly they left the room and I couldn’t hear my wife’s voice any more.”
Speaking to Greek TV outside the home, Babis added:
“I wish no one ever goes through what we went through 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.”
He said they had thousands in cash to pay some builders and he revealed his hiding spot quickly. They took £13,000 and the same in jewellery. But, a Greek newspaper reported, the thieves tortured Caroline for an hour, demanded more money and jewellery, then pointed a gun at the baby’s head before strangling her with a pair of trousers. Police said she was murdered with “extreme ferocity”.
A postmortem yesterday listed suffocation as the cause of death. Their dog was also strangled. Babis managed to alert police by struggling to a phone and dialling their number with his nose. Officers described the crime as the “most heinous” they have ever investigated. A €250,000 reward for information has been offered.