Caroline Crouch Was Killed In Her Sleep By Scheming Husband, Smartwatch Information Reveals, As Family Consider Taking Down Wedding Photo On Her Grave
Caroline Crouch was smothered to death in her sleep, new smartwatch information has revealed, contradicting claims by her husband that he throttled her at some point of a fight.
A coroner revealed the 20-year-old Briton was asleep at 4.05am on May 11 before a unexpected burst of activity was recorded on the watch.
That is the moment that husband Babis Anagnostopoulos started suffocating her, according to new testimony launched by police in which he speaks about laying down next to her in bed before 'pressing the front of her face... to the pillow.'
Meanwhile an aged neighbour revealed that the family is thinking about changing Caroline's gravestone due to the fact it presently features a picture of her on her wedding day along with the inscription: 'Our beloved mother, wife and daughter.'
Speaking at Miss Crouch's grave on a hill overlooking the glowing Aegean Sea, one aged neighbour sobbed and pointed to the cruel irony of the inscription.
She said: 'He did not love his wife. This stone will have to be changed.'
Further details have emerged of Anagnostopoulos's account to police of the night Miss Crouch, 20, was suffocated in front of the couple's baby daughter Lydia.
Anagnostopoulos had claimed to detectives as part of his housebreaking fiction that masked raiders had been after £10,000 in cash hidden in the residence that was due to pay for constructing work on a plot of land the couple had bought.
However, police now say there was in no way any money in the residence - the detail had clearly been invented via Anagnostopoulos to give a motive for the robbery.
Police additionally revealed harrowing diary entries written via Miss Crouch about the bitter fights between the pair, who lived a seemingly idyllic life in a rich Athens suburb.
When pregnant, in December 2019, she wrote: 'I fought with Babi again. This time it was serious. I hit him, I cursed at him and he broke down the door... I am thinking of leaving.'
Initially, Anagnostopoulos, 33, cynically staged a robbery – even strangling the family dog – before leading detectives on a merry dance and playing the tearful widower for 5 weeks, weeping at her funeral and hugging her grieving mom Susan.
He in the end confessed last week after police nailed him with data from her fitness tracker which recorded that her pulse had stopped an hour before he claimed robbers had burst in.
Having first claimed the couple had a blazing row and that 'she pushed me and punched me... she threw the child inside the crib', Anagnostopoulos now admits she was 'sleeping... with her face resting on the pillow', according to an extract of his police interview made public yesterday.
Anagnostopoulos confessed: 'I laid down next to her, making an attempt to tell her that what she did to Lydia was very bad. I pressed the front of her face, that is, her mouth, nose and eyes, to the pillow.
'I think I was pressing her head with the weight of my body. While I was pushing her I told her two or three times: 'You will not hit the little one again'.
'This must have lasted for about 5 minutes, till I realised that Caroline had stopped moving. Then I panicked.'
The coroner stated former schoolteacher Miss Crouch's pulse data showed her asleep till 4.05am, on May 11, when her tracker abruptly recorded a sharp burst of heart activity.
A struggle went on for six minutes, till her heart flatlined at 4.11am.
Hours earlier, Anagnostopoulos had removed the memory cards from security cameras.
Anagnostopoulos has begged that his daughter grow up 'in the family', telling his lawyer Alexandros Papaioannidis: 'I am devastated and everything I did, I did with my baby in mind.'
Tomorrow in Athens, he faces another court hearing, following an preliminary appearance last Friday.
His lawyer said: 'He will speak the fact to the court, without hiding anything. Unfortunately, his life was ruined.'