Greece - Caroline Crouch, 20, Murdered, Athens, May 11, 2021

[Alyce]

A British woman has been tortured and murdered in front of her 11-month-old daughter during a horror home invasion in Greece.

Caroline Crouch, 20, was strangled at the home she shared with 33-year-old husband Charalambos 'Babis' Anagnostopoulos in the Glyka Nera suburb of Athens early Tuesday.

Police say three men - some of whom were armed with pistols - broke into the family home around 5am while a fourth stood guard outside.

British woman, 20, strangled to death in front of her 11-month-old daughter in Greece | Daily Mail Online

 

[Alyce]

A young British mother was tortured then strangled in front of her infant daughter after burglars broke into their home in an affluent Athens suburbs and tied her husband to a chair, police said today.

Caroline Crouch, 20, a student who was born in Greece but held a British passport, was in the property’s attic with her 11-month-old baby daughter while her husband slept downstairs when thieves entered at around 5am.

Investigators said that three burglars had entered the property in Glyka Nera by its cellar after breaking a window, while a fourth kept guard outside. They found Crouch’s husband, Greek helicopter pilot and instructor, Charalambos Anagnostopoulos, 33, in the master bedroom.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...s-in-front-of-11-month-old-daughter-mjv0x59zr

 

[Alyce]

Caroline Crouch

 

[Alyce]

Police said the robbery took place at around 4am on Tuesday, when Ms Crouch, who was British-Filipino but born in Greece, was sleeping with her baby

They reportedly pointed a gun at the child while demanding to know where cash and valuables were kept.

They also killed the family’s pet dog and tied Ms Crouch’s husband, Charalambos Anagnostopoulos, 32, a helicopter pilot, to a chair in another room.

The raiders then reportedly strangled Ms Crouch with her own blouse in order to stop her from screaming for help.

According to the husband’s testimony, the three men spoke in broken Greek and managed to steal about €15,000 euros in cash and the couple’s jewellery.


Young British woman 'savagely' murdered in front of baby daughter in Greece

 

[Celbalrai]

This is a really brutal crime; I hope the killers are found soon.
Is it just me who is conscious of the age gap? The man was 29 when they met and Caroline was 16 (they apparently met in 2017; depending on when they met, she may have been 15). Unsure if this might have anything to do with her death OFC.

 

[dotr]

Who are these people, thieving is bad enough but why the extreme cruelty, even to the dog! imo, rbbm.



LBC
Greece offers €300,000 reward for killers who strangled British-born student in front of baby
''The Greek government has offered a €300,000 (about £257,000) reward to try to track down the culprits behind the murder of a British-born student in her suburban Athens home.

The reward was publicised hours after Caroline Crouch, 20, was strangled in front of her baby daughter by armed burglars who had bound her husband, Babis Anagnostopoulos, to a chair after breaking in. The intruders also killed the family’s dog, leaving it hanging from a banister in the house.''

''Crouch is believed to have been tortured for up to an hour as the thieves tried to coerce her into revealing the location of thousands of pounds of cash and jewellery, which they then made off with.''

''The bounty is highly unusual in Greece – according to the broadcaster ERT there have only ever been four previously, in cases of terrorism or to catch hardened criminals.''

 

[Mrs Marple]

What a terrible crime.

Why kill her though when they had what they wanted?

 

[elliefant]

I wonder why he was left relatively unscathed? He would know the location of valuables as well as she did. It seems odd to me that they would torture and kill her (and even the dog) but “only” tie him to a chair.
Disclaimer: have only read the posts so far, not the linked articles

 

[dotr]

I wonder why he was left relatively unscathed? He would know the location of valuables as well as she did. It seems odd to me that they would torture and kill her (and even the dog) but “only” tie him to a chair.
Disclaimer: have only read the posts so far, not the linked articles

You just wrote what i was writing at the same time, almost word for word, erased before posted and started again with this one!
Wondered if the robbery was not just for gain, but also as an excuse to subject the young attractive wife to excessive cruelty (jealousy/competition?)
imo, speculation.

 

[elliefant]

I’m sorry to say I was also wondering if it was something closer to home Hopefully not

 

[RosalindaA]

I have to agree with all my fellow "cynics" here. At first glance, this seems an unusual scenario, the number of armed assailants seems more appropriate to a bank robbery than a domestic burglary. Very sadistic treatment of this young mother and the dog but husband just tied up and tied up so incompetently that he managed to get free. Either these intruders are psychopathic robbers or this type of crime seems suggestive of lurid staging (hanging the dog?) designed to elicit maximum sympathy for the surviving victims.
Perhaps there is CCTV of the intruders or some evidence independent of the husband's testimony?
And Caroline was tortured for up to an hour, I would have thought any woman with her baby present at risk would just give up the valuables straight away.

 

[AzPistonsGirl]

so sad that we are all thinking the same thing...

And the dog... =(

 

[Legally Bland]

There's a €300k reward.

"By today's Joint Ministerial Decision of the Minister of Citizen Protection, Michalis Chrysochoidis and the Deputy Minister of Finance, Theodoros Skylakakis, a monetary reward of three hundred thousand (300,000 €) euros was announced, to anyone who provides data and information of the ongoing investigations, in the arrest of the perpetrators of robbery after murder against a 20-year-old woman, committed today, Tuesday, May 11, inside her home in Glyka Nera, Attica.

https://www.star.gr/eidiseis/ellada/542754/glyka-nera-epikhryxan-toys-drastes-toy-egklhmatos

(Google translate)

ETA: Sorry @dotr didn't see you'd already posted about the reward.

 

[WanderingJenn]

I wonder why he was left relatively unscathed? He would know the location of valuables as well as she did. It seems odd to me that they would torture and kill her (and even the dog) but “only” tie him to a chair.
Disclaimer: have only read the posts so far, not the linked articles

My first thought also. Why kill her and leave him????
RIP Caroline

 

[Alyce]

Crouch is believed to have been tortured for up to an hour as the thieves tried to coerce her into revealing the location of thousands of pounds of cash and jewellery, which they then made off with. They are believed to have taken €15,000 hidden in a board game.

Greek media reported that Anagnostopoulos, a helicopter pilot, 32, had been forced to listen as his wife cried for help, before he managed to set himself free and alert authorities.

The raid took place at about 4.30am when three masked men broke into the house while another stood outside guarding the building. “I saw them suddenly in front of me,” the news portal, Newsit, quoted Anagnostopoulos as telling police. “Sometimes they pointed the guns in their hands at me and at others the baby … They kept saying: where’s the money? Immediately I told them where I had hidden it.


Greece offers €300,000 reward for killers who strangled British-born student in front of baby

 

[WanderingJenn]

And Caroline was tortured for up to an hour, I would have thought any woman with her baby present at risk would just give up the valuables straight away.

EXCELLENT POINT!! Take the husband even!! Just leave me and my baby!!

 

[bluebird69]

Strange that the husband was in the master bedroom and Caroline and her baby were in an attic room, presumably asleep.
I am also confused as to why she was likely to scream hence being silenced, while the husband was not. This is extremely odd, why leave a witness to murder while killing the dog!!

 

[AzPistonsGirl]

… They kept saying: where’s the money? Immediately I told them where I had hidden it.
Greece offers €300,000 reward for killers who strangled British-born student in front of baby

If he immediately told them, then why torture and kill?... Rhetorical question.

 

[WanderingJenn]

If he immediately told them, then why torture and kill?... Rhetorical question.

As they say, you don't have to have a good memory when you tell the truth....

 

[dotr]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14926916/brit-mum-murdered-athens-greece-last-clip/
rbbm.
''Local site Proto Thema reports that the distraught husband told police about the moment he was attacked by the three men.

He said: "It was shortly after five. I saw three hooded men. One was tall. They shouted and threatened in broken Greek.

"They tied me to a chair and then went on my wife."

The same report quotes the pilot as telling police he was sleeping downstairs during the break-in

“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,” he reportedly told cops.

Charalambos called the police around 6am.

The Greek government has issued a £258,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the men, reports The Dawn.

Police said it appears that the robbers were experienced and likely watched the couple for some time before the raid.


The gangsters reportedly broke into the home through a window in the basement before killing the family dog in the first floor of the property.


When they fled the home, they left the dead hound hanging a fence outside the house.''