I found out my pal Caroline Crouch’s husband killed her in worst way & heard dog cry as he hanged it to cover up murder
IT was a case that shocked the world.
A beautiful young mum found dead in her home, her baby girl next to her lifeless body, her husband gagged and blindfolded and their family puppy hanging lifeless from the staircase.
For weeks, Babis Anagnostopoulos played the grieving husband before confessing to suffocating 19-year-old Brit Caroline Crouch to death.
Now, for the first time, Caroline’s best friend and neighbour - who witnessed the immediate aftermath unfold in their plush area of Athens, Greece - speaks about that horrific day.
Lila - who did not wish to give her surname - says: “Caroline was an angel. I consider the people who hadn’t met her unlucky. She was always smiling.”
At 4.20am on May 11th last year, Lila was woken by Caroline’s puppy Roxy “crying.”
What Lila didn’t know was that was around the time Anagnostopoulos smothered Caroline in her bed.
For the next two hours, he ransacked their home to stage a robbery, taped his eyes and gagged himself before calling the emergency services, later claiming he had dialled the number with his nose.
He then phoned Lila.
In a new Channel 5 documentary, Caroline: The Murder That Fooled The World, Lila recalls: "The morning of May 11th is something I will never be able to get over.
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“At 4.20am, I was forcibly awakened by a noise that I heard and that noise was crying and it was Roxy crying.
“At 6.17am, I received a call on my cellphone. I heard Babis speaking. It was as if he was calling for help but I couldn’t understand what he was saying.”
Lila jumped out of bed, woke her husband and hung up on Anagnostopoulos “in a panic.”
She says: “I called him back, he answered and I heard him shouting. I got out of my house and at that point, I saw police turning into our street.”
In the programme, Lila does not detail how she discovered her British friend had been killed, but says: “I learnt in such an ugly way that Caroline was no longer alive. I lost the ground under my feet and got outside in a panic.”
She then saw Anagnostopoulos leaving the family's three-storey maisonette and watched the couple’s baby being carried away by a police officer.
Grieving husband
For 37 days, Anagnostopoulos pleaded for the three assailants to be caught.
At Caroline's funeral on the island of Alonissos, where she grew up with her Filipino mum, Susan, and British dad David, he bowed his head and clutched onto Lydia.
In the following weeks, Anagnostopoulos regularly updated reporters outside his home and posted messages of thanks to well-wishers on social media.
But retired Greek police brigadier Thanasis Katerinopoulos says the dashing helicopter pilot’s behaviour rang alarm bells from the start.
He says: “Babis's body language had indicated his guilt from the very first day.
“When he had been holding his baby in his arms and wouldn’t let her go, wouldn’t let anyone hold her.
“The day after the funeral he was giving statements to reporters outside his home.”
'Like a celebrity'
Caroline had lived on Alonissos since she was two years old. A popular girl, she loved scuba diving, swimming and kickboxing.
Journalist Pavlos Kapantais says: “A young woman like Caroline was kind of like a celebrity. Everybody on the island agrees. She was always smiling and very charismatic and kind with everyone.”
She met Anagnostopoulos in 2017 at a Good Friday parade on the island, when she was just 15 and he was 28.
His mother taught at Caroline’s school and, according to Pavlos, “everyone accepted” his relationship with Caroline, despite the age gap.
Just 17 months later, Anagnostopoulos proposed to then 17-year-old Caroline and they married three days after she turned 18 - not with a big traditional Greek wedding, but while on holiday on Portugal’s Algarve.
I remember meeting Caroline for the first time as if it was yesterday. With a few words, I understood we were going to be friends - she was an angel
Lila, Caroline's neighbour
When the couple moved into the plush Glyka Nera suburb of Athens in 2019, Caroline and Lila immediately struck up a friendship.
Lila says: “I remember meeting Caroline for the first time as if it was yesterday. With a few words, I understood we were going to be friends and come close to each other.”
They bonded through their shared love of baking and cats.
Lila says: “She was an angel. Her husband was kind, staid, a little more private in comparison to Caroline.”
Cracks in marriage
Social media posts painted the picture of an enviable and happy life, and even those closest to the couple assumed everything was fine.
Caroline’s family had given the couple 50,000 Euros to build their dream home and, five days before Caroline’s death, they purchased a plot of land east of Athens.
Lila says: “She was happy in her marriage. She was a girl who had dreams. We talked about the new house she was going to build. Her dreams. The dreams she had for Lydia.”
But behind closed doors, cracks had begun to show early on in their marriage.
She was happy in her marriage. She had dreams. We talked about the new house she was going to build. The dreams she had for her daughter
Lila, Caroline's neighbour
In her diary, Caroline wrote, at 18, that she wanted a baby but couldn’t tell Anagnostopoulos because they had argued.
Professor Elizabeth Yardley, a criminologist, says of the diary entry: “Caroline is already placing limitations on the things she says to Anagnostopoulos.
“She doesn’t want to irritate him, she doesn’t want to set him off. This does suggest to me that all is not well.”
In another entry, from July 5, 2020, Caroline wrote: “After quite a few tears and a lot of shouting, I told him that before I fell pregnant I’d been thinking of leaving him, but then after I became pregnant I stayed with him so our daughter would not grow up without her two parents.”
It was also discovered that the couple spent three months in therapy, separately seeing the same counsellor, after miscarrying their first baby.
Clues that nailed the killer
Anagnostopoulos claimed there were three intruders on the night of Caroline’s murder who tied him up and demanded Caroline tell them where their money was hidden.
He claimed they killed Caroline after she tried to attack them.
On his insistence that the intruders were “foreign”, a Georgian man with a history of burglary was arrested, but there was no forensic evidence to link him to the crime.
Indeed, it was unusual that Caroline’s body bore no scratches or scrapes, and no one else’s DNA was found under her fingernails, where it would usually be found in the event of a struggle.
The evidence didn’t add up.
How could three men fit through a small window without any forced entry?
Why had a memory card for the CCTV cameras which covered their home been taken out hours earlier?
How had Anagnostopoulos managed to dial the emergency services with his nose?
Together with data on Anagnostopoulos’ phone, showing him moving around the house when he claimed to be tied up, everything pointed to one suspect.
On the day of Caroline’s memorial, on June 17th, police asked Anagnostopoulos to come to the headquarters in Athens as they knew who had killed his wife.
There, they presented their findings and, after an eight-hour interrogation, Anagnostopoulos confessed.
Reviled
Greek journalist Nektaria Stamouli says: “Half of the Greek society was shocked. Half said, ‘I knew it.’”
Pavlos Kapantais adds: “This guy is probably the most reviled man in Greece.”
Anagnostopoulos has said he "lost his temper" when Caroline threatened to leave him.
I can’t believe the man I knew was able to do such a horrendous thing. I love her and I really miss her
Lila, Caroline's neighbour
He has admitted he is responsible for her death but denies murder. He is in prison awaiting trial.
Pre-trial documents released in November showed Caroline had been asleep for two-and-a-half hours before she was suffocated to death.
For Lila, the news that her neighbour had murdered her friend is something she can’t comprehend.
She says: “I can’t believe the man I knew was able to do such a horrendous thing.”
Lila, no doubt like so many people who knew Caroline, is still grieving.
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She says: “I love her and I’m not referring to the past because she’s still in my thoughts. I really miss her.”
Caroline: The Murder That Fooled the World airs on Thursday 17th February on Channel 5 at 9pm.
How you can get help
Women's Aid has this advice for victims and their families:
- Always keep your phone nearby.
- Get in touch with charities for help, including the Women’s Aid live chat helpline and services such as SupportLine.
- If you are in danger, call 999.
- Familiarise yourself with the Silent Solution, reporting abuse without speaking down the phone, instead dialing “55”.
- Always keep some money on you, including change for a pay phone or bus fare.
- If you suspect your partner is about to attack you, try to go to a lower-risk area of the house – for example, where there is a way out and access to a telephone.
- Avoid the kitchen and garage, where there are likely to be knives or other weapons. Avoid rooms where you might become trapped, such as the bathroom, or where you might be shut into a cupboard or other small space.
If you are a victim of domestic abuse, SupportLine is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 8pm on 01708 765200. The charity’s email support service is open weekdays and weekends during the crisis – [email protected].
Women’s Aid provides a - available weekdays from 8am-6pm and weekends 10am-6pm.
You can also call the freephone 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.