British mum, 20, tortured and killed in front of 11-month-old daughter
11 May 2021, 19:00 | Updated: 11 May 2021, 20:24
A British mother has been tortured and murdered in front of her 11-month-old daughter during a "barbaric" home invasion in Greece.
Caroline Crouch, 20, was strangled at her family home in an affluent Athens suburb after her husband Charalambos Anagnostopoulos, 33, was tied up by burglars.
It is believed three armed men broke into their house at around 5am on Tuesday while another stood on guard outside.
The group then began torturing Ms Crouch to reveal the location of their valuables before strangling the 20-year-old to death in front of her baby daughter.
As they left, they killed the couple's dog and hung it on the front fence of their three-story home before fleeing with tens of thousands of pounds in cash and stolen goods.
Police are hunting for the killers and the Greek government has issued a €300,000 (£258,000) reward for information about the group.
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Mr Anagnostopoulos - a helicopter pilot - later managed to access a phone and called the emergency services, who arrived shortly after.
Greek media outlet Proto Thema named the couple and reported the husband as telling police: "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."
Theodoros Chronopoulos, a spokesman for Greek police, described the attack as a "heinous crime, committed with extreme ferocity".
He added: "Such barbarism is rare for Greece."
Ms Crouch, a student who was born in Greece but held a British passport, was in the attic with her daughter at the time of the raid and her husband was sleeping downstairs.
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The three burglars entered the property by its cellar after smashing a window, then tied Mr Anagnostopoulos to a chair as he tried to fight them off.
After killing the 20-year-old mother, her husband reportedly rushed upstairs to find the woman lying on the floor face down with the baby crying next to her.
A senior police investigator told The Times: “The woman appears to have been strangled by the robbers in their bid to locate jewellery and cash the couple may have had in their home.
"We are waiting for the coroner’s report to establish if there was any other type of assault.”
Officers said they were investigating at the crime scene and interviewing locals to track down the group.
Mr Anagnostopoulos and the daughter were later taken to hospital.
