THIRD UPDATE: Love Letters to the "Murder, He Wrote" Husband

 

Jeff–Saturday

 

I had planned to be back on Mykonos by now, posting photos showing preparations for the onslaught of summer.  But a horrid stomach bug sidelined my plans and delayed my departure until next week.  That left me to search for a topic to discuss.  I found it in a newspaper article prominently featured in Greek and UK newspapers.  

 

It’s the latest development in a story I first covered twenty-three months ago reporting on a murder so horrendous that it shook the Greek people to the core. [See, Murder, He Wrote for an extensive description of events.] So much so, that Greek National TV interrupted coverage of the Euro football championships to broadcast details of the confession.

 

It involved a 20-year-old British-Greek wife and mother, Caroline Crouch, murdered on May 11, 2021 in the presence of her pilot/flight instructor husband, Babis Anagnostopoulos, and 11-month-old baby.  The original story, as told by the husband, placed the blame on a band of brutal home invasion thieves claimed to have entered their suburban Athens home at random.  He accused them of being Eastern European foreigners—so ruthless that they also strangled the couple’s dog.  The crime spread fear across the nation over the potential risk to each family’s safety in its own home.

 

On June 16, 2021, after eight hours of police questioning, Husband confessed to the murder, claiming his wife told him that she was planning to leave him and take their baby with her before he “blurred” and killed her. In other words, a crime of passion, not premeditated.

Thirteen months ago, I updated that original post [See, UPDATE: Murder, He Wrote], describing in detail a new twist asserted by Husband on the verge of trial.  He now claimed to have acted “in a fit of rage” over Caroline’s “mistreatment” of their baby daughter and that he’d acted to protect the baby. As the press reported at the time, Husband was desperate to avoid the life sentence and minimum twenty-year imprisonment imposed for premeditated murder. Not to mention an additional likely ten-year sentence for killing their dog.

Seven months ago, I reported that a mixed court of jurors and judges didn’t buy it, and unanimously found husband guilty of the premeditated murder of his wife and strangulation of their dog. [See, SECOND UPDATE, Murder, He Wrote]

 

On June 16, 2022, the court sentenced Husband to the toughest penalty possible under Greek law: a life sentence for the premeditated murder of his wife, a jail term of 11 years and six months for the brutal killing of the family’s pet dog, and a fine of €21,000.

 

Not surprisingly, Husband appealed the sentence and is attempting to paint himself as a model prisoner, dedicated to helping his fellow inmates, and having personally intervened to end dangerous interactions among inmates.

 

At the time I wrote, “Why do I sense this story is not over?”

 

It isn’t.

 

Headlines in Greek and UK papers report Husband is receiving “bags of love letters” from Greek women. Here are excerpts on that story as reported in Greek City Times.

Prison officers are having to sort "bags" of letters for Babis at the high-security jail in Malandrino.

“We read, as is protocol, all the mail and have been left astounded,” one guard speaking on condition of anonymity told The Sun Online.

“They are written by women, Greek women, who say they are in love with him.

"They believe he is innocent, that Crouch’s murder wasn’t premeditated and everything happened in the heat of the moment.”

It came as Anagnostopoulos was brought to the appeal court today [April 24, 2023] in handcuffs as he tried to get his sentence reduced - before the case was adjourned.

He is attempting to argue there were "mitigating circumstances" around the brutal murder.

His lawyer, Alexandros Papaioannidis, has previously argued his client is a “model prisoner” who “reads a lot and works in the prison canteen” and should not be punished for a crime “that was never premeditated."

….

The appeals hearing which is expected to last months, was unexpectedly cut short on Monday.

Anagnostopoulos told the court that Papaioannidis, his lawyer, couldn’t represent him because he had been “taken ill and is in hospital.”

The trial was adjourned until May 8.

That’s on Monday.  Stay tuned.

 

––Jeff