Brazen burglars who tortured a mum to death in her Athens home may have known she had £10,000 in cash there, investigators have claimed.
A hooded gang of three intruders ransacked the home of Caroline Crouch and Charalambos Babis Anagnostopoulos in an affluent Athens suburb while a fourth stood watch outside.
Helicopter pilot Charalambos, 32, was tied up in another room as his wife was murdered with “extreme ferocity”, according to police.
The husband reportedly told officers he heard the murderers say to his 20-year-old wife: “Tell us where the money is – we will kill the baby.”
Student Caroline’s body was found next to her crying baby at the four-storey home in wealthy Glyka Nera, near Athens airport.
(Image: ᴄᴀʀᴏʟɪɴᴇ ᴄʀᴏᴜᴄʜ/Instagram)
The gang took £20,000 of jewellery and about £10,000 in bank notes that Mr Anagnostopoulos had reportedly withdrawn to pay for building work.
The Mail reports that detectives were now investigating whether the robbers had had a tip-off about the money.
A police source said: “That is certainly a very important line of inquiry.”
They added it was “one of the most heinous” crimes they had ever seen.
Mr Anagnostopoulos was said to have revealed the location of the cash, inside Monopoly box, while being threatened by the robbers who spoke in ‘broken Greek.’
Detectives are also said to have drawn up a ‘red list’ of violent criminals who are being investigated for links to the shocking crime.
It comes after it emerged the husband of the slain mum said he begged the gang not to hurt them or their baby.
Distraught Mr Anagnostopoulos told investigators they pleaded with the burglars.
He said his wife was screaming for help as their baby cried.
(Image: John Liakos/Intime News/Athena Pictures)
“We begged them not to hurt us,” he told police, according to The Sun.
“They kept telling me ‘where is the money, eh?’ I told them right away where I had hidden the money, so that the torment could end quickly.
“I heard my wife constantly screaming for help tied to the bed as I was tied up. The baby was crying, my wife was crying.”
A £260,000 reward for information has been announced by the Greek Government.
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The minister responsible for public order, Michalis Chrisochoidis, described the killing as “particularly heinous”.
He added: “One rarely encounters such barbarity in Greece, in Greek society, even among criminals.”
Two teams of detectives have been set up to handle the investigation, he said.