How ‘Fitbit killer’ who murdered wife & dog while baby was sleeping was caught when exercise tracker exposed fake alibi

EVERYONE thought they were the perfect couple. She was young and beautiful and newly married to the dashing helicopter pilot who had swept her off her feet. Some likened their whirlwind romance to a Disney fairytale, as Charalambos “Babis” Anagnostopoulos charmed her away from her family home on the charming and picturesque Greek island of Alonnisos, to an expensive house in an upmarket area of Athens where 20-year-old Caroline gave birth to their daughter, Lydia. Charalambos “Babis” Anagnostopoulos and Caroline Crouch seemed like the perfect couple at first Credit: Handout Caroline soon realised her husband had a dark side Charalambos But beneath the veneer of their idyllic lifestyle, she soon resented her husband’s controlling behaviour and kept a secret diary about how unhappy she was and wanted to leave. Tragically, Lydia was less than a year-old when Babis murdered Caroline Crouch at their home, staging it as a violent robbery. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! Callously, he placed their 11-month-old child on her mother’s body, hanged the family dog from the staircase and then tied himself up before calling police. The cold brutality of the murder shocked everyone and made headlines in Greece and Britain, as Caroline, although born in Athens, was a British citizen whose engineer father, David had moved to Alonnisos from Liverpool with his wife Susan, who is from Filipino descent. Caroline first met Babis when she was just 15 and he was 27 Credit: Handout Roxy – the dog owned by Caroline Crouch was also killed by Anagnostopoulos Babis appeared heartbroken immediately after the tragedy but secretly he thought he had got away with the perfect murder. In a new TV documentary, The Fitbit Killer, Greek detectives explain in detail how the one thing he hadn’t bargained for, was to prove his undoing – Caroline’s smartphone and his own fitness tracking app. And Caroline’s father, David, tells of his anguish of losing his beloved daughter and how news of her death was like “a cold hand that gripped my heart.” Caroline had first met Babis when she was just 15 and he was 27. His family had a holiday house on Alonnisos. Although their age difference raised eyebrows, locally, he was an intelligent, good-looking pilot, quietly spoken and well-mannered. Most read in The Sun The couple’s relationship initially raised eyebrows due to their large age gap Credit: Handout Caroline gave birth to a baby girl, Lydia, within a year of the couple’s wedding Credit: Handout On a trip to Portugal, just after her 18th birthday, the couple got married, with only the photographer as a witness. “The very fact that they got married in Portugal, without telling anyone, is the first instance of him showing his controlling influence,” says David, who prefers not to be shown, when interviewed. “It should have been a red flag, really. It should have alerted me that something was wrong.” After moving to Athens, they had their baby, Lydia, within a year and all seemed to be going well. Nobody suspected anything untoward but in Alonnisos she had an active social life. Now, she found herself alone in the house with a baby. And he had quickly exerted his control. Once she had arranged to meet a friend at a café for coffee. Babis insisted that she take the taxi driven by his friend. When Babis later unexpectedly turned up at the café, she was irritated but she kept her growing anxiety to herself. “In all her emails and phone calls, she never gave us an indication of the life she was living,” says David. “It was only after she died, that I found out. She led a terrible life with him. Caroline was found dead at the couple’s home in Athens in 2021 Credit: Rex Babis appeared heartbroken immediately after the tragedy but secretly he thought he had got away with the perfect murder Credit: Enterprise “After she got married, I continued paying her $750 (£556) a month so that she wouldn’t be dependent on him for pocket money. And he took all that off her. She was never free to do anything on her own.” At 6.13am on 11 May, 2021, Babis made a gargled phone call to police asking for help and giving his address in Glyka Nera. When they arrived, they found things strewn across the floor. Upstairs in the bedroom, Babis was tied up and gagged on the floor, Caroline lay face-down on the bed, lifeless, with Lydia on top of her. The family dog was found hanging from the staircase. In his police statement, Babis told police that he had woken up around 4:30am, when three-armed intruders, entered his bedroom. “I told them, ‘In the living room there is 10,000 euros in cash. Please, don’t hurt us,’” he said. “They were shouting and threatening in broken Greek. After tying me, they went up to my wife and turned her head towards the mattress. As soon as I started to react, one of the men stuck his gun to the right side of my neck. Because my mouth was tied up, I completely lost consciousness.” Caroline had been suffocated. News of the appalling incident and the seemingly unnecessary brutality from the robbers, hit the headlines. Back on Alonnisos, Caroline’s family friend, Nikos Anagnostou, heard an early report about it and, fearing it was Caroline and Babis, he went over to David and Susan’s house to ask if they had heard and to offer his support. They were unaware that anything had happened. After trying to phone the pair and getting no reply, Babis called Susan, who locals call Susanna, and said, “Susanna, please sit down. Robbers broke into our house and they killed Caroline.” “Susanna collapsed and David screamed as if a knife had gone through his heart,” says Nikos. How the murderer was outsmarted A detailed timetable of events, drawn up by analysis of the couple’s fitness applications contradicted the killer’s account of what had happened and was crucial to his conviction HIS TRACKER 11:18pm: Caroline messaged Babis, calling him stupid.11:42pm: She sent a second text, threatening to leave him, taking Lydia with her, the following day.After receiving the messages, the step tracker on Babis’s phone showed that he was moving, walking up and down the stairs.11:46pm: He walked down to the basement, where it is believed he put on his motorcycle gloves to commit the murder.1:19am: Babis positioned the security camera on the floor, inside the house and removed the memory card so that no movement would be recorded. HER TRACKER4:00am: Caroline’s smartwatch showed a heart rate of 58 bpm, showing that she was asleep.4:05am: A highly increased heart rate, indicated that she had been abruptly woken up. Shortly after, her heart rate began to drop.4:11am: Her heart stopped. “I was quite old when I became a father with Caroline,” says David, now 83. “She was the light of my life. Hearing that she had been killed was like a cold hand had gripped my heart. Everybody loved her. I found it very hard to believe the robber story. Why kill her? But I could think of no other explanation.” On Alonnisos, there was a funeral service for Caroline. Crowds of people attended and it was very emotional, although Babis seemed to be less so than most. He arrived on the island by helicopter with Lydia. At the service, in his eulogy, Babis said: “I was very lucky to have met her and extremely lucky to have been loved by her and to have her as the mother of my child. I am lucky for all the moments we spent together. If there is anything that saddens me more than the fact that I will never see my wife again, it is that our daughter will grow up and won’t remember how incredible her mother was.” The casket was open in the church, and people said goodbye by kissing her on the forehead. Babis, who stood nearby, holding Lydia, pacing up and down throughout, did not do this. “We all thought that he was sad and trying to hold it together because he had Lydia in his arms, so he was not able to be as emotional as the other people,” says Nikos. The couple got married on a trip to Portugal, just after her 18th birthday Credit: Handout Babis later confessed to the police that he had killed his wife following an argument and staged the robbery as a cover up Credit: EPA Caroline was buried on the island in the cemetery next to David and Susan’s house. “What struck me as odd was that he did not spend the night at home with the Crouch family,” says Nikos. “He flew away in his helicopter.” A hunt for foreign perpetrators, based on Babis saying that they had spoken in broken Greek, led nowhere. The results from the forensic examination of the house found no DNA or fingerprints other than Babis, Caroline and Lydia. George Kalliakmanis, president of the Police Officers’ Union in Athens, says that at that point he was certain that Babis was the murderer. The discovery of Caroline’s diary led to some interest reading that showed a troubled marriage. In excerpts from it, she wrote: “I had another fight with Babis. This time it was bad. I am thinking of leaving.” “I love him so much that I can’t leave him, even if this relationship is bad for me.” Roxy was also strangled as part of the staged burglary Credit: INSTAGRAM The trial began in April 2022 and observers thought he appeared cold and emotionless Credit: Rex “I should have left before I got pregnant. Now, with no money, I can’t go anywhere. The other issue is where will I go and how I will manage to leave with the baby.” The line: “I am not happy. He will not let me leave like that, though,” had a threatening element. Following Caroline’s burial there was a memorial on Alonnisos – a ceremony at the church followed by close family and friends heading to the cemetery to have a blessing performed. “Back at our house, Babis was crying and wailing and I felt so sorry for him,” recalls David. But things took a dramatic turn when a police helicopter landed and Babis was arrested in public. During his police interview, he was told that an examination of his and Caroline’s phone showed significant discrepancies with his story and that the memory card had been removed from the security camera earlier than the reported burglary. Babis confessed to the police that he had killed his wife following an argument and staged the robbery as a cover up. The trial began in April 2022 and observers thought he appeared cold and emotionless. In his statement, he purported to have put it down to a crime of passion and not premeditated murder, which carried a life sentence. The trigger had been two text messages from Caroline, one in which she called him stupid and the other about threatening to leave him the following day and taking Lydia with her. He said that on the fatal night, she was out of control and shouting because their baby had woken up. He went upstairs to her around 1.30am and tried to calm her down by hugging her. It led to a tussle and him suffocating her on the bed. “Maybe I reached my limit,” he said. “A million times before I backed down. Now I will regret every minute for the rest of my life.” But the prosecution was determined to show he had calmly plotted the murder and drew up an incriminating timeline of both his and Caroline’s movements via his phone and her smartwatch. His mobile showed that he had received her text messages at 11.18am and 11.42am and that his Fitbit fitness app indicated he was moving for the next few hours, including the time he was allegedly bound and gagged. It is believed that this was the moment when the idea of murdering her began to form in his mind. Data from Caroline’s biometric smartwatch showed that she had woken at 4:05am and that her heart stopped six minutes later. The memory card from the security camera had been removed at 1:20am. “He believed he had committed the perfect crime,” says George Kalliakmanis. “But he did not account for the smartwatch.” On 16 May 2022, Babis, who had appeared cold and emotionless throughout his trial, was found guilty of the premeditated murder of Caroline and was given a life sentence of at least 27 years, plus an additional ten years for killing the family dog. “Babis was always very quiet and shy and polite,” says David. “He was a helicopter pilot and I was quite impressed with him when we first met. When Caroline left home and moved to Athens, I missed her dreadfully. We were very close. “After his arrest, I thought to myself how stupid I was for not thinking he could be the killer and figuring it out before the police did.” David and Susan won custody of Lydia and moved to the Philippines, in order for her to be raised with her cousins. “Some of the happiest times of my life were walking with Caroline, hand in hand, up the little path that ran from my house to the old village,” says David. “For a long time after she was killed, I dreamt about her a couple of times a week. Just the two of us. Before she was a teenager, really. Between the ages of five and ten. Those are my outstanding memories. That’s what I think about when I go to sleep. I miss her.” The Fitbit Killer drops on Amazon Prime today Comment now