Caroline Crouch’s shameless killer husband ‘regrets’ murdering mum as he faces court over clues in phone & bank records
CAROLINE Crouch's shameless husband said he "regrets" murdering her as he faces court over new evidence found on his phone and bank records.
The confession comes as investigators prepare to quiz Babis Anagnostopoulos again ahead of his trial.
Five months to the day after he suffocated 19-year-old Caroline as she lay asleep in the couple’s Athens maisonette, Anagnostopoulos has finally expressed remorse over her murder.
"I regret my action," the jailed aviator said in an announcement by his lawyer Alexandros Papaioannou.
"I don’t want there to be any court battle over the supervision of Lydia."
The self-confessed killer made the statement as a court prepares to rule on whether his baby daughter, Lydia, should remain in the custody of Caroline’s own parents, David and Susan.
Reports are circulating that the judge handling the case is poised to order the 33-year-old to give evidence again.
On Tuesday legal experts rubbished the apology as a cynical ruse and say the man, who they claim has never expressed remorse before, just wants to win a court battle recognising "extenuating circumstances" leading up to the murder, which has the potential to lower his sentence.
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"It’s an irrefutable fact that an accused person in prison, including a vicious murderer … really regrets what they have done …. what interests [them] more is a lighter sentence,” the prominent lawyer Michalis Dimitrakopoulos told Mega TV.
"These are verbal regrets only."
NEW EVIDENCE
Anagnostopoulos has been behind bars in the country’s top-security Korydallos prison since police managed to extract the confession after eight hours of questioning.
Since his incarceration in June, The Sun Online has learned that Panagiotis Panagiotou, the investigating magistrate overseeing the inquiry, has made "great headway" after winning access to the pilot's phones and bank accounts following privacy data protection blocks being lifted.
"This is an investigation marked by thoroughness, no stone will be left unturned," one source told us. "The whole team is determined to get to the bottom of it."
Court officials are hoping the memory card from a security camera in the house, which recorded the hours leading up to the horrific murder, will help shed light on Anagnostopoulos’s motive.
After being retrieved from the crime scene, the insider revealed the card had been sent to the camera’s manufacturer in China to determine the exact time the device was switched off.
If the camera was disconnected several hours before the crime, it will back the theory that the murder had been premeditated.
The pilot has repeatedly claimed that he killed Crouch, then a student at Pireaus university, in a fit of rage.
The inquiry has also focused on whether the pilot had an accomplice with investigators reportedly narrowing down a list of possible suspects.
Phone records should prove whether Anagnostopoulos was helped out and investigators have ordered access to the phones of at least five other people, according to media reports.
The pilot’s parents and his younger brother are among those who are also expected to be called to testify.
David Crouch told the Daily Mail that both he and his distraught wife "have a good relationship with Babis’s parents, particularly his mother".
Although Caroline’s distraught parents are seeking sole custody of the one-year-old, there have been widespread reports that they have reached an out-of-court settlement with the pilot’s parents.
A judge is expected to rubber stamp the agreement by December after a court convened in Athens last week to study the case.
The crime has shocked Greece with hundreds of people visiting the grave - which was altered to erase all memory of her killer husband - over the summer to pay homage to a woman whose life was so cruelly cut short.
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"All summer people have stopped by the cemetery and lit a candle and left a flower at her grave," the island’s mayor Petros Vafidis told Sun Online.
"Caroline grew up here, she was much loved and is now greatly missed."
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