Fitness trackers force Greek pilot to confess to wife's murder

The month-long search for the person responsible for the death of 20-year-old Briton Caroline Crouch on May 11 has finally ended. Her husband, Babis Anagnostopoulos, shockingly confessed to the murder.

The 33-year-old Greek pilot admitted that he killed his own wife by asphyxiation. He told investigators that he stuffed cloth into Crouch's mouth before he smothered her to death with a pillow. He did the crime in front of their baby at their home in Glyka Nera, in Athens, Greece. Anagnostopoulos said he committed the murder in the fallout of a horrible fight, in which his wife threatened to leave him.

"That night we were fighting early. At one point she threw the child in the crib and told me to leave the house. She pushed me and punched me. I lost my temper, I suffocated her with the pillow. Τhen I made up the robbery," he said during an eight-hour interrogation by Hellenic Police.

Anagnostopoulos broke down during the interrogation and was forced to confess after investigators belied his initial alibi. He previously told authorities that a burglary had taken place during the said homicide. He reasoned that he was "roped up and gagged by three assailants," whom he then blamed for his wife's murder.

It is said he also drowned their dog and hung its body to further support his claim. He even gave descriptions of the assailants and called a neighbour for help, speaking as if his mouth was gagged.

However, a fitness tracker from the accused's phone disproved his alibi as it showed that he moved around during that time when he said he was tied down. Likewise, a fitness tracker found on Crouch's wrist showed that she died an hour before the alleged robbery took place.

"When faced with the evidence, he confessed. The tracker contradicted his initial testimony. Instead, what we found was that he moved around the house, going from the attic to the basement," Apostolos Skrekas, a police spokesman said as quoted by the Daily Mail.

Anagnostopoulos is now being held in custody in Athens and awaiting trial for murder. He played the part of a grieving widower in the days that followed after Crouch's funeral on Alonissos in May. He even told reporters that he felt "awful" to have lost his "beautiful" wife. He also grieved with the deceased's relatives and hugged his mother-in-law during the funeral.