Babis Anagnostopoulos, 34, was sentenced to life in jail on Monday for the premeditated murder of his wife Caroline Crouch in 2021, following an earlier unanimous guilty verdict the same day.
The court recognized no mitigating circumstances in serving him with the highest possible sentence, while Anagnostopoulos was also served 11 years and 6 months for killing his wife's pet dog Roxy for committing perjury several times. The sentences follow the leading prosecutor's proposals. He was also fined 21,000 euros.
Anagnostopoulos had admitted to the murder but claimed he killed his wife, a young mother of 20, in a fit of rage on May 11, 2021. The prosecution however said he committed the crime with a clear mind and in a vindictive and premeditated manner, staging it to look like a robbery gone wrong.
"He put the child to sleep on the couch, then went up to kill. This refutes the claim of an agitated state of mind and shows premeditation," the prosecutor said, highlighting the fact that the defendant had then placed the baby on the body of the dead mother when staging the supposed robbery, in order to evoke sympathy. The prosecutor also cited evidence from the smart watch that Caroline was wearing, which proved that she had been asleep when he started to choke her and also how long it took to kill her.