Smartphones and their need to collect location data have saved the day yet again by solving a case that had stunned Athens. The case was of Caroline Crouch, the wife of Greek helicopter pilot Babis Anagnostopoulos, who was murdered. According to the husband, the wife was killed by robbers during a home invasion. But the truth was something far more sinister.
The case was highlighted by the media a lot as it raised concerns over possible domestic security. The husband also alleged that it was a foreign gang that had carried out the attack. Even a Georgian man was arrested in the early days of the investigation as he crossed into neighboring Bulgaria. The husband claimed that three robbers had broken into their home in Glyka Nera, near Athens, and tied him up.
The only problem was that the police didn’t quite buy his story. Many details he gave just didn’t add up. They found no sign of his claims of being tied up, the robber suffocating his wife, and the stolen €15,000 (£13,000; $18,000) in cash. This was the point where the investigators decided to check his smart devices out. They looked at Caroline Crouch’s biometric watch and they looked at her pulse readings of the day that she died.
The smartwatch debunked the husband’s claims as the readings showed that Caroline’s heart was still beating during the time her husband claimed that she was murdered. The husband’s phone also worked against him as the activity tracker on the phone showed that he was moving around the house despite his claims of being tied up by the robbers. Why would the robbers even kill his wife and leave him alive?
I know we’ve all expressed concerns about how these smart devices keep on collecting our data but this time, it was exactly these devices that helped a young woman get the justice she deserved even if so after her death. The husband was picked up by the police after the memorial service on Alonnisos, who asked him to accompany them to Athens. The husband cracked eight hours after the questioning started and confessed to the murder.
The case had already taken Greece by storm and the confession was broadcasted all over the country. Even the coverage of the Euro 2020 football championships was interrupted to bring the details of the confession to the public.