A Greek man strangled his young wife to death, then made up a story about three burglars slaying her in front of their 11-month-old daughter, reports said.
The death of Caroline Crouch, 20, drew international headlines when her husband Babis Anagnostopoulos offered a shocking story of hooded robbers torturing and killing his wife while he was tied helpless to a chair in their home in Athens.
But the 32-year-old helicopter pilot admitted on Thursday it was all a lie.
“That night we were fighting early,” he told police in his new statement on what really happened on May 11, according to The Daily Mail.
“At one point she threw the child in the crib and told me to leave the house,” he went on, the Mail said.
“I lost my temper, I suffocated her with the pillow. Τhen I made up the robbery.”
Hellenic police said on Twitter the husband confessed on Thursday – after reports said he endured hours of questioning.
He had been taken in after police uncovered new data and he was picked up on the Greek island of Alonissos – where he’d been attending a memorial service.
A police spokesman told station ANT1 “we waited for the memorial service to end … it could have happened yesterday as well,” according to a rough translation
Police had started to eye Anagnostopoulos after evidence didn’t match up to his tall tale.
His own smart watch showed he’d been moving around the house and not immobile as he claimed, police sources told Sky News.
Time stamps from memory cards showed they were removed at times that weren’t consistent with his statements, local news site Proto Thema said.
Crouch was a UK citizen living in Greece.
Aganostopoulos had originally claimed he broke free from his bonds to fight his wife in the attic face down on the ground as the baby cried nearby. Reports even said the robbers allegedly pointed a gun at the baby in an effort to get Crouch to turn over valuables.
The family dog was also killed, police said at the time.
In the aftermath of the killing, Anagnostopoulos posted a photo of him and his wife walking along the beach on their wedding day.
“Together forever,” he wrote in Greek. “Have a nice trip, my love.”
The Greece government offered a $365,000 reward for the crime, reports said.