"She has now been sentenced to a long prison term, although this is not going to bring back my beautiful daughter," said her father. "A small consolation is that he will serve his sentence in the Korydallos prison, the most miserable, in front of which the Belmars prison in London resembles the Ritz hotel. They will be in the same prisons as other murderers, but also all kinds of perverts. "The good guys and his middle-class family background will not help him in this cockroach-filled hole in hell."
Father Caroline: "I will change my granddaughter's last name - I will make sure her father never sees her again"
Since the day of Caroline's brutal May 2021 murder, their granddaughter Lydia, now almost two, has been the only source of comfort for 79-year-old David Crouch and his 58-year-old wife, Susan, who have taken it upon themselves to raise her in Alonnisos. "Soon Lydia will be old enough to go to the island's kindergarten, the same one her mother used to go to. However, before that happens, I'm going to give her Caroline's last name so that she no longer has anything to do with the murderous Anagnostopoulos. I will also make sure he never sees his daughter again,” says the devastated father.
However, the horrible truth cannot be erased and Caroline's father trembles the moment he has to tell his granddaughter how the thread of her mother's life was cut. "One day Lydia will ask where her mother is. I'm scared this day. He must know the truth and half-truths will not help. "One day she will discover the naked truth and it is better for her to learn it whole from her grandparents who love her rather than partially", she says in the British newspaper.
Lydia "the only consolation" for Caroline's parents
The little girl was 11 months old when Caroline was murdered. Her presence is a bittersweet blessing to her grandfather, as everything about her reminds him of the daughter he lost. "When I see her running around the house I travel back 20 years," he says. “It was the time when Caroline was starting to assert her independence, a strong little girl who always knew what she wanted, but she was so sweet. Their resemblance is uncanny: a beautiful face with the largest black eyes I've ever seen, inherited from her mother as Caroline inherited hers.
Lydia chats non-stop. She sleeps in Caroline's old room, in her mother's bed, but refuses to spend the nights alone, so her grandmother, Susan, sleeps with her. Susan suffers from depression and does not speak at all about Caroline's death. All her attention is focused on the care of her granddaughter, the daily bath, the meal time, the conversations with her are what keep her alive. "I'm afraid that Susan, whom I have known for almost 30 years, is missing. "Caroline was the most important thing in her life," says David.
"Anagnostopoulos was snatching the money we were sending to Caroline"
The tragic father states that he is outraged by the fact that their daughter's husband took the thousand euros that David and Susan sent her regularly. "It seems that Babis did not let Caroline have money, not even for pet food, not even pocket money.
On the rare occasions she met friendly people, she had to take a taxi driven by a friend of hers so that she wouldn't have to pay (…) What drives me crazy is that until the day she was murdered, I sent her 750 euros a month and Susan another 250 to have some independence. She was not working and they thought it would be good if she was not forced to ask her husband for money. He even took the 70.000 euros that Susan and I sent her to buy some land to build a house. I am determined to recover this money, because it rightfully belongs to Lydia," he says.
"I refuse to see Babi's parents"
Last October a court awarded Caroline's parents sole custody of Lydia, allowing her paternal grandparents to visit her five times a month. At first David didn't object, but now he's changed his mind, "I refuse to see them as they still believe in his innocence," he says. "I can't control the hatred I feel for their son and their belief that he is innocent and just covering up for something else - even if he has been convicted of premeditated murder."
When Caroline was born in a private clinic in Athens in July 2001, her father was swimming in a sea of happiness. Now he will spend the rest of his life in the unbearable grief of her loss. “I'm still as devastated as I was on that horrible day a year ago when he died. "Perhaps even more so as during the trial I learned of Caroline's suffering in her marriage and I can't bear the thought of my little girl suffering," she says.
Caroline's belongings, which were handed over to her parents many months ago, are still packaged. "We can not face them. And only by seeing some of her trinkets and baubles do the memories of all the wonderful moments we spent together come to life again ".
Source: iefimerida.gr