The husband of a British woman murdered in front of their baby in Athens, "begged" burglars not to harm his family.
Caroline Crouch was tortured and strangled to death in front of her husband Charalambos ‘Babis’ Anagnostopoulis and their 11-month-old daughter in the family home in Athens on Tuesday morning.
Babis recalled the 'nightmare' ordeal.
He was asleep alongside his wife, when a gang of burglars broke in through a ground floor window around 5am.
The masked burglars armed with handguns, tied him up on the floor and tied Caroline to the bed before demanding 'where's the money?' in broken Greek.
Babis said they kept a large amount of cash at home because they had recently bought a plot of land and needed to pay builders for work.
For around an hour the burglars tortured the couple, demanding the location of the family's money and valuables.
Babis revealed the hiding spot of the cash (inside a Monopoly box) in order to spare his family from harm.
But the thieves demanded more, then pointed a gun at his infant daughter's head before suffocating Caroline when she started screaming.
"I heard my wife screaming for help tied to the bed while I was tied to the floor... We screamed not to be hurt."
"The baby was crying, my wife was crying and someone or some people were looking for the house to find more money and jewellery. Suddenly they left the room and I couldn't hear my wife's voice anymore," he added.
After taking the family's valuables, the perpetrators fled.
Babis managed to call the police after loosening his bonds, who rushed to the scene.
"I wish no one ever goes through what we went through last night. It was a nightmare," he continued.
Police described the crime as the 'most heinous' they have ever investigated, and say it was carried out with a 'brutality' that is rare in Greece.
The Greek Government has offered a €300,000 reward for information about the incident.
Investigators believe the burglars were experienced and knew the couple had savings hidden in the house.
On Wednesday, police said that the perpetrators left a wealth of evidence (fingerprints and DNA evidence) that will lead to their arrest.
Two teams of officers from the homicide and burglary departments are looking through the files of felons released from prison, especially recently, and are confident that the mistakes made by the ruthless criminals will lead to their location and arrest.