Caroline Crouch’s killer was “trying to stimulate tears” by poking his fingers into his eyes as he sought to give the impression he was sad in interviews after her death, claimed a body language expert.
Babis Anagnostopoulos, 34, was jailed for life plus an additional 11-and-a-half years last May after murdering British wife Ms Crouch, 20, and hanging her rescue puppy Roxy from the bannisters of their maisonette in Athens.
A Greek court heard he suffocated his wife with a pillow for five minutes until she died on May 11, 2021.
The first police officer at the scene said he saw the 20-year-old tied to a bed with her 11-month-old daughter trying to wake her up, while her husband was found handcuffed in another room with duct tape over his eyes and mouth.
Anagnostopoulos tried to play the grieving husband and claimed that a foreign gang broke into the home and attacked the family.
He gave interviews to the media and now Dr Cliff Lansley, a body language expert, said that he gave away his guilt by the way he poked his eyes.
Speaking on a Discovery+ programme ‘The Murder of Caroline Crouch: A Faking It Special’ he reportedly said that he tried to give the impression of being upset by “poking his fingers into the corner of his eyeballs”.
“And the last one pulls down the eyelid so much that it turns the eyelid inside out. It flicks back here,” said Dr Lansley, reported The Sun.
“So he's really trying to stimulate tears in his eyes because he wants to portray sadness. But when we look back at his full face, there's no evidence of sadness on his face.”
Dr Lansley said that Anagnostopoulos did not actually shed any tears or show any expressions of sadness.
And another indication was a single shoulder shrug, with the expert saying that he had never seen a “micro, single-sided shoulder shrug when people are telling the truth” in his career.
Dr Lansley said that when there are “clusters” of these single-sided shrugs then there is a “huge degree of confidence that he’s faking it”.
Anagnostopoulos initially told detectives that one of the three alleged foreign intruders strangled his wife and threatened their baby with a gun.
According to police, he said the burglars demanded cash and jewellery, and fled with about £10,000 worth of euros hidden in a Monopoly box, which they had on hand to pay builders.
Anagnostopoulos speculated that his life was spared because he had temporarily lost consciousness while bound, gagged and blindfolded in a different room, so likely appeared dead.
Two days after his wife was found dead, Anagnostopoulos told the Mirror he was in "no condition" to speak at length about her.
He added: "She was an amazing person, full of life and full of love. Our lives will never be the same without her.
"Take care of your family, sir. Cherish your loved ones as much as you can."
