It was a little before 6am on May 11 when police sirens broke the early-morning calm in Glyka Nera, an upmarket suburb of Athens - cars racing down a narrow residential street to the home of Charalambos Anagnostopoulos and his wife Caroline Crouch.

They had been sent there by a neighbour who received a disturbing call from what sounded like Charalambos just minutes earlier.

His voice was muffled, but she was sure that something was terribly wrong.

When officers made it inside, the scene that greeted them inside was the stuff of nightmares: a seven-month old husky puppy hanged from a banister, Caroline's body sprawled on the bed upstairs with clothing stuffed in her mouth, her 11-month old daughter beside her, hitting her in a vain attempt to wake her up.

On the floor, blindfolded and tied to a bedpost, was Charalambos, 33, - known to most simply as 'Babis'.

Confused and distraught, his first question when freed by officers was to ask whether his wife was OK.

The story broke quickly, making headlines across the world; a horror burglary, a mother killed in front of her daughter, and the poor father made to listen throughout before being abandoned in a room with his wife's body for hours, not knowing she was lying dead mere inches away.

Only detectives now say that was an elaborate fiction, cooked up by Babis himself. 

He knew full well she was dead, they allege, because he was the one who killed her - smothering her to death in a fit of rage after she ordered him out of the house and told him that she wanted a divorce.

Although the married couple, who met while Babis was on holiday to the Greek island of Alonissos where Caroline lived, appeared to be an idyllic couple in images, a friend said it was a mirage as Babis was in fact jealous and controlling and Caroline was deeply unhappy. 

Police say they suspected him from the moment they arrived but played along with his burglary narrative in public so as not to spook him - all the while building a case against their true target in the background.

On Wednesday, they struck: dragging him away from a memorial service for Caroline on the pretence of needing him to help identify a new chief suspect - without revealing that suspect was in fact him.

After a brief but emotional hug with Caroline's mother, he was whisked back to Athens for eight hours of interrogations that police say ended with a confession.

Here, MailOnline charts the story, from the discovery of the crime scene to Babis's chilling admission...

Heated row leads to Caroline's murder  

After confessing to the murder of his wife following a month-long investigation, police revealed that Anagnostopoulos, known as Babis, had killed Caroline in a fit of rage after she threatened to divorce him and take their baby daughter. 

The pair had met while Babis was on holiday to the Greek island of Alonissos where Caroline, who was born in the UK, had lived with her parents since the age of eight.

They were married in 2018, and she gave birth to their first child - a daughter - in June last year.

But a friend said last night that the idyllic images were a mirage - in fact, Babis was a jealous and controlling husband and Caroline was deeply unhappy.

'She could not have the time she wanted with her friends and she was constantly expressing her complaints about his behavior,' a source told Greek news site Ethnos.

Telling his own version of events, Babis said their marriage had devolved into daily arguments driven by his fear she was planning to leave him, which culminated in her ordering him out of the house and asking for a divorce.

As the truth finally came to light in a twist worthy for CSI, Babis is said to have told officers that he threw her down on the bed and pressed her face into a pillow until she passed out, before realising he had killed her.

He said in his statement: 'That night we were fighting early.

At one point she threw the child in the crib and told me to leave the house.

'She pushed me and punched me. I lost my temper, I suffocated her with the pillow. Τhen I made up the robbery.'

His confession which has shocked the world comes after he spent weeks telling a fabricated tale of how armed robbers broke into his family home and tragically murdered his beloved wife in front of their 11-month-old daughter.

May 11: Caroline Crouch is found dead

The tragedy dramatically unfolded when police arrived at a home in the Glyka Nera suburb of Athens to discover the scene of a horror home invasion on May 11.

Officers were faced with gruesome scenes after entering the house as a drowned husky puppy had been left hanging from a banister, Caroline's body had been left sprawled across a bed with clothing stuffed in her mouth with her 11-month old daughter sitting beside her.

The home had been left in complete disarray as a latch was broken on a downstairs window, hiding spots where the family kept valuables had been ransacked while Caroline's husband Anagnostopoulos had been left tied to a bedpost blindfolded.

Anagnostopoulos, known as Babis, began to spin his elaborate story as he blamed the nightmarish scenes on three armed raiders, who he told police had broken into his home at around 5am while a fourth man had stood guard outside. 

Missing from the family home was jewellery worth £21,500 and £13,000 in cash, while the armed raiders had fled from the scene by the time a neighbour had phoned police to alert them to the robbery.

The helicopter pilot, who trained in Liverpool, concocted the plot worthy of a TV show as he claimed he was only able to raise the alarm by using his nose to dial the police and a neighbour, saying he did not realise that his wife lay dead beside him.

Babis, who married Caroline in 2018, appeared distraught as he arrived to collected possessions from his home, which was the memorable moment when he was also seen by reporters for the very first time since his wife's murder.

A distressed Babis heartbreakingly said in Greek that he had 'begged' the men not to hurt his wife and his 11-month-old daughter and vowed that his wife's killers would be caught.

The thorough robbery concocted by Babis himself has since been deemed by authorities as 'a near-perfect murder' as he hardly left a speak of evidence behind as he painstakingly spent the early hours staging the crime.

It wasn't long before the heartbreaking story had rebounded across the world and the Government issued a staggering £258,000 reward for information as police worked to solve the crime.

But after a month-long investigation, police said Babis in fact spent hours staging the horrific crime scene before tying himself to the bedpost after he smothered Caroline to death when she threatened to leave him during a heated row.

The shocking twist came as police revealed that officers had 'immediately' suspected Babis of committing the murder, after they noticed his 'cold' demeanour when they first arrived at the chilling scene.