A convicted killer who murdered his pregnant wife more than two decades ago has admitted asking his son to dig up her body in a desperate attempt to clear his name and escape prison.
Andrew Griggs, 62, is already serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of Debbie Griggs, his 34-year-old wife who was four months pregnant when she vanished from their home in Deal, Kent.
Griggs tried to cover his tracks by claiming his wife had left him due to post-natal depression, despite the fact that she had not given birth at the time and had no history of the condition. He falsely portrayed her as a woman who abandoned their three young sons, aged just 18 months, four and six at the time.
In reality, the controlling businessman had been having an affair with a 15-year-old girl and told friends he wished his wife were dead.
Despite being convicted of her murder in 2019, Debbie’s remains were not discovered until 2022, when Kent Police, acting on new information, excavated the garden of a house in St Leonards, Dorset, where Griggs had moved in 2001 and started a new life.
Elaborate Jail Plot Exposed
Now, in a dramatic development, Griggs has admitted at Canterbury Crown Court to perverting the course of justice by asking one of his sons to dig up his wife’s body and remove a sample of her hair.
The court heard that between November 2019 and October 2022, while serving his life sentence at HMP Isle of Wight, Griggs pressured his son to retrieve the remains and send the hair abroad, alongside a forged letter supposedly from Debbie, in an attempt to convince police that she was still alive.
Griggs appeared via video link and pleaded guilty to the charge of attempting to subvert the justice system. He has also been accused of obstructing a coroner, although he has not yet entered a plea to that charge.
Sons Believed He Was Innocent
Even after Griggs was convicted, his sons remained convinced of his innocence. In 2020, they launched a Facebook campaign in an effort to trace their missing mother, unaware that her body had been buried in the garden of their childhood home.
Police initially had only a small smear of blood found in Debbie’s abandoned car — parked a mile from the family home — to go on, along with missing boot linings and carpet, but no body.
After relocating to Dorset with his sons, Griggs remarried and ran a model ship business, living undetected until cold case investigators reopened the file in 2019, eventually leading to his conviction.
His attempts to appeal the verdict were rejected in July 2022, and just three months later, Debbie’s remains were found, finally giving her family some measure of closure.
At an inquest in March 2023, the coroner ruled that due to decomposition, her exact cause of death may never be determined.
Sentencing to Follow
Griggs is now expected to be sentenced later this year for perverting the course of justice, further compounding a case that has shocked and saddened the public for more than two decades.
