Husband guilty of murdering his pregnant wife 20 years ago after she discovered he was ‘having affair with girl, 15’
A HUSBAND has been convicted of murder 20 years after the disappearance of his pregnant wife.
Andrew Griggs, 57, was found guilty of killing Debbie Griggs, reportedly over her suspicions that he was having an affair with a 15-year-old girl.
The mother-of-three vanished without trace aged 34 on May 5 1999.
Her car was found abandoned with the lining of its boot removed streets away from the couple's home in Deal, Kent.
A small trace of Debbie's blood was discovered in the boot, but her body has never been found.
Griggs was arrested on suspicion of her murder later that month, but the CPS ruled at the time that there was insufficient evidence to support a prosecution.
The investigation has been regularly reviewed in the years since by cold case detectives from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, and in early 2019 the case was resubmitted to the CPS.
A murder charge against Griggs was then authorised in March.
He was today convicted following a five-week trial at Canterbury Crown Court.
'HE THREATENED TO GET ME SORTED'
A court heard that Andrew and Debbie first moved into their home in 1990 and wed later the same year.
Their marriage deteriorated over the years and they briefly separated in March 1999, two months before Debbie's disappearance.
In an affidavit written in 1999, Debbie said: "Everything we have together is in fact his, and I am only allowed to enjoy anything that is a joint matrimonial asset by reason of being with him.
"He does not let me go out by myself. His needs come first.
"During the course of our marriage my husband was bombastic and bullying."
She continued: "He has threatened to get me sorted.
"I took that to mean he will do me harm or will arrange for some other to do me harm."
The court also heard Debbie suspected her husband of having a relationship with a 15-year-old girl, a claim he denied.
'NO OTHER EXPLANATION'
Griggs said that on the night of his wife's disappearance, he was asleep in the living room when she came in "screaming and shouting" at him.
He said she asked him how he would look after their children on his own and then left the house.
Investigators found Debbie had not attended any hospital appointments over the remainder of her pregnancy, as she would've been expected to had she still been alive.
They also found that none of her personal belongings had been taken from the home.
Detective Chief Inspector Kaye Braybrook of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate said after the verdict: "Debbie Griggs was a loving mother of three young sons and with a fourth child on the way.
"While Debbie's body has never been found, we are certain she died at the hands of her husband.
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"There is no other plausible explanation as to what happened to her, nor any other person who is likely to have been responsible for her disappearance."
Sentencing is due to take place on Wednesday.
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