THE BODY IN THE SUITCASE WAS MY GIRL
Ahappy memory of her youngest daughter trying on her wedding gown is an image Cathy Broomfield treasures.
It was a precious moment of mother-daughter bonding – even if the man she went on to marry turned out to be a monster.
Kirsty Grabham was 24, young, beautiful and kind. She had everything to live for and adored her family. “Her biggest wish was to have a child of her own,” her mum Cathy Broomfield, 62, tells New Idea in an exclusive interview. That’s why she was so keen to marry Paul Grabham. “They hadn’t know each other long and I was worried,” Cathy admits. “I asked her to wait a few more months but she wouldn’t listen. She wanted to hurry up and start a family.” But from the moment mum-of-three Cathy and her husband Dave met Paul, he put them on edge. “When Kirsty brought Paul to meet us he told so many lies I couldn’t keep up,” Cathy, from South Wales explains. “Paul said he’d been a plumber and a male stripper and even a racing car driver – all nonsense. If he thought we were under his spell he was so wrong. We knew that he could be controlling and they had terrible rows but Kirsty told me she could handle it.” Despite her reservations, Cathy helped her daughter plan a traditional white wedding with 40 guests. But after the wedding she noticed a difference in her daughter. “Before Kirsty
CATHY HAD A BAD FEELING ABOUT HER DAUGHTER’S FIANCE, BUT SHE NEVER EXPECTED THIS...
met Paul she was so full of life,” Cathy sighs.
“She was really glamorous and loved nothing more than going out with her friends for a nice meal or a few drinks.
“Kirsty’s love of beauty led her into a bit of modelling. She enjoyed the attention and posing in lacy lingerie and it made her good money too.
“But the last time I saw Kirsty – on Mother’s Day in 2009 – she wasn’t herself. She wasn’t wearing any make-up, her hair was scraped back and she was wearing a baggy tracksuit. It just wasn’t her. She always looked like she’d made an effort.
“As she left the house after giving me some chocolates and a card, I started to worry.”
Cathy’s instinct was right. It was to be the last time she saw her daughter alive. Kirsty died in the most horrific way imaginable. She was brutally beaten to death by her husband when she tried to leave him.
A violent row had erupted in the early hours after Kirsty returned from a night out with friends. Neighbours later reported hearing a “strangling sound” from inside the flat, but didn’t report it because of the couple’s frequent rows.
After beating Kirsty, Paul had tried to cut her in half and then disposed of her body in a suitcase that he’d thrown from the side of a motorway.
“Every minute of the day I am tormented with the thought that my beautiful daughter was still alive in that suitcase,” Cathy says.
“He’d thrown it from a car into the bushes like a piece of rubbish. When they found Kirsty 10 days after she had gone missing, her body was still warm, rigor mortis hadn’t even set in.
“I go to sleep and wake up thinking, ‘was my girl screaming for her mum?’ “Every time I see a black suitcase I have flashbacks and think of Kirsty.”
Grabham denied everything and at first told police that his young wife had gone missing. An appeal was launched.
Cathy says: “For 10 days we were in limbo. Paul was arrested but I couldn’t accept that Kirsty was dead. With no body I had to believe she would come home.
“But on the 10th day the police told us that the body of a young woman had been found by a lorry driver. I just screamed hysterically.”
Seeing her daughter in the morgue is something Cathy will never forget. “I leaned forward and kissed my daughter one last time on the forehead and on her right cheek. I wasn’t supposed to touch her but how could I not say goodbye.”
Paul eventually appeared at Swansea Crown Court.
He denied murder and tried to convince the jury that he had slept through a break-in gone wrong. He told the court an intruder had murdered Kirsty, but he couldn’t explain why her blood was on his clothes.
He had made a failed attempt to clean blood from his shoes and jeans and even painted over blood spatters on the ceiling before reporting her missing.
“It was horrific listening to the evidence,” Cathy says.
But the jury saw through his lies and found Paul Grabham guilty of murder. He was jailed for a minimum of 19 years.
Mr Justice Butterfield told Grabham that his actions had been “cold and calculated” and without remorse.
“You have been convicted of murder – just one year after you promised to love and cherish your new bride, you battered and strangled her to death. You crammed her bleeding and still warm body into a suitcase like rubbish hoping it would not be found for many years.”
As for Cathy, she still struggles to make sense of what happened to her girl. ‘The grief was overwhelming,’ she says. “Paul Grabham had ripped the heart out of our lovely family.”
Tragically, Cathy’s other daughter, Hayley, never managed to find a way to cope with her grief. “She drank heavily to numb the pain. She had given up on life and died in 2014,” the devastated mum reveals. “It is my belief that Paul Grabham killed both my girls. If Kirsty had lived we would never have lost Hayley to drink and depression.”
Cathy has now written a book, Through a Mother’s Tears, in a bid to help others. “The main message I want to send out is that abusive relationships are so dangerous. I want women to spot the signs and leave as quickly as they can.”