Husband charged with murder 20 years after pregnant wife vanished
A FATHER of three whose wife disappeared 20 years ago was yesterday charged with her murder.
Debbie Griggs was four-and-a-half months pregnant with her fourth child when she vanished from the home in Deal, Kent, that she shared with her husband Andrew and their sons on May 5, 1999.
No trace of the 34-year-old has ever been found despite police appeals and social media campaigns by her family.
The family’s car, a white Peugeot 306 was found abandoned a mile away a week later. Police said Mrs Griggs’ bank account and credit cards have never been touched.
In the wake of her disappearance, detectives contacted every maternity unit in the country in the hope that she could be traced when seeking medical attention for the birth.
Her husband, who was 36 at the time, had run a frozen food shop and delivery service while she looked after the couple’s sons, then aged six, four and one.
He later moved to St Leonards, Dorset, with Luke, now 21, Jake, 24, and Jeremy, 25.
Yesterday police arrested the 56-year-old and charged him with murder. He was remanded in custody at Medway Magistrates’ Court and is due to appear at Maidstone Crown Court tomorrow. Senior prosecutor Nigel Pilkington said the Crown Prosecution Service had authorised Kent Police to charge Griggs with murder after reviewing a file of police evidence.
In 2005, six years after his wife’s disappearance, Griggs issued a statement through his solicitor, which said: ‘The police, to whom I reported her disappearance on the following day, have not found any trace of her.
‘It is very sad and I am always thinking of what might have happened to her.’
At the time, the policeman in charge of the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Dean Barnes, said it would remain open. ‘From the outset it was a missing person inquiry with the disciplines of a murder inquiry associated with it because of the circumstances of the disappearance,’ he said.
‘It very quickly became apparent that this was a fully-fledged murder inquiry. Kent Police don’t close cases and each case is regularly reviewed.’
In March 2007 the Griggs’s marriage was dissolved by a decree of
‘We can’t grieve properly’
presumption of death and a memorial service was held.
On the tenth anniversary of Mrs Griggs’s disappearance, her mother Pat Cameron said: ‘We had a memorial service for Debbie in 2007, but we can’t grieve properly because we don’t have a grave. It makes it so hard that we can’t have closure.’
Mrs Cameron recalled the last day she saw her daughter when she arrived at the house with her three young children. ‘She was taking them to a party,’ she told her local newspaper. ‘ Debbie adored her kids and blossomed when there was children around.’
Mrs Griggs had shown no sign of intending to run away in the days prior to her disappearance, Mrs Cameron added.
Detective Superintendent Paul Fotheringham, of Kent Police, said yesterday: ‘Despite extensive searches and appeals for information detectives were unable to locate Debbie, who was a devoted mother of three young children.’