Killed for money!
Sharon’s exhusband hired a hitman to kill her so he could get his hands on her fortune…
Who Killed Sharon Birchwood:
Police Tapes thu, 9pm ITV (NI, 10.45pm)
On 4 December 2007 police were called to the bungalow of Sharon Birchwood by her ex-husband Graham Birchwood, who claimed he’d found her dead in bed.
When detectives arrived, they discovered Sharon bound and gagged with parcel tape and electrical cord. She’d been strangled.
Initially they were baffled. Sharon was 52, suffered from ME and lived in a quiet part of Ashtead, Surrey, and yet her murder appeared to have been a professional hit.
Mystery
‘Sharon Birchwood had no known enemies,’ says DCI Maria Woodall, who led the inquiry. ‘She lived a quiet, harmless, ordinary lifestyle, burdened by ill health and with little social life.’
Although Graham Birchwood, 55, appeared to be upset by Sharon’s death, the police were suspicious, especially when they discovered that he was in debt to the tune of £150,000 and that he stood to gain a huge £475,000 from her inheritance.
Birchwood’s story quickly began to unravel when the police team found a tiny trace of DNA in Sharon’s bungalow belonging to a man named Paul Cryne, who Birchwood knew through a
Thai business contact.
Justice
Birchwood was jailed for a minimum of 32 years in 2009 after being found guilty of ordering the cold-blooded execution of his former wife. Hitman Cryne was extradited the next year from Thailand and sentenced to life.
‘Sharon was totally betrayed by the greed of the man she had married and been devoted to for 30 years,’ says DCI Woodall.
‘Birchwood made the callous decision that his ex-wife must die and then set about a ruthless plot that he hoped would distance himself from this evil crime.’