The missing detail that helped solve a pregnant woman’s murder 20 years later

The murder of a pregnant woman was solved after 20 years when one of her relatives noticed the cold case was missing from an online article.

Debbie Griggs, a nurse and mum of three, disappeared from the family home in Cross Road, Deal on May 5, 1999.

Kent Police launched a major search operation and various appeals were put out from friends and family.

Her whereabouts remained a mystery for decades.

In 2019, 20 years after Debbie vanished, her husband Andrew was sentenced to life in prison for her murder – despite her remains having not been found at the time of his trial.

It’s now been revealed that in 2015, four years prior to his conviction, Debbie’s desperate family spotted an online article listing unsolved cases in Kent.

After noticing Debbie wasn’t included, they made a complaint to Kent Police. This prompted detectives to get the files back out of storage and treat it as a live case once again.

This incredible twist, and more, was detailed in The Vanishing of Debbie Griggs, a new two-part documentary.

DC Mark Butler of Kent Police’s Cold Case Unit said: ‘So it all starts with a list of unsolved cases that had been posted on KentOnline. A relative had complained that Debbie going missing wasn’t amongst that list.

‘At that point Debbie is a missing person and has been reviewed by a number of officers over the years. My DCI said, could you have a look at this?

‘The decision was taken to get everything back out of storage. It’s a massive warehouse with all these different cases throughout the years stored in their entirety.

‘So it was a matter of getting those boxes brought back down to Folkestone where they filled up most of the corridor and then we unpacked it all and put it back onto the shelves as if it was a live case.’

Andrew Griggs, who had denied any involvement in Debbie’s disappearance for decades, was eventually arrested and later convicted of her murder after a trial at Canterbury Crown Court. He received a life sentence with a minimum term of 20 years.

But it was not until October 2022 when specialist officers acting on a tip-off excavated the back garden of a property in St Leonards, Dorset – where Griggs moved to from Deal in July 2001 with his and Debbie’s three young sons – and found Debbie’s remains inside a sealed water butt.

The horrifying discovery only came to light after one of the couple’s sons, Jake, had contacted police.

He revealed that as long ago as November 2019, during a prison visit, he had been asked by his dad to dig up her body, remove part of her hair and then travel to another country to send the lock, together with a letter professing to be from Debbie, back to the UK from France, in a contrived effort to prove she was still alive.

Debbie’s exact cause of death is still not known, and was officially recorded as unascertained during her inquest in 2025 due to the severe decomposition of her body.

The full details of the case were laid bare in the documentary produced by Avalon Television, spanning two hour-long episodes on Sky Crime on Sunday evening. It is also available to stream.

It includes exclusive never-seen-before footage, home videos and interviews with detectives from Kent Police, Debbie’s sister Wendie, Debbie’s friend and bridesmaid Dot Smith and her family lawyer Donna Payne. Andrew Griggs’ second wife is also interviewed.

In a trailer for the documentary, aerial pictures and clips of Deal beach, coastline and pier are shown, as well as archive footage from Debbie’s wedding day and appeals from family members.