The wife of a man who murdered his pregnant first spouse has said she intends to stand by him and believes he is innocent.
Andrew Griggs claimed his 34-year-old partner Debbie walked out on him and their three children in May 1999 – but in fact he murdered her and buried her body in his garden.
Griggs was jailed for a minimum of 20 years in 2019 for her murder even though at the time her body had not been found – with the judge at Canterbury crown court suggesting Griggs, a former sailor, had weighed down her body and dumped it at sea.
Three years later, in 2022, Debbie’s remains were found at Griggs’ home in St Leonards, Dorset after he asked one of his sons to dig up her body as part of an elaborate bid for freedom.
Despite Griggs admitting to perverting the course of justice, his current wife, also named Debbie, still believes in her husband’s innocence.
She told the Telegraph: ‘I don’t believe any of it. It goes against everything I know about him. I know him and I know he could not have done what they said he did.
‘Andrew has told me what actually happened with the whole thing. He’s maintaining his innocence. He didn’t murder his wife.
‘Why wouldn’t I be happy with what he’s told me? The truth doesn’t change, whatever is said in court.
‘We’ve been together for 20 years and I’ve never had a sign of any suspicions or doubt about him.
‘He’s never yelled at me. He’s never raised a hand against me. I’ve got no regrets about marrying him.’
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Griggs murdered his first wife – who was four months pregnant – at their home in Deal, Kent, in 1999. He later reported her missing.
His trial heard Debbie may have found out her husband had been having sex with a 15-year-old girl, and he may have killed her because she ‘both strongly suspected it and was unhappy about it’.
Debbie Griggs: 'A wonderful mother' who 'just loved children'
Debbie was born Deborah Elizabeth Cameron in December 1964, the eldest daughter of a large family in the seaside town of Deal.
Her childhood friend Helen Cheeseman told the BBC she was well liked and ‘game for a laugh’, and was godmother to her own daughter Samantha.
Helen said Debbie ‘just loved children’ and ‘had the patience of a saint’, and when her children were born between 1992 and 1997 she grew into a ‘wonderful mother’ with a ‘motherly instinct’.
Debbie trained as a nurse, working first at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital and later looking after disabled children.
That teenager, now a woman in her late 30s, gave evidence for the prosecution and told the court Griggs had groomed her.
Griggs attacked his wife at their home while their children were asleep upstairs. Her car was found just over a mile away from home with a smear of her blood in the boot.
In 2001 he moved to Dorset where Debbie’s body was later found. His current wife still lives in the same home.
At some point between 2019 and 2022, Griggs told his son Jake he had buried her in the family’s garden in a panic after finding her already dead.
He instructed his son to dig up Debbie’s body before travelling overseas with a lock of her hair, putting it in a letter to British police saying she was alive and well, living abroad.
Even after Griggs’ conviction all three sons continued to believe their mother was alive. They even launched a social media campaign in 2020 to try and trace her.
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But after his father shared his convoluted plan, Jake went to the police and his mum’s body was found in October 2022.
A coroner said at an inquest in March 2023 that the cause of Debbie’s death would likely never be determined due to decomposition.
Griggs is set to be sentenced for perverting the course of justice on June 2.
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