Murder of Debbie Griggs
Debbie Griggs was a 34-year-old woman who disappeared from her family home in Deal, England, on 5 May 1999. She was married to Andrew Griggs and was pregnant at the time of her disappearance.
Investigations and trial
At the time of her disappearance, Griggs had three sons with her husband Andrew and was pregnant with her fourth child. Andrew had previously claimed to relatives, medical professionals, and neighbours that Griggs had been struggling with postpartum depression and was not compliant with medications. A day after her disappearance, Andrew told police that Griggs had depression and had "stormed out"; as a result, her disappearance was initially treated as a missing persons case. Though Andrew later became an initial suspect in the police's investigation into her disappearance, prosecutors at the time were not trained on matters of domestic abuse, and the Crown Prosecution Service found in 2003 that the evidence submitted to them offered "no realistic prospect of conviction".A new investigation began in 2018, upon which Andrew was later charged and found guilty of her murder following a trial held at Canterbury Crown Court. Griggs was handed a life sentence with a minimum tariff of 20 years.