Debbie Griggs vanished from her family’s Deal, Kent, and her body was never discovered.
At Canterbury Crown Court, His Honour Justice Robin Spencer sentenced Andrew Griggs, stating that it was most likely the enthusiastic sailor who had “dumped her body at sea”.
On Tuesday, Griggs, 57, of St. Leonards, Dorset, was found guilty.
His allegations that his wife, who was 34 at the time, had abandoned him and their three small boys were not accepted by the jury.
Justice Spencer informed Griggs, “Only you know how you killed her and where you disposed of her body.”
“Like the back of his hand,” he added, Griggs was familiar with the shore. “It would not have been difficult to weigh her corpse down such that it sank without trace.”
Mrs. Griggs was described by Justice Spencer as “an adored and adoring mother of three little boys,” which he continued by saying, “They were her life, she would never have left them.”
He informed Griggs that he had “killed her unborn child” in addition to killing his wife, who was four and a half months pregnant.
Just a few weeks before Griggs was indicted, Mrs. Griggs’s mother passed away from a “broken heart” in January, her father said the court.
Brian Cameron remarked, “I know she yearned to know where Debbie was.”
Mrs. Griggs told the court she thought her husband was having a “sexual relationship” with a fifteen-year-old girl and that, in the event of a divorce, she would have been entitled to half of the family’s fishmongery business.
Duncan Atkinson QC, the prosecutor, stated: “The murder was committed to avoid the consequences, both in terms of the financial impact that divorce would otherwise have had, but also in the context of the illegal relationship that the defendant was engaged in at the time.”
The length of time Griggs maintained his lie and concealed the location of his wife’s body were aggravating factors, the judge said.
“You robbed the mother of her children and her family of the very thing you have enjoyed over those 20 years,” he said.
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