A father who killed his pregnant wife and hid her body for over 20 years tried to ‘literally get away with murder’ by telling his son to dig up her body, a judge revealed.
Andrew Griggs, 62, hatched a plot to get out of jail after being sentenced to life for the murder of his missing wife Debbie, 34, telling their son Jake to dig up her body and post a sample of her hair from abroad to convince police she was still alive.
In an extraordinary case, Jake, 25, failed to carry out the instructions, but for years he kept the truth from police and his siblings, who continued to believe their mother was still alive and their father was innocent.
Today a judge said the ‘conniving, devious and narcissistic’ father had ‘quite literally tried to get away with murder’.
Sentencing Griggs to three years for perverting the course of justice, which he will serve in addition to the 20-year minimum term for her murder, Judge Simon James told the killer: ‘You told lie after lie to your family, the police and ultimately the jury.’
The sentence has angered Debbie’s family who believe that Jake should also have been prosecuted for perverting the course of justice.
Debbie’s parents Patricia and Brian are dead not knowing what happened to her, even though their grandson knew the truth by the time of Brian’s death in 2021.
The victim’s brother Wayne Cameron said it was a ‘disgrace’ that Griggs had been allowed to watch the sentencing on a videolink from prison, where the killer was seen repressing a smile as he was told that he would only serve one and a half years extra jail time.
