A convicted killer who his pregnant wife and buried her beneath his garden has been for an extra three years after a grotesque plot to fake a letter from her beyond the grave. Andrew Griggs, now serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of his wife Debbie, handed a prison visitor a chilling set of instructions aimed at proving she was still alive - despite having hidden her body for more than two decades.

Griggs murdered Debbie, a devoted mother of three, at their home in Cross Road, Deal, Kent. He then claimed she had simply walked out on her family, despite being heavily pregnant. He kept up that lie for 20 years until cold case detectives from Kent finally brought him to justice in 2019. But the true horror of his deception only emerged later, when her remains were discovered buried in the garden of his new home in St Leonards, Dorset.

According to Kent Police, it was Griggs himself who ultimately betrayed the location - telling a visiting family member how to find the body. He then asked them to unearth her remains, pluck out a strand of her hair, take it abroad and post it back to the UK with a forged letter claiming to be from Debbie.

That desperate attempt to manufacture "proof" she was still alive backfired. Acting on the tip-off, police launched an excavation of the garden in October 2022. They found a sealed barrel-shaped container buried beneath the concrete base of a former shed. Inside was Debbie's body - wrapped in a blue tarpaulin along with men's and women's clothing, a duvet, pillowcase, and the fibreglass lining from a car boot.

A trace of Debbie's blood had previously been found in the boot of her Peugeot 309, which was abandoned a mile from her home. Police now believe Griggs used the boot lining to conceal both her body and the clothing he was wearing at the time of the murder.

Crucially, the white T-shirt and grey jogging bottoms Griggs claimed to have changed into the day Debbie vanished were among the items in the barrel. Also found was a duvet matching one seen in old family photos of the couple's bedroom.

Griggs gave no answers when confronted with the evidence, instead delivering a bizarre prepared statement. He claimed he had stumbled across a body he believed to be Debbie's two years after she vanished - inside a container in someone else's garden - and decided to seal it up in fibreglass before it was mysteriously buried under his own shed.

He was later charged with perverting the course of justice and obstructing a coroner. He pleaded guilty to the former and was sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court to three more years in prison on June 2. The second charge was left to lie on file.

After he murdered his first wife, Griggs remarried another woman - also called Debbie. Despite everything, she has vowed to stand by him - claiming she does not believe he is guilty.

The 60-year-old regularly makes the four-hour round trip from her home near the New Forest village of St Leonards, to visit her husband at HMP Albany on the Isle of Wight.

Detective Chief Inspector Neil Kimber said: "Debbie Griggs was a devoted mother whose love for her three children was never in doubt. It is inconceivable that she would have ever walked out on them.

"Andrew has known this ever since he first reported her missing-by which point he had already brutally murdered Debbie and hidden her body.

"He continued to lie and manipulate others even after her remains were discovered, making up further ridiculous stories that are an insult to Debbie's memory and to everyone who continues to mourn her loss."

He said the request to a family member to dig up the body showed "what a callous and selfish person he is".

Mr Kimber said: "This was about more than achieving another positive court outcome.

"It was about securing justice for Debbie and ensuring the public know exactly the lengths Griggs was willing to go to in order to escape the consequences of his disgusting actions."