Speaking exclusively to the Mirror from her home in New Zealand, Wendie Rowlinson criticised the extra sentence given to Andrew Griggs for hiding her sister’s body for more than two decades
A killer who plotted to cover up his wife’s murder by asking their son to dig up her body was today branded a “coward” as her family blasted his “deplorable” sentence.
Cheating Andrew Griggs killed pregnant Debbie, 34, in May 1999 and hid her body in a sealed water butt under their garden shed for 23 years. He was convicted of her murder in 2019 despite the absence of a body. But he later tried to enlist the help of 25-year-old son, Jake, to unearth her remains in an attempt to clear his name.
This week he was handed an extra three years in jail for perverting the course of justice. Now Debbie’s sister, Wendie Rowlinson, has spoken exclusively to the Mirror, saying: “Griggs’ extra sentence is deplorable. In the judge’s words ‘regarding the nature of the offence’ being ‘the most desperate and serious of it’s type as is possible to imagine’.
“Yet he only handed him three lousy years. There was just no point adding this extra, he’s in for life unless he admits his guilt, which we all know with his arrogance he’s not going to. He truly believes that the world believes his bulls***. Is he really that stupid?”
During a prison visit Griggs told Jake he had found the body in their garden in Bournemouth and suggested Griggs’ late father might have killed her. He tried to persuade Jake to cut off a lock of her hair, then travel to France to post it back to UK authorities with a note purporting to be from her claiming that she was alive and wanted to be left alone. Jake, who always believed in his father’s innocence, told his girlfriend about the request and she persuaded him to tell police.
It led to Debbie’s body being found in October 2022. Experts believe she was either strangled or suffocated. Today Wendie blasted Griggs for lying to his family for 26 years, saying he killed Debbie because he “couldn’t give up” his 15-year-old girlfriend who he was having an affair with.
Wendie said she was disgusted by the thought of Griggs “squeezing” her sister’s body into a barrel before it was driven 175 miles across the country when he moved from Kent to Dorset two years after the murder. And she revealed how he used fibreglass to seal the barrel shut and hide it under the shed in his garden where she could “spend eternity” but he could “keep an eye on her”.
She also begged Griggs to confess to the murder so the family can “close the book” on the horror of Debbie’s murder. Wendie said: “He must have thought, ‘We can’t have anyone knowing the truth, it would devastate the family. Life would change and probably not for the better. This way we can prove the court wrong and they will have to release me’. Is he really stupid enough to think the police would not be able to tell dead hair from alive?”
Wendie also told of the moment she was told cops may have discovered her sister’s body – but said her parents died before ever discovering the truth. Speaking from her home in New Zealand, she said: “Suddenly there was a phone call that informed us there was a tip on where Debbie may be.
“Feelings of confusion clouded any sane judgement as we thought Debbie had been lost to the sea. Days later we were told the DNA matched that of Debbie’s, 100%. Finally we could actually bury our sister. Thankfully our parents had died without this extraordinary revelation. We had Debbie cremated in November and her ashes spread to sea. It was a relief to finally have Debbie rejoin mum and dad.”
Wendie added: “We certainly can’t close the book until he comes clean. We can’t end things. We have so many unanswered questions, not that I know what the questions are. But there are no words for the emotional confusion that this has caused.”
