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The meant to be murder

How could our heart-warming story have such a tragic ending...?


Published by: Natalie Corp, Fiona Ford and Barbara Copperthwaite
Published on: 15th March 2010

Exactly one year ago, we told you what seemed like a beautiful tale of fated love between Kirsty Wilkinson and Paul Grabham.
Just a month after we published the story, though, Kirsty was dead – murdered by the love of her life.
The details of what Paul had done, of how he’d disposed of the body, were horrifying.
Readers wrote asking if the gorgeous couple were really the same people being splashed across the newspapers. It just didn’t seem possible. But it was.
When we talked to Kirsty, she seemed so happy, bubbly, and in love. We were as shocked by what happened as everyone else.
Now Paul has been found guilty of murdering his wife, we can’t help wondering – were there any clues in that last interview…?

As Kirsty giggled down the phone to our reporter, back in March 2009, she admitted it hadn’t been the most romantic of starts when she met Paul. Tipsy at her mate Chris’ party, she had a one-night stand and, embarrassed, crept out unable to look at the bloke snoring peacefully in bed.
‘My head was killing me. I just got up and left him, dashing home,’ Kirsty, 24, confessed to Full House! ‘I wanted to forget all about it. I was moving in a week, to be a hairdresser in a new town.’
Leaving her moment of madness behind, she made a fresh start with new friends – including Vicky Grabham. ‘Vicky told me she had a brother,’ Kirsty said. ‘She dialled his number, and handed me the phone. I wondered what the hell she was doing.’
But the pair got on like a house on fire and swapped numbers, then sent each other photos. Kirsty liked what she saw.
‘I fancied him – he was tall, dark and handsome,’ she said. ‘And he made me laugh. I knew I liked him and wanted to be with him.’
Little did she know when she made that decision, she was on a countdown to her last days…
There seemed no clues though. On their first date, Kirsty went around to Paul’s house and was bowled over. ‘It was amazing,’ she said. ‘I spent all day with him, and stayed a few more days.’
Two weeks later, they were snuggled up on the sofa.
When Paul mentioned his mate Chris and a party he’d been to a few years before, suddenly everything fell into place. ‘Paul jumped up,
saying “Oh, my God! It’s
you!’” recalled Kirsty.
She cringed knowing that the man she was falling for was her one-night stand. But to save
her blushes: ‘He told me it must
be fate,’ she said.
Only with hindsight do we know how cruel fate can be. It wasn’t romance it had in store for Kirsty, but the horrifying opposite.
When Paul proposed three weeks later, she was overjoyed. Some friends and family had reservations, though.
‘I told Mum, and she told me not to be stupid,’ said Kirsty. ‘But I didn’t mind, I knew she would come round and she did.’
Even Vicky was shocked, according to Kirsty. ‘She said “You can’t get married, that’s crazy!” But there was no stopping us.’
And it seemed their romance couldn’t be more perfect. ‘There on the coffee table, the local paper was open on a page about wedding planners,’ said Kirsty. ‘I told Paul it really was meant to be!’
Four weeks after the proposal, they married.
Kirsty’s mum Catherine Bloomfield put aside any reservations and helped with the car and honeymoon suite.
The night before, Kirsty had no second thoughts. ‘I sent Paul a text telling him I loved him,’ she said. ‘I was so nervous, waiting for something to go wrong, like it was too good to be true.’
She couldn’t have realised how right she was – that the man she was marrying really was too good to be true. That something was going to go horribly wrong. Instead, all she could think was how lucky she was.
‘He looked gorgeous, and he made a really lovely speech,’ she said. ‘My wedding day was the best day of my life. I wouldn’t change it for the world.’
She lived just long enough to regret those words.
Approaching their first anniversary in March 2009, they celebrated by telling their story to Full House! And Kirsty decided she’d like to start a family.
But days later, she told friends she suspected Paul was cheating on her with someone he’d met
over the internet.
Their honeymoon period was over, but Kirsty gamely decided she wanted to work things out. It was a fatal decision.
On March 27, the couple went out with mates to a nightclub, but they soon started rowing. This time, Paul accused her of cheating.
In anger, he got a cab home to their top-floor flat in Swansea. Kirsty stayed with her mates to calm down before getting a taxi home. Least I’ll have the bed to myself, she texted a mate. Paul’s crashed out on the floor.
What happened next is anyone’s guess. Only one person knows the answer – and he won’t tell.
All anyone knows for sure is that Paul brutally attacked his wife, punching her repeatedly and strangling her. She struggled valiantly, even managed to dial 999, but was cut off before she could speak.
Later, neighbours would recall hearing Kirsty’s high-pitched, hysterical voice ‘being smothered as if something had been put over her mouth’.
There was also a big thud, followed by a ‘dragging across the floor’ and something that sounded like a hard brush ‘scrubbing, scrubbing and scrubbing,’ they said.
Paul had murdered his pretty, young wife, then stuffed her bleeding, and still-warm body, into her own black suitcase, before throwing it off a motorway bridge 20 miles away.
At 9.25am, just hours later, he was on the internet messaging a woman: Hi hon! I’m 25 and looking for fun.
When a friend, Martin Richards, visited the flat a couple of days later, Paul claimed his wife had left him and he hadn’t seen her since he’d stormed out of the nightclub.
‘He told me that when he woke up at 10am that day, money had been taken and her toothbrush and some of the clothes had gone.’
Martin did notice, though, that a rug was missing and a patch of ceiling had been freshly-painted.
Paul reported Kirsty missing on March 30 – but police weren’t fooled and charged him with murder four days later. Why? Because they’d found spots of Kirsty’s blood on the floor, wall, and ceiling of the lounge, and on his boots and jeans.
On April 6, lorry driver Julian Bristow made an horrific discovery in bushes by the M4. Spotting a bulky suitcase in the undergrowth, he’d partially unzipped it.
He’d seen a hand with a gold wedding ring on one of the fingers. At first he thought it was a mannequin – until he noticed blood-matted blonde hair.
Kirsty’s body had been found. It didn’t take police long to identify her, thanks to the travel label with her name on attached to the suitcase.
Three weeks ago, Paul William Grabham, 26, was found guilty of murder at Swansea Crown Court.
Sentencing him to life in prison, the judge said: ‘You have been convicted of murder – just one year after you promised to love and cherish your new bride.’
He added: ‘I have watched you throughout this trial for the merest flicker of remorse in your eyes, and I have seen none.’
Kirsty’s family cheered as the sentence was delivered. But it hasn’t taken away the pain of their loss. Let’s hope they find some comfort in her final words to Full House! ‘Life’s too short for regrets.’
If only she’d known then…