A Story of Prostitution, Drugs and Murder | Our Life

[Applause] she thought she'd found her perfect man but Kirsty Wilkinson married her murderer just months after the wedding her battered body is found crammed into a suitcase thrown from a Motorway Bridge police arrest her husband and uncover a secret hell of drugs violence and prostitution was two people as soon as she'd finished her shift in The Parlor she became the Girl Next Door this is one of the biggest cases that I've ever worked on and talking to South Wales police you just really got a feel of the magnitude of this case excessive use of violence beyond what was necessary he just grew up to the phone and I was [Music] thrown in people and shout and through the phone cursed is dead cursed is dead [Music] Wilkinson born on the 19th of June 1984. the youngest of three sisters [Music] from a young age Kirsty enjoys a particularly close bond with her mother Kathy [Music] he's told me he was a little girl cried my eyes out he says oh is it your first girl I said oh no my third I was just so happy to have a little girl I was over the moon when Kirsty is 14 the family moved to bridge end South Wales we were very very close we were a lot alike in many ways she had a lot of my mannerisms even people tell me that now so the way you just done your shoulders then you just reminded me of Kirsty kirsty's dream is to follow in the footsteps of her Idol Jordan and make it as a top model if you'd walk down the street with Kirsty you know the return to look at Kirsty because she was just you know gorgeous [Music] he started glamor modeling she was doing quite well as she grows up it appears to a family that Kirsty is living the dream then at the age of 23 she calls her mum Kathy she phoned me and she says Mormon getting married I says what do you mean you get married she says I've met somebody called Paul I says what do you mean you've met somebody called Paul and you're getting married you know so sir we're getting married in five weeks [Music] she said I went to party and he was there he says we had a one night stand and she says I recognized him and he sort of recognized me and it clicked that that they had met each other before as far as Kirsty is concerned she has met the man of her dreams but who is Paul grabham forensic psychologist Dr Kerry Nixon works with merseyside police profiling serious violent offenders and has done research into this case he didn't do very well at school he had a poor education and he was always getting in trouble so we can see here that there's General anti-social traits in his background Heidi Maloney was Paul grabham's neighbor years before he met Kirsty in my eyes he was alone now but he still wanted to be noticed very strange strange boy the 23 year old Kirsty has fallen in love with grabham and wants to settle down and start a family [Music] little family so she wanted kirsty's heart is set on sharing her life with Paul grabham but a family can't see the attraction my first impressions was what the hell is that he was scruffy unkempt he had bad teeth when I'm at image it just seemed a bit of her Jack The Lads I just couldn't see what Kirsty was you know seeing in him he was a professional chef he was a plumber he was a mechanic he was a sports car driver and he was a male stripper and various other things his behavior is very narcissistic uh very um making up things about how much money he earns jobs that he can do it's he's very egocentric and wants people to think of him in ways that is is not true it's an image that he's portraying that is not based in fact Paul grabham fails to impress kirsty's family and they are unaware of the threats he poses to women Heidi Maloney was attacked by him and lives of the fear to this day he was complaining that we had done damage to his car and later that day when Heidi is driving home she runs into a roadblock and Paul grabham was one of them with a baseball bat and we went one way grab him then tries to run Heidi off the road well I thought was bushes behind them bushes with brick wall and we went straight into her I was scared of him for a long time I moved out the area and I haven't looked back although kirsty's mother is unaware of grabham's past she has a bad feeling about grab him and tries to persuade her daughter to postpone the wedding I said why don't you wait till even about June to get married just get to know him a bit more I know you've met him before but I said you didn't know him for very long but she wasn't having any of it she's my mom going to get married psychologist Emma Kenny has been looking into this case using her experience of dealing with victims of familial crime Kirsty wanted the dream she wanted the pink limo she wanted the bigger wedding it was almost like she was playing out a romantic fantasy a whirlwind a Hollywood experience very much in keeping with her ideas about what she wanted for her own life as a glamor model on the morning of her wedding just five weeks after the start of their relationship Kersey is planning a surprise for grabham I'm gonna say when they say to take this man to be your lawful bedded husband I'm going to go yes like this like this you know when kirsty's pink limousine pulls up outside the registry office two fantasy worlds are firmly on a collision course Kirsty and her vision of Mary Bliss and Paul who is not all he seems I was filming it in the register office and when it came to that part she looked at me and I looked at her and there was a little secret smile between us because of what we had been talking about you can actually see that in the video for wedded husband I knew in my heart because I had such a strong bond and a connection with Kirsty I knew this wasn't going to last this is Kirsten's wedding video this is the first time I've been able to look at it what she was walking into was her death it wasn't a marriage of love it was a marriage of death Paul and Kirsty are now man and wife but in the weeks and months following the wedding cracks start to appear in their marriage so what I'm married to her very quickly he was taken over control of her life he you know he had access to her money he controlled her body and by marrying her in his eyes he was controlling her life as well in Paul grabham Kirsty feels she's met a man who understands her and accepts her for who she is but their marriage was not to be a happy ever after fairy tale as behind closed doors laid dark taboos drugs violence and prostitution and as soon as she'd finished the shift in The Parlor she became the girl next door he becomes the parasite and she becomes the feeder he had her hands around the throat and shut down she couldn't breathe and she said she thought she was gonna die she said she was that scared she goes oh well I bet myself I said baby you'll end up killing you and you'll be found in a ditch somewhere that's never a true about spoken Christy Wilkinson enjoyed a whirlwind romance with Paul grabham but the fairy tale is about to turn into a nightmare kirsty's family and friends had begged her not to marry Paul grab him but for Kirsty there is no turning back [Music] we're introduced into kirsty's world because she kept a diary and in fact new year 2010 she makes a very poignant statement about her and her husband against the world again there is this romantic notion that somehow they are lovers who are fighting the battle that they will win and in many ways it feels that the relationship that she was experiencing was an entirely different relationship from the reality Kirsty and Paul are not a conventional couple they both work as escorts advertising themselves for sex on the internet to grab them Kirsty lied to her family about where she'd met her husband the truth is Kirsty had a one-night stand with him in 2004. met him again five years later at the brothel in Bridge end where she works amateur photographer and personal Friend Martin Richards had been taking photos of Kirsty for adult magazines for years it seems as if they had met in the Parlor I think she wanted somebody that would accept what she did I knew what she did and by the meeting again in the Parlor he knew what she did so she didn't have that in the back of her mind you know or I'm hiding this from him he knows all about it you know it seems Kirsty was ashamed to reveal the truth to her family if she did say she was in The Parlor she was working the reception you know she was on the desk answering the phones and that sort of thing never thought she was a working girl because she obviously was embarrassed to tell somebody that she loved actually that's what she was doing what I found was that cursey was two people there was the work inside where she worked in the Parlor and as soon as she'd finished her shift in The Parlor she became the Girl Next Door you know it was purely a job and a way of making money and then Paul grab him Kirsty believes she has someone who loves her for who she is so she thought the more I could see of the relationship the more he was being a parasite the leech you know I mean the more she did it meant the moment he was having grab him encourages Kirsty to have sex for money he sets up websites he encourages punters to come he even attends the brothel with her to make sure that she makes appointments all the while disinterested in her and her needs but interested in the money that she gains for him remember Kirsty wants to make him happy right or wrong she's committed to this man she's married this man she feels that she must love this man because otherwise why should be acting this way and so he becomes the parasite and she becomes the feeder it is clear from kirsty's diaries that her career as a prostitute is not a life she wants anymore how can Paul really truly love me if he wouldn't mind seeing another man touch me I didn't want it and think about it she wanted to get out of the life and settle down and be a bum because she would have made a great mom she's fallen in love with this guy and she just wants to be loved and probably when prior to meeting him when she was working at the brothel she is probably a stereotypical uh confused young girl who was involved in something that she didn't really want to be involved in and she just wanted um the night in shining armor to come and sweep her off the feet and make and live happily ever after in her Diaries Kirsty asks grab him why he wants to see her sleeping with other men and women getting her to have sex with other people is part of his parent control over it is something that we see in domestic abuse situations but also forcing somebody to have sex with other people or to have sex in front of other people him making her do that would then potentially give him ammunition to further attack her just a few months into her marriage on a nice house Kirsty confides in her sister that her husband has been violent towards her Adam she was in the bedroom it pushed her back onto the bed and then it was sitting on the stomach and he had her hands around her throat and sat down she couldn't breathe and she said she thought she was going to die he said she was that scared she goes I bet myself because I was petrified she goes I thought it was going to kill me hitting somebody down on the bed and strangling them um is a very aggressive act and to be able to do that to place your hands around somebody's throat and strangle them and ping them down also to this degree where they then wet themselves is very controlling and very high risk that's not love she was scared she was scared of him Kirsty documents her fears in her diary I know that is not right it shouldn't be like that sometimes I am petrified because I don't know what you're going to do or say next when Kathy finds out about the violence she pleads with her daughter you need to get away from him babe she really really have to I says he sounds so dangerous and you'll be found in a ditch somewhere that's never a true or about spoken according to forensic psychologist Dr Kerry Nixon violent offenders rarely start their domestic abuse with strangulation it is my belief that there would have been previous incidents before prior to that that is a very extreme level of violence for it to be the first instinct of violence I think that's probably the first time she shared violence with anybody else in terms of telling them about it in another example of grabum's dark side it keeps a morbid collection of dolls upstairs in his attic dolls and coffins why a grown man would have something like them to just be the oldest me also likes this toy Beth's neck being held 25 year old man keeping dolls that are violent in nature is unusual and is is indicative of his of his violence maybe his obsession with violence the fact that he has these dolls of such a violent nature but strangulation coffins Etc shows that he has a fascination with an extreme form of violence another toy obviously blood violence portraying violence cutting people to me they're just the toys of a psychopath that is Love's death and the idea of strangling so God knows what was going through his mind when he put his hands around my little girl's neck Kirsty and grabham are both recreational users of cocaine because he is desperate for a baby and wants to put an end to their partying lifestyle and one letter that I read she says she was saying to grab them please if you're really serious as serious as I am about starting a family and trying for a baby he'll stop taking that stuff which I presume meant drugs the problems in her marriage are pushing Kirsty to Breaking Point my sister Bob are you all same mom she says uh human dad are always right and you know something now I'm gonna start listening to you and to me that meant that she was gonna finish with him she was gonna walk out on that marriage she was going to leave him although both work as escorts they live by different rules it's obvious that he was the one with the power here she had boundaries in terms of what they were able to Chile with other people whereas he would go outside of those boundaries to to her was cheating he had no such boundaries and was willing to do whatever he wanted sexually with with whoever he wanted an insecure kirsty's worst fears are about to become reality she discovers her husband is using the internet to have sex with other women for Kirsty it's the ultimate betrayal it was arranging to meet up with the girls saying it was single and then she just kept on saying why would they do that to me someone why would he do that to me when I asked how she was she said she was leaving Paul because she'd been on dogging websites and he cheated on her and she was sick of his lies he was just controlling her and she'd had enough he thinks he's some sexual stud whereas actually he's some violent obsessive who abuses his wife Kirsty is making plans to walk out and grab him for good we've been to the bus station she said and to go I want to go to Coventry she seems determined to move away from this life and make a fresh start she'd planned to come to stay with me we were going to go out and have a girly night and she just never got the chance to tragically she never makes it to Coventry her last chance to escape grab him has gone despite her family's heartfelt please Kirsty gets back with grab them she didn't weren't speaking much on the phone and I said you back with him aren't ya and she said well she wouldn't answer me and said you are around you I said you're stupid doesn't worry about with him after what is done a few days later Kirsty and Paul have a nice house in Swansea they have a row and Kirsty tells Paul to go home Paul goes back to the flat and later that night Kirsty returns home she is never seen or heard from again the last words Kirsty Abba says to me because she knew I was going to bingo was do you want some of my luck that's the last words I ever heard from My Little Girl when you go to the car you look like a film star he uses her credit cards withdraws money and pays for prostitute with her money your body had been found so it can't be Kirsty and they came and they says we have a rested on suspicion of murder almost a year to the day after her fairy tale wedding to Paul grabham Kirsty has gone missing she is last seen on Friday 27th of March 2009 by the taxi driver who dropped her home after a night out clubbing on this Sunday I tried to phone and I sent her a text there was no answer and I started getting a bit worried then I was just today if something's wrong I said I'm gonna phone tomorrow [Music] on the Sunday grabham calls kirsty's Friend Martin Richards and he said do you know where qst is and I said no why was happening he said oh she's uh we've had an argument and she's come back to the flat picked a few things up and she's gone and I said well you must have got a real ding dong argument but certainly you know for her to pack some things next morning there was an early phone call from grab on and he says hi Kathy it says uh have you seen Kirsty I says no I haven't Paul I said I haven't heard from her do you know astrophy has been arguing and he said no the grab them story doesn't ring true kirsty's sudden disappearance is out of character and Kathy is suspicious [Music] my sister you better phone the police and reporter Miss sin which he did but I wasn't sure so I phoned a police myself and I explained to them that he had tried to strangle Kirsty before kirsty's sister Sonia senses all is not as it seems and calls grab him herself that pool said I'll um curses um talk stuff from the fillet that was like washing that had been ironed and was folded up on the bed and not at well that wouldn't be Kirsty having you know ironed folded up clothes on the bed she'd normally just throw them in a wardrobe you know so I thought that was strange she took hair straighteners but I'm not a hairbrush um she took money but not a cash card [Music] just things didn't add up what he was saying they've been constantly sent in a text and be known to me grab them had cursed his phone in his pocket all the time reading everything so I had been descending while grab him is playing the role of concerned husbands to kirsty's family he continues his party lifestyle of drugs and casual sex [Music] another friend of curses that she'd been out with that night had said that her mum had found out the flat and he was having a party apparently and she could tear people in the background grab them continues to carry on with his partying lifestyle which shows very little respect for Kirsty he returns to their home he uses her credit cards withdraws money and pays for prostitutes with her money grabham visits a massage parlor then trolls sex websites on the internet looking for casual sex he says he's single and travels round in kirsty's Jeep having sex with young women in the Bridgend area one of the women he gets in contact with is the daughter of the neighbor he had previously threatened Heidi Maloney Paul did get in touch with my daughter and I think it was through Facebook and I think when he got in touch with my daughter it would have been only sex as well thankfully and luckily and she had enough sense to say no it shows very anti-social personality traits and he's very narcissistic in that it's all about him what he wants he carried on with what he wanted with very little thought to what had happened to Kirsty and to what her family were going through while Kirsty is missing South Wales police launch a huge investigation interviewing hundreds of people who knew her a week after kirsty's disappearance a concern Martin arranges to meet up with grab them and it appears he has been decorating their flat so and I looked up and I could see this painted area on the ceiling Eliza and he said oh he said I started painting it for Kirsty and she didn't like the color so I stopped I didn't think anything of it because it made sense you know then Martin realizes there's something missing from the flat well the black fun fur rug has gone but the Cup played on you know that was missing uh so I asked him I said have you heard anything no nothing at all he said nothing at all Martin makes a statement to the police about the painting in the flat then a breakthrough in the investigation the police found out that Kirsty had tried to make a 999 call which didn't connect and that's when they became suspicious the evidence is stacking up against grab them and the police have news for Kathy they came and they says we have arrested [Music] but grab him refuses to talk the police says he didn't cooperate at all then he was um question the police are getting no change from grabham while the search for Kirsty continues and then eight days after her beloved daughter went missing the police come and see Kathy with devastating news body of young lady has been found in a field of course I just I just went hysterical then I just screw up the phone and I was phone in people and shouting through the phone cursed is dead cursed is dead but how the message come back to me that Muhammad found how many body had been found I thought wow I thought it can't be Kirsty because there was another woman that had gone missing around that time so I thought maybe it's her and I thought it was no way it can be Kirsty on the way there when the motorway there was just all like reporters on the bridge just for the M4 and it was all taped off and you can see placed there and then you know got to my mom's house and she was just slumped in the corner just screaming he was just screaming for Kirsty [Music] kirsty's body is found in a small suitcase next to the M4 just a few miles from mum Kathy's home a lorry Drive stopped we have to see a black bit of a suitcase which was rather bulgy and he opened it the first thing he seen was a hand and so I don't know till this day if Kirsty was still alive in that suitcase it's every parent's worst nightmare Kathy has to identify kirsty's battered body [Music] two purple swollen eyes you couldn't even see her eyelashes shut black eyes fingerprints on the cheeks where she's being grabbed her nose was all raised jaw was broken scratches everywhere all over face she looked like a monster there was blood in her hair still even after it had been washed didn't look like Kirsty she was absolutely beaten beyond recognition I just couldn't take it in that it was Kirsty right gave her a kiss on the forehead then I kissed her on the right cheek and went outside the mortuary and I went back in to say goodbye and then give your sister a kiss I said I can't I said I can't give her a kiss she terrifies me I said just look at her and I think about what she must have went through that night was she shouted for a mum which I imagine she would do meanwhile Paul grabham attends Swansea magistrates Court charged with kirsty's murder I was outside when Paul grabham was led in by an officer in handcuffs he was very quiet he didn't speak to anyone there were lots of cameras going off in his face he just kept looking Steely Steely face and and walked into the magistrates court inside that's when we discovered that it was kirsty's husband that was actually in court for her murder and that really set the scene then for what was going to be a huge murder investigation a huge trial Kathy and the family have to organize the funeral with some strict instructions from Kirsty herself in kirsty's Diary there's a really harrowing prediction she actually writes the funeral list of 10 things that she wants to happen at a funeral and you can't help but imagine that when she did that she had some kind of understanding that the situation she was in could actually lead to her death number one my coffin pink number two pink flowers foreign [Music] and engagement ring to come off from wanting her engagement and wedding ring to be removed through to the pink curse she was going to do it on her terms she didn't get to control very much in her life but she certainly got to control the way that she was sent out from this world sure for a young girl of 24 years of age to write that she must have known I was going to do to her hello the husband of Swansea model Kirsty grabham has appeared in court today charged with her murder the mark on the back where he had tried to Katrin her excessive use of violence uh beyond what was necessary we had such a high opinion of himself that he thought he'd get away with it their marriage lasted barely a year now in February 2010 Paul grabham is facing trial for the brutal murder of his wife Kirsty hello the husband of Swansea model Kirsty grabham has appeared in court today charged with her murder this is one of the biggest cases that I've ever worked on and talking to South Wales police you just really got a feel of the magnitude of this case one of the officers told me that they'd spoken to over 600 people because right from the start they felt that Paul grabham's account of things didn't really add up while the murder trial is headline news in court grabham appears disinterested Gotham didn't show any remorse for killing Kirsty and he doesn't appear to be sorry he at such a high opinion of himself that he thought he'd get away with it I hate you you bastard don't [ __ ] kill you that's how I've that's what I thought I want to kill you you've killed my little girl the cause hears how in the early hours of Saturday March the 28 2009 Grabber murdered his wife Kirsty in their flat Paul and Kirsty been out in a nightclub in Swansea but as usual the couple they started to argue and they're doing his head in and he left and went home she continued partying with her friends and then in the early hours of the morning returned to their flat in Swansea he was high risk a high risk offender which means there was potential for him killing Kirsty at any point on the night in question brabham and Kirsty had both taken cocaine however the dysfunctional factors in relation to the alcohol the drug use the excessive paranoia probably caused by the excessive drug use led to the murder on that particular night [Music] and the early hours of Saturday morning seems like he dropped from the bedroom and a header over the head with an instrument splitting a head opened and he smashed the faced pieces beyond recognition broken nose and strangled her that's when neighbors started hearing shouting and screaming from upstairs and then a really high pitch scream as if someone was being strangled and that's what was happening in the flat above them excessive use of violence uh beyond what was necessary shows what he was thinking about Kirsty that night and the lack of respect he had for and how he felt about Kirsten then just decided to put her in a little suitcase uh probably had a few attempts at trying to get her in and thought the best way to do is to cut her in half so there's a mark on the back where he had tried to Katrin half but it was he probably realized it was going to be too messy and too much of a job for him then while she was still warm callously and coldly just folded her into a suitcase now we were shown that suitcase in court it was really small he must have stuffed her body inside it grab him then drags the suitcase with kirsty's body inside down the stairwell of their flat before putting it in the boot of kirsty's car and he just threw away from the M4 onto an embankment the cause here is that when grabham returns to the flat it's covered in blood the blood was on the ceiling where he had that's where he had painted it over and suddenly recover in the splash of blood the DNA evidence was damning blood stains were found on a mop and bucket used to clean the flat after the murder I've been through quite a few domestic marriage trials where the person's been saying not guilty um thinking that they can get away with it thinking that the evidence is circumstantial um so he probably thought he could get away with it kirsty's family think grabham may have looked through his wedding photos after he killed Kirsty when I seen the people I just saw is that my daughter's blood was he looking through this after he murdered my daughter she there was she in the suitcase by that time was he sitting surrounded by kirsty's Blood will ever know I'll never know the answer to that will I claims to have been asleep on the sofa at the time of the murder is defense was laughable I think you'd have to be here in an induced coma not awake after hearing grabham's evidence Kathy can take no more from where it was sitting and I just walked slowly over and stood right in front of him and I said I hope you're happy with yourself walked up and probe down on the 4th of February 2010 the jury retired to consider their verdict often emergent cases they'll take a long time but just five hours after the jury went out they came back to court and said that they had a unanimous decision that Paul grab them was guilty of murdering his wife [Music] the judge gave him a life sentence and ordered him to serve a minimum of 19 years for Dr Kerry Nixon grab him killing Kirsty was his final Act of betrayal this marriage between Kirsten Graham was was based on deceit and control and abuse from the beginning he abused kirsty's vulnerability he abused her trust and love in him she wanted a better life she wanted her life to change and she really thought that she was marrying to have children and to live happily ever after he never intended to give her what she wanted he betrayed Kirsty in such a massive way it's such a severe impact on all my family for the rest of our lives my sister you know I can't go to a house you know I have to go to a headstone and when I go up there and my little daughter who's only five says to me why does Mommy always cry in God's Garden [Music] can God not be none you know I miss a like you just like nobody could imagine [Music] evil brutal selfish cold-hearted no feelings whatsoever no heart he's heartless with the loving support of husband Dave Kathy is determined kirsty's death will leave a lasting Legacy she's got involved in a campaign which gives her Focus to help her deal with her devastating loss somebody commits murder they should spend the rest of their lives in jail people like grab them should never ever be allowed to walk our streets again [Music] she's getting strength in my eyes from cursive and I should be looking down on me and telling me you go for it Mom do it mama do it big mama that's what she used to call me Big Mama it does help me it helps me a lot it gives me something to focus on a bit of Hope Kathy and Sonia want to set the record straight about the kind of person Kirsty was their pink princess [Music] at the end of the day you know the main headlines um prostitute murdered and she had the name her name was Kirsty Kirsty should be remembered for the beautiful kind-hearted and selfish person that she was is my little girl she's my princess and I love her so so much [Music] [Music]

Channel: True Lives

Views: 689,563

Keywords: our life, documentary, world documentary, documentary channel, award winning, life stories, best documentaries, daily life, real world, point of view, story, full documentary, documentaries, real life, Britain's Darkest Taboos, True Crime, Murder case

Id: 1o29inJCuGs

Length: 44min 42sec (2682 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 04 2023