This story discusses graphic details of human remains and death that some people may find distressing
When Kirsty Wilkinson found her perfect wedding dress after a whirlwind romance, she bought a pink dress carrier to protect it before her big day in February 2008.
A little over a year later that pink transporter had a shocking resurgence in a gruesome discovery that sparked a hunt for a vicious killer.
Now the story of how that killer was brought to justice has been revealed in a new documentary.
On the morning of 6 April 2009, a lorry driver exited the M4 and parked in an underpass near Porthcawl, South Wales, and spotted a suitcase on a quay.
Thinking that the suitcase might have fallen from the roof of a car that was crossing the bridge above, the driver picked it up and started to open it, only to see a hand and some blood-stained blond hair.
Twenty miles down the road in Swansea, senior investigating officer Dorian Lloyd had been called to help with a missing person case a few days earlier.
Kirsty Grabham, 24, née Wilkinson, had been reported missing by her husband Paul a week earlier on March 30, who was last seen by friends after a night out the previous Friday.
The Police did a cursory check of her house after his report but found nothing wrong, but when the officers realized that the body from the M4 was that of a young woman, Lloyd was called to the scene.
Kirsty Wilkinson had a soft heart and tried to please people, says her mother [Family of Kirsty Wilkinson]
He recalls: “It was horrible. We discovered two black bags, bin liners, inside the suitcase.
“One was placed on the head of the body and the other on her feet, and she was also wrapped in a pink garment carrier.”
The investigation team suspected that the body was Kirsty but they were not sure.
Penny Roberts, the former chief reporter at BBC Wales who covered the case at the time, said: “A woman of the same description as Kirsty had gone missing around the same town. It seems so unbelievable.”
The fact that the body was found 20 miles from Kirsty’s home also raised doubts as Lloyd said it was “very rare for a body to be moved that distance”.
Cathy Broomfield said Kirsty’s behavior changed after she got married, and she was a “nervous wreck”. [Yeti Television/BBC Cymru Wales]
With evidence pointing to Kirsty as the victim, her mother Cathy Broomfield was given the gruesome task of trying to identify her young daughter’s body.
She told the BBC One Wales series: The Truth About My Murder: “It looked like something out of a horror film. Broken nose, broken jaw. They had washed her hair but there was still blood in it. She didn’t look like my little girl.
“All her features had changed dramatically. It was only her eyes that I could recognize, their shape. I couldn’t even cry, I was in such shock.”
Lloyd said the fact that Kirsty’s body was wrapped in the pink carrier she bought to preserve her wedding dress was a “particularly agonizing revelation”.
When the police told Grabham that his wife was the body in the suitcase, his reaction – he did not respond to any questions and showed no emotion at the shocking news – raised suspicions.
But officers needed much more than suspicion and this is where the pathology team’s findings proved so crucial to finding Kirsty’s killer.
The post-mortem examination revealed the true extent of the violence inflicted on Kirsty before her death.
Dr Richard Shepherd, a former Home Office forensic pathologist, said the extent and distribution of her injuries showed a “violent, vicious and prolonged attack”.
Kirsty had fingerprint bruises around her throat and a bone behind her tongue was broken, showing the extent of the force used on her.
Cathy with Kirsty, who was a baby and grew into a petite woman, at 5ft 1in, a foot shorter than her husband [Family of Kirsty Wilkinson]
Meanwhile, the police were building a picture of Kirsty and Grabham’s relationship.
Cathy said Kirsty, who was working as a glamor model, was in a relationship with another man but had announced almost immediately that she was going to marry someone called Paul.
They had a whirlwind romance and married three months after meeting, but shortly after, Cathy noticed changes in her daughter’s behaviour.
Kirsty “didn’t look like herself anymore” and was leaving the house “like a scared rabbit” when her husband started sounding the horn outside.
“She was a nervous wreck. We didn’t like it.”
Letters recovered between the couple revealed problems in their relationship and forensic psychologist Dr Catrin Williams studied evidence about the couple.
“In this relationship we are seeing some evidence of coercive control behaviour.
“This can be having control of their movements, isolating them and controlling which friends they see. It can get to the point where in fact the partner is controlling every aspect of their life.”
Cathy said Grabham even choked Kirsty at a party, to the point where she “really thought she was going to die”.
Paul Grabham has been jailed for at least 19 years for his wife’s murder [PA Media]
Although the evidence of Grabham’s violence was mounting, it did not make him a murderer.
He told police he had gone out with Kirsty the night she disappeared but got very drunk and went back alone, claiming he woke up to find her gone, along with her handbag, wallet and phone.
But the neighbors had heard things between 03:00 and 04:00, shortly after the time Kirsty had left her friends despite their requests to stay at their house.
From the flat below they heard someone shouting with what sounded like a hand over their mouth, followed by the sound of a thud and something heavy being dragged from the bathroom.
A witness from a bar Kirsty and Grabham had come to that night remembered serving her sangria with apples floating in it.
Shepherd said the post-mortem examination found a piece of apple in Kirsty’s small intestine, which “is very consistent indeed with Kirsty dying between three and four in the morning”.
Sisters Hayley and Kirsty Wilkinson “really loved each other”, leaving Hayley devastated by Kirsty’s death, their mother says. [Family of Kirsty Wilkinson]
The police needed evidence that Kirsty had died in the flat and senior forensic scientist Claire Morse was the person to find it.
She spotted small signs of blood on the wall and under a bright forensic light found more on the floor.
She also spotted stains under a newly painted ceiling and continued to find blood in other parts of the flat, including in the bathroom.
DNA profiles matched Kirsty and forensics also found small traces of her blood on Grabham’s clothing.
To make the case against him watertight, they needed to prove that he moved her body to the underpass.
Phone records placed Grabham’s mobile at the site where Kirsty’s body was dumped at 10:30 on March 31 because Grabham had received and sent text messages from there at that time.
In January 2010, Grabham went on trial for Kirsty’s murder and was found guilty of her murder on 4 February.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 19 years.
Roberts remembers the process. “Grabham’s behavior in court never changed. He showed absolutely no emotion. Nothing moved on his face.”
The impact of Kirsty’s death had another tragic twist.
She had two older sisters – one of them, Hayley, was only 16 months older and was extremely close to Kirsty.
Cathy said: “They really love each other. Hayley said “I feel like a part of me has been torn away. I can’t live without my little sister.”
“She started drinking very heavily. She died in my arms at Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry.
“Two of them went too young.”