Channel 4 returns to another horrific crime case in Murder in the Suburbsthis time investigating the murder of Sharon Birchwood. Her death stunned Britain when the 52-year-old disabled woman was found murdered at her home in Ashstead, Surrey, in 2007, but it was the motive for the crime that proved even more shocking.
Sharon’s body was discovered by her ex-husband Graham Birchwood, who immediately contacted emergency services. She was gagged with duct tape and strangled with an electrical cord, prompting detectives to launch a major murder investigation.
Suspicion immediately fell on Graham. Although the couple divorced in 1989, they remained unusually close in the following years. The couple met as teenagers and ran off to Gretna Green three years later.
Channel 4
Sharon believed she had found her match, but the marriage eventually fell apart after Graham suggested they split for financial reasons. After the divorce, Graham remarried and had two children.
Despite living separately, he and Sharon remained on good terms and Sharon regularly allowed him to sleep over at her place.
In 2001, Sharon, who suffered from myalgic encephalomyelitis and bouts of depression, named Graham as the sole beneficiary of her will. If she dies, he will inherit £475,000.
This discovery immediately increased the detectives’ suspicions. They also learned that Graham had accumulated debts of around £150,000 after a series of failed business ventures and was facing financial ruin. Despite the obvious motive, investigators soon faced a major obstacle.
On the day of Sharon’s murder, CCTV captured Graham at Ashley’s shopping center in Epsom, giving him a seemingly airtight alibi. Detectives were forced to expand their investigation, distributing thousands of flyers to local residents and businesses in hopes of finding a new lead.
Instead, those who knew Sharon described her as a quiet, well-loved woman with no apparent enemies, leaving police with few promising lines of investigation. The investigation took a new turn when detectives began investigating Paul Cryne, Sharon’s former bodyguard and former business partner, who had moved to Thailand where he lived an extravagant lifestyle.
Just weeks before the murder, he flew from Thailand to stay with Sharon at his mother’s home in Banstead. This visit ultimately triggered his downfall. Detectives found Crane’s DNA on a mug in the Banstead home, as well as on Sharon’s right hand and a roll of tape used to bind her during the attack.
Forensic evidence was compared to DNA obtained by police following Cryne’s 1972 conviction for holding a girlfriend hostage, a crime for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Channel 4
Investigators concluded that Kryne killed Sharon shortly after she returned home from a shopping trip and then quickly fled to catch a plane back to Thailand. Police tracked him to Koh Chang, where he was arrested and then extradited to the UK to stand trial.
As the investigation continued, police uncovered a darker conspiracy. Evidence showed that Graham orchestrated the murder by hiring Crane to kill Sharon so he could inherit her fortune. Prosecutors said he agreed to pay Crane £30,000 to carry out the attack.
The crucial breakthrough came from Graham’s own mother, who told police that her son convinced her to let Cryne stay at her home in the days leading up to the murder, unknowingly helping him prepare for the murder.
In 2010, both men were found guilty of Sharon’s murder. Cryne was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 28 years and six months, while Graham received a life sentence with a minimum term of 32 years for masterminding the murder. Neither man is alive today.
Graham Birchwood died from a heart condition at HMP Wayland in Norfolk in 2019 while serving his sentence. Cryne also died in custody after developing sepsis and being treated at the Royal Stoke University Hospital.
Murder in the Suburbs airs this Thursday (July 16) from 10pm on Channel 4.