Sharon Birchwood was found murdered at her home in Ashtead, Surrey, in 2007, and police later concluded that her ex-husband Graham Birchwood arranged the killing. Channel 4 is revisiting the case in Murder in Suburbia, returning attention to how a family link, a will and a payment of £30k were tied to the death of a disabled 52-year-old woman.
Sharon lived with myalgic encephalomyelitis and bouts of depression. She and Graham had met as teenagers, eloped to Gretna Green three years later, and divorced in 1989, but she still allowed him to stay overnight at her home.
Sharon Birchwood and Graham Birchwood
In 2001, Sharon named Graham the sole beneficiary of her will, and he stood to inherit £475k if she died. By then, he had remarried, had two children and had accumulated debts of around £150k after unsuccessful business ventures.
That financial picture sat alongside the evidence police later used against him. Prosecutors said Graham agreed to pay Paul Cryne £30k to carry out the attack, turning the inheritance into the alleged motive behind the killing.
Paul Cryne for the attack
Paul Cryne had lived an extravagant life in Thailand and had stayed with Sharon at her mother’s house in Banstead just weeks before the killing. Police found his DNA on a mug at the Banstead property, on Sharon’s right hand and on the roll of tape used in the attack.
Investigators also matched his DNA to police records from his 1972 conviction for holding a girlfriend hostage, for which he received seven years in prison. They later tracked him to Koh Chang, where he was arrested before being extradited to the UK.
Ashley Shopping Centre in Epsom
CCTV showed Graham at the Ashley Shopping Centre in Epsom on the day Sharon was killed, yet police later said he orchestrated the murder from outside the house. That gap between the footage and the case against him is what gives the story its force: the public record points to movement, while the investigation points to planning.
What happened in court after Paul Cryne was arrested and extradited to the UK is the remaining question in the story as presented, and the documentary revisits the case with that gap still hanging over it. For readers, the practical takeaway is direct: the case turns on inheritance, DNA and a paid attack allegation, not on a single moment at the house.
