Edmund Riggs pleads not guilty to murder of wife Patricia Riggs

A man on trial for murdering his wife, who has admitted burying her dead body, maintained a lie about her disappearance for almost 18 years, a jury has been told.

Edmund Riggs has pleaded not guilty to mdering his wife Patricia at Margate in 2001.

A MAN on trial for murdering his wife, who has admitted burying her dead body, maintained a lie about her disappearance for almost 18 years, a jury has been told.

Crown prosecutor Todd Fuller said Ian Riggs’s lies served him well until Patricia Riggs’s partial remains were found in the back yard of their former Margate home 15 years after she went missing.

The mother-of-four’s skeletal remains were discovered by the new owner of the Janet St, Margate, property, while digging in the back yard in August, 2016.

Mr Fuller said the Crown said Mrs Riggs, 34, died at the hands of her husband of 17 years, who had intended to at least cause her a life-threatening injury.

Edmund Ian Riggs, known as Ian Riggs, today pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife, Patricia Anne Riggs, on or about September 30, 2001 at Margate.

But Riggs pleaded guilty to improperly interfering with his wife Tricia’s dead body, on or about September 30, 2001, at Margate.

Mr Fuller said on October 3, 2001, Riggs, then 42, went to Redcliffe Police Station and reported his wife, the mother of their four children, missing from their Margate home.

He said Riggs said he’d last seen her when he went to bed on the previous Sunday night, September 30, after they had argued, and had woken the next day to find her missing.

Riggs told police his wife had taken a credit card, keys and a mobile phone.

A few days after reporting his wife missing, Ian Riggs told police she had accused him of having an affair and said he was not pulling his weight in the marriage.

Riggs said in a tape recorded interview, played in court, that Tricia said she regretted marrying him, she was the worker in the relationship and he did nothing.

“She was saying things like she was never happy since marrying me,” Riggs told police.

He said on the night before she went missing, they again argued and he told her the relationship was over.

Riggs said Tricia told him she was going to screw him for everything he had and go for full custody of the children.

He said after he told Tricia he would get joint custody, she started crying, they moved into the bedroom and she later walked out.

He said he heard her go downstairs and when he woke in the middle of the night she was not in bed.

He said the next morning, after he and his daughter returned from a gym, Tricia was not home and the next day he found out she had not shown up for a new job.

He said on Wednesday, October 3, he went to Redcliffe Police Station, after contacting his wife’s friends.

“He claimed he had no idea where she was or what had happened to her,” Mr Fuller said.

“It’s a lie he has maintained for nearly 18 years.

“It was a lie that served him well until his wife’s partial remains were discovered buried in the back yard of their home, 15 years later.

“It’s a lie the Crown says he told to avoid the consequences of what he did, because the truth would betray him and his actions.”

Mr Fuller said six spots of Mrs Riggs’s blood were later found by police on Tricia and Ian Riggs’s bedroom wall, behind their bed.

Defence counsel Lars Falcongreen, in a defence opening, said Riggs admitted that he buried his wife’s body and that he told lies about his wife walking out of the house, never to be seen again.

But what was in dispute were the circumstances surrounding his wife’s death, and the circumstances and rationale behind his lies, Mr Falcongreen said.

Justice Flanagan told the jurors they should not allow Riggs’s admission of guilt for interfering with a corpse to prejudice them against him during the murder trial.

He said it did not make him somehow more likely to be guilty of her murder.

The judge said the Crown had to prove that Patricia Riggs was dead, Ian Riggs caused her death, she was unlawfully killed and Riggs killed his wife, intending to cause her death or at least cause her grievous bodily harm.

Justice Flanagan said the trial was expected to run for six days.

Originally published as Edmund Riggs pleads not guilty to murder of wife Patricia Riggs