Kate Garraway was visibly emotional on Good Morning Britain during a deeply moving interview. On Friday's episode, the ITV presenter momentarily set aside her own grief, following her husband Derek Draper 's illness, to speak with the parents of Leah Croucher , who was murdered. The 19-year-old’s parents, John and Claire, shared their heart-wrenching story and toward the end of the interview, Kate, clearly touched by their loss, asked if she could "give them a hug.
" Leah was killed by sex offender Neil Maxwell, who had been found dead in 2019. However, it took police four years to reach a conclusion about her death, with the coroner's court only holding a session in June . The teen went missing on February 15, 2019, after telling her family she was going to work but never returned.
Her body was discovered three years later in October 2022 inside a vacant property in Milton Keynes, where 49-year-old Maxwell had previously worked as a handyman. Two months after taking Leah's life, Maxwell ended his own in a bike shed. However, the uncertainty surrounding her disappearance deeply affected her brother, Haydon Croucher, at the time who took his own life in November 2019, just before the nine-month anniversary of her disappearance.
During the GMB interview, Leah's parents also discussed their grief and called for reforms to the prison and probation services, which had failed to monitor Maxwell, prolonging their agony in finding their daughter. Claire shared in the emotional inter.