A HUSBAND and wife who murdered her parents before burying them under a patio were caught 15 YEARS later.
Patricia and William Wycherley were gunned down at their home in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, over the 1998 May Day Bank Holiday weekend.
PA:Press AssociationKillers Susan and Christopher Edwards murdered her parents before burying them in the garden and looting over £245,000 in 15 years[/caption]
PA:Press AssociationNeighbours said they had seen Christoper ‘up to his waist’ digging in the garden the day of the murders[/caption]
In the fifteen years that followed, an intricate web of lies propped up a fallacy the couple were still alive.
These included letters to pals and forged signatures, while documents were fraudulently signed off.
The scheme enabled killers Susan and Christopher Edwards to loot £245,000 from the pensioners.
Remarkably, the Edwardses spent all of it on Hollywood memorabilia – particularly signed photos of silver screen star Gary Cooper.
DCI Rob Griffin, of the East Midlands major crime unit said in 2014: “It’s staggering to think that’s what they spent their money on, but that’s what they did.”
It was Christopher, who was “experienced with guns”, who is believed to have shot the Wycherleys dead with a WWII .38 revolver.
Neighbours said they had seen Christoper, 57, “up to his waist” digging in the garden that day.
The couple awoke in the early hours to carry the bodies, wrapped in a duvet, down from the upstairs bedroom where they had been murdered, to the garden.
Just a day after the murder Susan, 56, cleared £40,000 from her parents’ account.
Over the coming years, the couple launched a full scale operation to plunder as much cash as possible to fund their celebrity obsessions.
REPLYING TO LETTERS
This included trips every three weeks from their Dagenham, East London home, to Blenheim Close where Susan’s parents were buried under the patio.
Once there, they would cut the grass and sift the post to pay telephone bills.
The Wycherleys hospital appointments would be cancelled and letters to the DWP forged to keep pension payments coming in, which they would loot.
The Edwardses would also scribble cards to friends, posing as the dead couple in a frantic bid to keep up their lies.
A 2007 Christmas card read: “I should explain that – with my father getting elderly and my mother not always in the best of health – they had been travelling around Ireland because of the good air on and off for some years.”
Those that called at the house were told the Wycherleys were in Blackpool or Morecambe.
By chance in 2005, a driver veered off the road and crashed a car through the garden fence.
The couple feared the bodies may be discovered so quickly sold the property by forging the Wycherleys’ signatures and had all post redirected to them.
By September 2012, the DWP contacted Mr Wycherley asking for a face-to-face interview as he was approaching his 100th birthday.
According to police, the Edwardses panicked and fled to France.
It’s staggering to think that’s what they spent their money on, but that’s what they did
DCI Rob Griffin discussing the Edwardses Hollywood memorabilia obsession
When authorities caught up with them a year later, they had just one Euro between them.
They surrendered themselves at the Eurostar terminal.
Police found the Wycherleys remains in the garden in October 2013, one body had a bullet lodged in the spine.
At their trial, Christopher claimed Mrs Wycherley had shot her husband before Susan shot her in retaliation, later burying the bodies a week later.
He had spun the same tale to his stepmother while asking for money in France.
The court heard how the ex-accountant “indulged” Susan’s “fascination for celebrities and autographs” by buying her the items as gifts.
Christopher had also racked up a debt of £14,000 on one credit card during “hideous expenditure” on Gary Cooper items.
They were found guilty in 2014 of the murders, with the judge calling Susan “an accomplished liar and a fantasist”.
Both were sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 25 years each.
The story featured on Channel 5’s The Body Under the Patio: Murder in Suburbia, which aired on Wednesday evening.
HandoutIn the fifteen years after the murder, the couple splashed their looted money on memorabilia such as this Gary Cooper letter[/caption]
HandoutUndated handout photo issued by Nottinghamshire Police of victim William Wycherley[/caption]
He was buried under the patio of his home on Blenheim Close, Mansfield Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
