adminA husband and wife were yesterday found guilty of murdering her parents and burying them in the garden so they could “clean out” their bank accounts.
William and Patricia Wycherley, 85 and 63, were each shot twice with a Second World War revolver before being wrapped in bedding and “stacked” under a Mansfield lawn, where they lay undiscovered for 15 years.
Their debt-laden daughter Susan Edwards, 55, and her husband Christopher, 57, buried them after watching the Eurovision song contest on a bank holiday weekend in 1998.
They told people they had moved to Ireland for the “good air” then covered the grave with plants and spent the next 15 years tricking family members, neighbours, doctors into believing the Wycherleys were still alive.
The couple “cleaned out” their savings, pensions and benefits after forging letters from the Wycherleys and getting cash diverted into their own bank account.
But instead of wiping their £160,000 debt they bought memorabilia belonging to stars Gary Cooper and Frank Sinatra — leaving them with “nothing to show” for their crimes.
Fourteen years after the murders the Edwards fled to Lille in France after a letter arrived for Wycherley stating he needed to contact the Department for Work and Pensions to review his benefits, as he was approaching his 100th birthday.
Police were then alerted to the crime after Edwards’ stepmother said he had confessed to her the Wycherleys had been buried in the garden of their old semi in their quiet cul-de-sac.
Christopher Edwards then sent an email to Detective Chief Inspector Rob Griffin “out of the blue” on October 30, 2013, after Nottinghamshire Police had dug up the bodies.
The precisely-written email was titled “Surrender to UK Border Force at Lille Europe Station”, and addressed to Griffin.
It read: “Please could you notify the UK Border Force at Lille Europe so that they may expect us|, and was signed “yours sincerely, Christopher Edwards”.
The pair relayed a “carefully hatched and rehearsed story”, which was that Mrs Edwards killed Wycherley after she had killed her husband. Susan Edwards admitted her manslaughter but both denied their murders.
But today the jury of eight women and four men delivered its unanimous guilty verdicts.
Judge Justice Thirlwall told them: “You both know what the consequences are of convictions for murder. “You will both be subject to life sentences. What I have to consider if the length of the minimum terms you shall each serve before being considered for parole”.
They will be sentenced on Monday.
Dona Parry-Jones, a senior crown prosecutor at CPS East Midlands, said: “This was a cold, calculated murder, motivated by greed.
“The two defendants travelled to Mansfield, murdered the elderly couple and took their life savings to relieve their own financial troubles.
“Having killed their parents and buried them in their own back garden, the defendants concocted lies about the couple’s deaths to neighbours and relatives to enable them to continue spending their pensions, replying to cards and letters on their behalf and even selling their house. All in all they stole nearly £250,000.”
The couple had both denied murder, but Edwards had admitted manslaughter, which was not accepted by prosecutors.
Christopher Edwards had claimed his wife shot her mother after Wycherley, 63, boasted about sleeping with him. Mrs Edwards told police her 85-year-old father had abused her as a child.
Prosecutor Peter Joyce QC said the defendants kept up the deception that the Wycherleys were still alive by writing “jocular” letters purporting to be from the dead couple in response to cards or correspondence.
They even managed to trick solicitors into allowing the sale of the Wycherleys’ home. Joyce said: “They deceived and tricked everyone into believing that Susan Edwards’ parents, William and Patricia, were still alive.They could then cover up the killings and continue to fund their own lifestyle and help to solve their financial difficulties out of monies that were continuing to be paid to the Wycherleys.”
The money — £66,000 from the sale of the house, along with £173,767.40 in pension and benefit payments — was “diverted” into a joint account opened in the names of Susan Edwards and her mother after the May Day bank holiday in 1998, when the murders are alleged to have taken place. Applications for bank loans and credit cards were also made in Wycherley’s name.
The “reserved and reclusive” Wycherleys had two joint accounts holding £40,000 which were “cleaned out” days after the murders.
Nottingham Crown Court heard the defendants regularly travelled to the house in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, from their London home following the murders to maintain the garden.
A postmortem examination found the Wycherleys had been shot twice with a revolver, like one Christopher Edwards was known to have owned, Mr Joyce said.
When the couple, who had fled to Lille in France in 2012, voluntarily boarded a Eurostar train back to England they had a suitcase stuffed with old memorabilia, including signed photos and autographs of the Hollywood actor and two-time Oscar winner Gary Cooper. — Daily Mail.
Online Reporter