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<\/p>\nA HUSBAND and wife who murdered her parents before burying them under a patio were caught 15 YEARS later.<\/p>\n
Patricia and William Wycherley were gunned down at their home in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, over the 1998 May Day Bank Holiday weekend.<\/p>\n
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In the fifteen years that followed, an intricate web of lies propped up a fallacy the couple were still alive.<\/p>\n
These included letters to pals and forged signatures, while documents were fraudulently signed off.<\/p>\n
The scheme enabled killers Susan and Christopher Edwards to loot \u00a3245,000 from the pensioners.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, the Edwardses spent all of it on Hollywood memorabilia – particularly signed photos of silver screen star Gary Cooper.<\/p>\n
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."<\/p>\n It was Christopher, who was "experienced with guns", who is believed to have shot the Wycherleys\u00a0dead with a WWII .38 revolver.<\/p>\n Neighbours said they had seen Christoper, 57, "up to his waist" digging in the garden that day.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Just a day after the murder Susan, 56, cleared \u00a340,000 from her parents' account.<\/p>\n Over the coming years, the couple launched a full scale operation to plunder as much cash as possible to fund their celebrity obsessions.<\/p>\n This included trips every three weeks from their Dagenham, East London home, to Blenheim Close where Susan's parents were buried under the patio.<\/p>\n Once there, they would cut the grass and sift the post to pay telephone bills.<\/p>\n The Wycherleys hospital appointments would be cancelled and letters to the DWP forged to keep pension payments coming in, which they would loot.<\/p>\n The Edwardses would also scribble cards to friends, posing as the dead couple in a frantic bid to keep up their lies.<\/p>\n 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."<\/p>\n Those that called at the house were told the Wycherleys were in Blackpool or Morecambe.<\/p>\n By chance in 2005, a driver veered off the road and crashed a car through the garden fence. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n By September 2012, the DWP contacted Mr Wycherley asking for a face-to-face interview as he was approaching his 100th birthday.<\/p>\n According to police, the Edwardses panicked and fled to France.<\/p>\n It's staggering to think that's what they spent their money on, but that's what they did<\/p>\n When authorities caught up with them a year later, they had just one Euro between them.<\/p>\n They surrendered themselves at the Eurostar terminal.<\/p>\n Police found the Wycherleys remains in the garden in October 2013, one body had a bullet lodged in the spine.<\/p>\n At their trial, Christopher claimed Mrs Wycherley had shot her husband before Susan shot her in retaliation, later burying the bodies a week later.<\/p>\n He had spun the same tale to his stepmother while asking for money in France.<\/p>\n The court heard how the ex-accountant "indulged" Susan's "fascination for celebrities and autographs" by buying her the items as gifts.<\/p>\n Christopher had also racked up a debt of \u00a314,000 on one credit card during "hideous expenditure" on Gary Cooper items.<\/p>\n They were found guilty\u00a0in 2014 of the murders, with the judge calling Susan "an accomplished liar and a fantasist".<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/NINTCHDBPICT000101974997.jpg\")
<\/picture>PARENT KILLERS <\/span><\/p>\nA look at the life of killers Susan and Christopher Edwards <\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/DM-CASEBOOK-MANSFIELD-MURDERS-v2.jpg\")
<\/picture>PARENT TRAP <\/span><\/p>\nChilling true story of couple who shot & buried parents in garden & stole \u00a3300K<\/h3>\n
Most read in The Sun<\/h2>\n
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