The Couple who Murdered her Parents to Steal Their Money

If you watched the new series Landscapers, you might recognise Susan and Christopher Edwards. The couple murdered her parents before burying them in the garden and keeping up the pretence that they were alive. During the fifteen years before the authorities discovered the murder, they cleared the elderly couple's bank account, spending the money on a range of Hollywood memorabilia.

The Murder

If we believe Susan's tale, she was at her parent's house in Mansfield, on May Bank Holiday weekend 1998, when her parents started to quarrel. The relationship had always been turbulent; the Wycherley's had their fair share of arguments. However, this time Patricia Wycherley (63) shot her husband William (85) dead in front of their daughter, Susan Edwards. Many had commented previous to this that the couple had a strange relationship, they were almost more like brother and sister than lovers.

After Patricia had killed her husband with a World War Two revolver, she turned a verbal assault onto her daughter, even going as far as to tell her she had an affair with her son-in-law, Christopher. Finally, not able to take it anymore, Susan shot her mother twice in the back. She states that the mother and daughter relationship had been strained. Her father had raped Susan from eleven; she claims that her mother did nothing about it.

The police tell a different story: 

This is a couple that appear to have planned for some years to exact revenge for the taking of inheritance that had been due to Susan from her step-grandmother - Det Ch Insp Griffin

Susan returned to Christopher in London. The following weekend Susan confided in him and told him what she had done. The couple returned to her parent's house, after a fish dinner, had buried the couple in the garden. From this moment on, they would pretend to be her parents.

Pretending and Spending

The facade would go as far as forging documents in her parent's name and sending Christmas cards to friends and family. The couple pretended that the Wycherley's were alive; they spent all their money purchasing celebrity autobiographies and Hollywood memorabilia.

On what would have been William's 100th birthday in 2012, the Edwards received a phone call that would reveal the truth. A representative from the department of pensions called and said they required a face to face meeting with William to discuss his benefits on reaching triple figures. The Edwards' fled to France, scared they might get found out. It was not long before they soon ran out of money.

Capture and Trial

During a phone call to obtain money from Christopher's stepmother, he admitted to the murder of the Wycherley's. His stepmother went to the police. In 2013, they began to investigate, including digging up the garden of the family home, where they found two bodies. The Edward's were now wanted fugitives.

The police then received a strange email from the couple saying they would give themselves up in Lille train station to the authorities. The couple was arrested and brought back to the UK to stand trial. They maintained they were guilty of obstructing a coroner and theft from a bank account but denied murdering Susan's parents.

The Edwards' were found equally guilty in 2014 of the murder. They were sentenced to life in prison with a minimum sentence of twenty-five years. They launched an unsuccessful appeal and remain in prison to date; they are still a couple as much as you can be as they are in different prisons and have not seen each other since incarceration. 

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