Debt-ridden Susan Edwards maanaged to conceal the murder and burial of her parents William and Patricia Wycherley for 15 long years. Then a letter changed everything
For 15 years, William and Patricia Wycherley lay buried in their own back garden in a quiet suburb of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
A “reserved and reclusive” couple, William, 85, and Patricia, 63, were last seen alive in 1998, but relatives didn’t suspect a thing, continuing to receive Christmas cards and letters detailing the couple’s travels in Ireland.
What the recipients of these cards didn’t know was that the couple had, in fact, been ruthlessly murdered by their debt-ridden daughter, Susan Edwards, and her husband, Christopher Edwards.
The evil couple slaughtered Susan’s parents at some point over the course of the 1998 May Day bank holiday weekend, burying them just one metre beneath the earth, close to the fence of their sleepy cul-de-sac home.
As detailed in the Channel 5 documentary The Body Under The Patio: Murder In Suburbia, the Edwards drew more than £173,000 from the Wycherleys’ bank accounts, benefits, and pensions, in addition to making an additional £66,000 from selling their house in 2005.
For 15 years, it seemed the killers had gotten away with it, as they blew the stolen cash on Hollywood memorabilia. Then, in 2013, the arrival of a 100th birthday letter changed everything, and the Edwards realised they’d reached the end of the road…
The Edwardses had gone to great lengths to keep up a veneer of normality.
They travelled from Dagenham, East London, to check on the property and cut the grass, even going as far as to cancel hospital appointments and writing to the Department for Work and Pensions to make sure the Wycherleys’ pensions wouldn’t be stopped.
As the Wycherleys tended to keep ‘themselves to themselves’, and didn’t have very many close friends, suspicions weren’t raised. Christopher was even spotted digging the shallow graves by a neighbour, who didn’t think anything of it at the time.
As per The Guardian, in a statement read before Nottingham crown court by junior crown counsel Steven Coupland, former neighbour James Hobson recalled: “It was 7am in the morning and I can recall hearing a scraping sound … he appeared to be either digging a hole or filling a hole with earth using a spade. I recall saying to [my wife] Karina in a joking way, ‘He’s burying them in the garden’, and we both laughed at that.”
Believing themselves to have gotten away with their crimes, Susan and Christopher proceeded to blow through the looted cash, which they mostly used to fund their expensive hobby of collecting celebrity autographs and memorabilia. It’s understood the couple spent thousands on pricey Hollywood souvenirs and had a particular interest in collecting autographs of classic screen star Gary Cooper.
BBC News reports that Det Ch Insp Rob Griffin, of the East Midlands Major Crime Unit said: “They didn’t lead a particularly lavish lifestyle. It would seem that the vast majority of their money was spent on memorabilia, on authenticated autographed items on people that they admired. It’s staggering to think that’s what they spent their money on, but that’s what they did.”
Their crimes finally caught up with them in 2013, after a letter arrived from the Centenarian Society asking to speak to William ahead of what would have been his 100th birthday. Using the last of their money, they fled to Lille, France, where a by-then desperate Christopher rang his elderly stepmother Elizabeth Edwards, asking for money and telling her the story he would later give in court.
During his phone call with Elizabeth, Christopher claimed that Patricia had shot husband William, after which she provoked Susan into shooting her by claiming to have had an affair with Christopher. Elizabeth contacted the police and the bodies were finally recovered, wrapped in bedding and with bullet wounds to the upper torsos.
Susan and Christopher eventually surrendered to UK Border Force authorities at a Eurostar terminal in London. The following year, they were convicted of the murders of Patricia and William and were sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 25 years each.
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You can stream Channel 5’s The Body Under The Patio: Murder in Suburbia on My5 now.
