A Hollywood-obsessed murderer is hoping ‘new information’ will free her after she was jailed for killing her elderly parents and covering up their deaths for 15 years.
Susan Edwards, who is played by Oscar-winner Olivia Colman in the adaptation of her life in Landscapers, was given a life imprisonment with a 25-year minimum jail term in 2014.
Edwards, 67, shot her parents William and Patricia Wycherley in May 1998, buried them in the garden with the help of her husband, Christopher, and then stole £280,000 from her parents to fund her extensive Hollywood memorabilia collection.
The Edwards began hoarding cinematic mementos, like signed autographs of Golden Age legends and Frank Sinatra souvenirs, and Susan even faked an extensive correspondence with French actor Gerard Depardieu.
The killers wrote letters to appear as if her parents were still alive but it was only after inquiries were made into what was meant to be William’s upcoming 100th birthday, that authorities uncovered the murder.
Susan, who has maintained her innocence and insisted she was sexually abused by her father as a child, claimed her mother shot her father and provoked Susan into shooting her.
Christopher’s only role in the case was wrapping them in a duvet and digging the 3ft grave, she claimed, although a judge went on to find Christopher, now 68, shot them with a Second World War .38 revolver.
Now, Susan’s solicitor Darrell Ennis-Gayle, of Hodge Jones & Allen Solicitors, told the Mirror: ‘In light of newly obtained information, Ms Edwards’ legal team are seriously considering submitting grounds of appeal to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.’
Susan and Christopher Edwards were given life imprisonment with a 25-year minimum jail term in 2014 for their role in killing Susan’s elderly parents and covering up their deaths for 15 years
The remarkable story was dramatised in 2021 by The Favourite actor Olivia Colman and Harry Potter star David Thewlis in Landscapers
The former librarian, described by a judge as ‘an accomplished liar and a fantasist’, was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 after police dug up the bodies of her parents who had been hidden in the garden of their housing estate in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, for 15 years.
However, the exact details of who shot who that May Day Bank Holiday are unknown and none of the neighbours heard a blast.
A neighbour at the time spotted Christopher digging a hole up to his waist in the back garden in the middle of the night – but didn’t think that was suspicious.
When they saw shrubs on top of a new earth mound the following morning, they presumed he’d been landscaping the garden for his in-laws – Susan and Christopher would then regularly travel from their home in Dagenham, east London, to the Wycherley property to maintain the garden.
But as soon as the banks opened the day after the shootings, Susan emptied her parents’ savings accounts of £40,000, before opening a joint savings account for her and her then deceased mother.
She spent the next 15 years diverting £173,767 in pension and benefit payments to the account, banking another £66,000 from the sale of the house in Mansfield and making applications for loans and credit cards in Mrs Wycherley’s name.
The total amount diverted into the joint account was said at trial to be £245,705, although this was later revised upwards to £286,285.
During this time, friends and neighbours believed William, 85, and Patricia, 63, had moved to Ireland for the ‘good air’, was visiting the seaside or even Australia, and received forged Christmas cards.
For the 15 years, Patricia and William’s bodies lay buried in the garden of their home in a housing estate in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire
The only two photographs police found of Mr Wycherley after discovery of the bodies – there were none recovered of Patricia
Doctors and other officials were similarly duped by the many letters that Susan wrote under her parents name to maintain the allusion of their being alive.
Although they were splurging all of the Wycherley’s money on Hollywood memorabilia, by 2013, the Edwards could barely afford to eat and were living in poverty alongside their pictures of long-dead acting legends which they couldn’t bear to part with.
The couple grew worried that someone would suspect something when the Department for Work and Pensions sent a letter to William, asking for a meeting to review his benefits and organise the customary telegram from the queen to celebrate centenarians.
They fled to Lille, in northern France, where Christopher phoned his stepmother, Elizabeth, asking her for money and told her Susan had been staying with her parents when she woke up to discover her mother had shot her father.
Edward said Mrs Wycherley then boasted she had slept with him, her own son-in-law, and Susan had shot her in anger.
The horrifying story prompted Elizabeth to phone the police and with the dawning realisation that the jig was up, Christopher emailed the British police and said they were coming home to surrender themselves.
When they were arrested, the only possessions they had on them was one euro, some clothes and a suitcase packed with their precious memorabilia.
Mrs Justice Thirlwall said at the time of the Edwards’s sentencing: ‘In May of 1998 the two of you planned to shoot and kill them in their own home and that is what you did.
‘They were living a quiet, reclusive life in Mansfield. They knew no-one. They had as little contact as possible with other people. You knew they wouldn’t be missed, if they disappeared and they weren’t.’
The judge suggested that a reason why the Edwards shot the Wycherleys could be because Susan felt she was owed money that she had invested into their property in London but sold without anything given in return.
The remarkable story was dramatised in 2021 by The Favourite actor Colman and Harry Potter star David Thewlis – who portrayed Christopher – in a four-part Sky drama.
