A CHANNEL 5 documentary explores the chilling murder of a suburban couple.
It took 16 years for William and Patricia Wycherley to find justice. Here’s more about the disturbing killing.
Over the Early May bank holiday weekend in 1998, a grim event unfolded in a suburb of Mansfield, England.
William and Patricia Wycherley, an elderly couple, were shot and killed in their home by their daughter Susan and her husband, Christopher Edwards.
Post-murder, the Edwards buried the bodies in their garden, subsequently going on a deceitful spree using the Wycherleys’ identities to fund an extravagant hobby of collecting Hollywood memorabilia.
The couple carried out the murder using a .38 calibre revolver from the Second World War, shooting each victim twice in the chest between May 1 and May 5, 1998.
William, once a British Merchant Navy serviceman, had married Patricia back in 1958.
At their times of death, William was 85, and Patricia was 63.
William was the son of a Mansfield coal miner and he had joined the navy marrying Patricia when he was 46 and she was 23, who was pregnant with their only child.
The investigation into their disappearance was puzzling.
Police found minimal traces of the couple’s personal lives—only two photographs of William and none of Patricia, with no friends and just a few distant relatives who hardly knew William.
Neighbours’ descriptions painted a quaint picture, referring to Patricia as “old-fashioned” and William as “like a Victorian father, head of the family.”
Susan and Christopher, who met through a dating agency and married in 1983, lived a seemingly ordinary life in a small flat in Dagenham, East London.
Christopher worked as a credit controller and Susan, formerly a librarian, quit her job after their marriage.
Their shared obsession with Hollywood memorabilia led them into financial irresponsibility, marked by extravagant purchases such as a £20,000 signed photograph of Frank Sinatra.
Susan even forged letters from French actor Gérard Depardieu to further their fraudulent activities.
The deceit deepened on May 5, 1998, when Susan opened a joint bank account under her and her deceased mother’s names, transferring over £40,000 of her parents’ savings.
They redirected all incoming funds from pensions, industrial injury payouts, and loans to themselves, lavishing almost all on memorabilia, including numerous signed photographs of Gary Cooper.
In 2005, the couple sold the Wycherleys’ house using forged signatures for under £67,000 to alleviate their debts, despite still spending lavishly on memorabilia.
Their crime remained hidden until 2012, when desperation led Christopher to confess to his stepmother, seeking financial help.
At that point, the Edwards were residing in Lille, France, having fled the UK to escape a potential interview with the Department for Work and Pensions concerning William’s approaching 100th birthday.
They returned to the UK in October 2013, surrendering to the police at St Pancras railway station, with only a euro between them.
During the trial, the Edwards claimed that a heated argument led to the murders, alleging Patricia had provoked Susan by claiming she was unwanted as a child and accusing her of having an affair with Christopher.
The story was dismissed by prosecutors, who presented evidence of Christopher’s familiarity with firearms and suggested his likely role as the shooter, based on ballistic evidence showing carefully placed shots from an experienced handler.
Following their arrest, it was revealed that Christopher had buried the bodies in the backyard shortly after the murders, planting shrubs above to mask his grim deed.
Although a neighbour noticed the unusual activity, it wasn’t reported as suspicious at the time.
The trial concluded in June 2014 with both Susan and Christopher found guilty of murder.
They received life sentences with a minimum term of 25 years each.
The chilling killing of lies, murder, and obsession inspired the 2021 docudrama miniseries Landscapers with Olivia Colman.
Channel 5’s The Body Under the Patio: Murder in Suburbia attempts to find the truth behind the deaths of husband and wife William and Patricia Wycherley.
The Body Under the Patio: Murder in Suburbia is on Channel 5 on Thursday, July 18, at 10pm and on Channel 5 on demand.
