Police officer Brian Costello was off duty at a harvest festival when he received a phone call from France that would lead to the discovery of two bodies buried under a patio and the unravelling of a bizarre murder case.
It was 2013 and a few days previously Brian, who is now retired, had spoken to a woman called Elizabeth Edwards, who had told him her missing stepson, Christopher Edwards, had contacted her out of the blue with a disturbing story.
Christopher had told her that 15 years previously his wife Susan had shot her own mother dead during a struggle which had ensued after the elderly lady had shot her husband, Susan’s father. He had helped bury them in the garden.
Brian, now 55, told Elizabeth to give his number to her stepson, who was in France, and urge him to confess. So when Brian, from Mansfield, Notts, saw a French dialling code when he got that call, he knew it had to be Christopher.
Brian says: “He was nervous, or appeared nervous. He was making out he was in a phone box, but wouldn’t say where he was, and said he was scared of Susan and worried about what she would do if she found out he was talking to his stepmother or the police.
“He did sound believable at that moment. He was very convincing, and I had no reason to doubt him at that time. But he was feeding me bull****.”
Christopher said he had helped bury Patricia and William Wycherley in their back garden. The bodies had never been discovered or the couple even reported missing. Brian says: “I worked a lot of my career on the counter terrorism unit, but this case was gobsmacking.
“It’s something you see on Brookside – the storyline with a body under a patio, that only ever happens on TV programmes. But no, occasionally, actually it happens for real.”
Now this real-life story has been dramatised for TV in Landscapers, a four-part series, starting on Sky tonight, starring Olivia Colman and David Thewlis as Susan and Christopher Edwards.
Christopher had, it later transpired in court, actually shot Patricia, 63, and William, 85, himself and, along with his wife, stolen their savings and pensions to the tune of around £300,000.
They spent the money on celebrity memorabilia and autographs from stars, including Gary Cooper, Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant.
Susan, an only child, married Christopher in 1983 and became estranged from her parents when they failed to pass on an inheritance from a relative that was intended for her.
During the May bank holiday weekend of 1998, former librarian Susan, along with Christopher, a credit controller, visited her parents at their home in Blenheim Close, Forest Town, Mansfield.
Christopher, who had a gun licence, shot both Patricia and William twice in the chest in their bedroom with a Second World War .38 calibre revolver.
Strangely, none of the neighbours reported hearing shots, and even when Christopher was spotted digging a 3ft hole outside the back door in the early hours, nothing was thought of it. William and Patricia were “eccentric”, people said later, and didn’t really mix.
That only helped their killers.
Christopher and Susan, then 41 and 39, wrapped the bodies in a duvet and put them in the hole, before planting some plants on top.
Susan went to the bank with forged documents, opened a joint account in her name and her mother’s, and transferred £40,579 of her parents’ savings.
Over the next 15 years, she and Christopher took pension payments, benefits, loans and credit cards in the Wycherleys’ names.
They spent the money on their celebrity obsession, paying £20,000 for a signed photo of Frank Sinatra and £14,000 on Gary Cooper memorabilia.
The fantasy world which Susan, at least, inhabited, emerged in court when it was revealed she had forged letters from French actor Gerard Depardieu for years, pretending to her husband he was her penpal.
Brian says: “They shot them, for money. Just so they could buy some movie memorabilia. It’s tragic, utterly tragic that two people lost their lives just so someone could fulfil some craving for some photograph and signature of a movie star.
“It’s mucky and dirty and twisted.”
The couple covered up the murders with forgeries and lies, telling neighbours the Wycherleys were travelling.
They regularly visited the house from their own home in Dagenham, East London, to keep it trim. In 2005, they even felt secure enough to sell it.
After speaking to Elizabeth, Brian contacted the buyer, who admitted that when he had bought the house he thought it strange that the furniture and ornaments were still there, “like the couple who lived there had disappeared”.
It was only when the Department for Work and Pensions wrote ahead of William’s 100th birthday and asked to meet him in person to discuss benefits, that Christopher and Susan fled to France knowing they would be discovered. When they ran out of money, Christopher called Elizabeth asking for cash and told his story.
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After Christopher then called Brian, police acted swiftly to excavate the garden and found the bodies. Tenant Sue Bramley, who still lives in the house, had built a patio on top of the grave. She says: “I watched in horrified fascination as sniffer dogs focused on that particular patch of garden by the back door, where oddly we’d never been able to grow flowers or plants.”
Days later, Christopher called Brian again. Brian says: “He had heard the bodies had been found. I said we need to talk to you, get you back into the country, and he was still saying it was Susan and he was in fear of her.”
Brian urged him to contact the investigation team, led by then DCI Rob Griffin, and soon afterwards he did.
Three weeks later, in October 2013, Christopher and Susan were arrested at St Pancras station in London. They had just one euro, and a suitcase of memorabilia.
Their story later unravelled in court, especially in the moment Christopher was asked to demonstrate firing a gun, and calmly and expertly did so four times, pointing towards the jury.
Brian says: “I think that’s what made people think the rest of his story was fabrication.” They both received life sentences for the double murder.
In court, Susan claimed she had been abused by her father, and that her mother had taunted her about it before the shooting. But to Brian’s mind, they were premeditated killers.
He says: “They were cold and calculating and murdered two people for money – end of.”
- Landscapers is on Sky Atlantic and NOW from December 7.
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