Mansfield House Mystery: Couple Admit To Burying Dead Parents In Back Garden

Mansfield House Mystery: Couple Admit To Burying Dead Parents In Back Garden
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A married couple have admitted to burying the wife's parents in their back garden nearly 16 years ago.

While Susan Edwards, 55, and her husband Christopher, 57, deny murdering William and Patricia Wycherley, they have pleaded guilty to two charges.

During a plea hearing at Nottingham Crown Court today, the couple admitted to obstructing the coroner in the execution of his duty and the theft of a credit balance.

The Wycherleys disappeared from their semi-detached house in Mansfield in 1998.

Police launched a murder investigation after two sets of human remains were recovered from the garden of their home in Blenheim Close, Forest Town, last October.

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The couple who lived in the house in the '90s 'just disappeared', according to neighbours

Post-mortem examinations showed both had been shot.

Nottinghamshire Police said DNA testing had formally identified the remains - which were discovered after a tip off - as those of Mr and Mrs Wycherley, who would now be 101 and 79 respectively.

The accused, of no fixed address, were arrested at St Pancras International station in London on October 30 last year.

At an earlier hearing at Nottingham Crown Court the couple each pleaded not guilty to two charges of murder between May 1

and 5, 1998.

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Police outside 2 Blenheim Close, Forest Town, Mansfield

Today the couple admitted obstructing a coroner in the execution of his duty by burying the bodies in the garden of 2 Blenheim Close between May 2 and May 10, 1998.

They also each pleaded guilty to a further charge of stealing a credit balance from a Halifax Bank account between May 4 1998 and 31 October 2013.

The judge Mrs Justice Thirlwall remanded them in custody.

They will next appear at Nottingham Crown Court for trial on June 4.

The trial is expected to last between 3 and 4 weeks.