By David Crabtree, Midlands Correspondent
Susan and Christopher Edwards have been found guilty of murdering her parents and burying them in their own back garden.
The Edwards shot Patricia and William Wycherley twice at close range before they hid their bodies in the back garden of their home in Blenheim Close, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
The couple then carried out a 15-year-long deception, pretending to neighbours, relatives and the authorities that the Wycherleys were still alive.
They sent Christmas cards, forged signatures and set up timers in the house where Susan's parents had lived to keep up the pretence for a decade and a half.
The Wycherleys' bank accounts were closed and a new one set up which allowed the couple to syphon nearly £250,000 from her dead parents, from state benefits payments, pensions and the eventual selling of their home.
Money was spent on a photo of film star Gary Cooper During that time, despite having been £160,000 in debt, the cash was used to fuel the couple's interest in movie star memorabilia.
The plot only came to light after the authorities and another group tried to get in touch with Mr Wycherley, at the point he would have turned 100, prompting them to flee to France.
The police dug up the back garden after Christopher Edwards, now 57, contacted his stepmother to ask for help and she tipped them off.
The two-and-a-half-week trial at Nottingham Crown Court heard that until they were exhumed in 2013, relatives and officials had no idea the Wycherleys had died on a bank holiday in May 1998.
One letter written by the Edwards in December 2007, nine years after the killings, reads: "Actually, my father is remarkably fit for his age - as well as being more adventurous than in younger years, as his Ireland travels would show!"
The couple forged letters and signatures from the Wycherleys Police found the bodies wrapped in bedding in a grave beside a fence near the back door of the property.
Susan Edwards, 58, had claimed that her mother had shot her father and then had confessed to having a relationship with Christopher, which led to her to grabbing the gun and killing her mother.
The Edwards fled to France after they received a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions and the Centenarian Society asking Mr Wycherley to get in touch at the approach of what would have been his 100th birthday.
After they were traced there, on October 30 the couple sent a politely-worded email to the officer in charge, Detective Chief Inspector Rob Griffin, saying "we are going to surrender".
DCI Griffin said: "It was straightforwardly about money."
The couple sent a letter informing relatives William was in Ireland During the trial it was revealed that Susan Edwards had faked a decade-long writing relationship with French film star Gerard Depardieu and spent thousands buying letters written by Hollywood star Gary Cooper.
The defendants, who were arrested last October, admitted obstructing the coroner in the execution of his duty and the theft of a Halifax credit balance.
Susan Edwards admitted her mother's manslaughter but both had denied murder.
Neither reacted as the jury of eight women and four men delivered its unanimous verdicts.
The couple will be sentenced at the court on Monday at 2.30pm.
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