The Landscape: The Surreal Suburban Murder Behind The Television Drama
Written byTimes Magazine
A fantasy writer, an understated assassin, and a terrifying secret are hidden in a suburban park. It's a story so far-fetched that it now attracts Oscar-winning directors and actors.
"That's not uncommon anywhere, but in a quiet community with family, this is the last place you would expect." Deputy Chief Constable Rob Griffin, who is leading the investigation, recalled his shock after an initial phone call with a woman in the '80s in October 2013.
"My first thought was, 'That sounds weird,'" he said. "I wondered if that was true because it was so unusual.
"But as with any phone call, we took it seriously, followed some clear lines of investigation, and quickly started to believe that what we were told might be true." He was told that a quiet, somewhat colorless, middle-aged couple from London, Christopher and Susan Edwards, killed two people and buried their bodies.
But that wasn't yesterday or a week ago; it was over a decade ago.
Now the true story of this near-daily murder has turned into a drama starring Oscar winner Olivia Coleman and Harry Potter saga actor David Write. Coleman describes the landscaper as to the opposite of a classic crime story. "It's quite difficult to explain," he said. There is intrigue; it is evil; there is "Why did they do it?"
ACC Griffin has said early on that this case is different from anything that has been investigated before. "Usually, a homicide investigation begins with the deceased, with the discovery of the body. "These investigations almost started with contacts with people who turned out to be killers.
The Whitherleys was so imprisoned that the police only found these photos of William - no Patricia. It soon became known that Susan Edwards' parents, William and Patricia Whiteherley, had not been seen since 1998 when they were 86 and 63 years old.
His last known address was a two-story house in a quiet dead-end street at Blenheim Close in Forest Town, on the outskirts of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
His attention quickly turned to his manicured garden. Complete with terrace. Excavations began in late October, and within 36 hours, two skeletons were found - one with the bullet still stuck in the spine. So it was a double kill. But the main suspect is still missing.
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