Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman set to play Mansfield murderer in true-crime drama

Ms Colman, who stars as Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s The Crown, will play Susan Edwards, a woman currently serving 25 years behind bars for murdering her reclusive Forest Town parents in 1998 before burying them in their Blenheim Close garden.

The deaths, known locally as the Wycherley murders, saw Susan and her gun-loving husband Christopher convicted of fatally shooting Susan’s parents William and Patricia Wycherley, burying them in the garden and making off with £250,000 in benefits.

The couple, who collected novelty celebrity memorabilia, then fraudulently pretended Susan's parents were still alive for more than 15 years – before eventually handing themselves into police and being tried for murder in 2014.

And now the murders are set to be turned into a four-part true-crime drama series by American firm HBO, alongside Sky Atlantic in the UK, which will see Colman star as Susan Edwards.

She will partner her screenwriter husband Ed Sinclair for the series, titled Landscapers, which will see the dramatic murders brought to life on-screen.

Speaking to magazine Deadline, Ms Colman said: “I love Ed's scripts, which is just as well as he cooks many of my meals. No, the truth is it's quite rare to be desperate to play a part on the first reading of a script, but that was the case here.

“The writing is brave, but subtle and tender too. A joy for any actor.”

Susan, now 59, and Christopher Edwards, 60, had claimed that Patricia Wycherley murdered her elderly husband William in a late night row in the back bedroom of their home, and had then been shot by Susan Edwards, who admitted manslaughter.

The Edwards claimed that Susan had then returned to London and brought her husband back to Mansfield the following weekend and told him of the deaths.

He had then agreed to help her dispose of the bodies and joined her in profiting in over £250,000 in benefits, pensions and savings over the next 15 years - finally fleeing to France when they realised the game was up.

But prosecutors said the Edwards had concocted the plan together – travelling to Mansfield in May 1998 and shooting Patricia, 63, and William, 85, in cold blood, before burying them in the garden that same weekend.

They said that they were motivated by money and jointly set up new bank accounts, diverting cash out of accounts belonging to the Wycherleys and then closing them down.

The Edwards spent 15 years carefully crafting the myth that the Wycherleys were still alive – maintaining the garden and making the house look lived-in, telling neighbours they had moved away or were travelling, and writing dozens of letters and cards to family members.

The couple were brought to justice in 2014 after prosecutors picked apart their lies, finding that they had murdered the estranged Wycherleys using a gun owned by Christopher – a gun enthusiast who regularly attended shooting clubs in Earl’s Court.

The jury of eight women and four men were sent out at lunchtime on June 19, 2014, and took just under six hours and twenty minutes to reach the unanimous guilty verdicts.