‘Dream’ home greed led to murder

Scheming wife Anita Mansfield made it a family affair when she conceived an elaborate murder plot so that she could buy the country house of her dreams.

She took out two fraudulent life insurance policies to raise 800,000 by pretending to be her own sister in law.

When everything was in place the 36 year old and her husband Michael Millcroft, 46, drove to the isolated replica oakleys house where Mandy, fake oakleys 34, lived with her adopted mother, Iris Jones, 78.

At the house in Hockliffe, Bedfordshire, the couple blasted Mandy and Iris to death with a 12 bore shotgun.

During her lifetime Iris had fostered around 120 children. A few like Mandy had remained with her.

Michael Millcroft had himself been fostered by Iris in 1959 when cheapest oakleys he was just 10 days old and lived with her and her late husband Clifford into adulthood.

He took Jones as his surname and looked on Mandy as his younger sister.

Police investigators said Mansfield began hatching the murder plot during 2003.

Various methods of disposing of Mandy were considered and these included making it look like she had been the victim of a mugger.

Other deaths involved electrocution, shooting or poisoning her.

A 14 year old boy, who was cleared of murder, was said in court to have been sent to his local library to read up on a deadly plant called aconite and also poisonous buy fake oakleys fungi.

Mansfield and her husband claimed to the jury that the teenager was the killer.

Mansfield sat inside the car as the women were murdered.

To make it look as though the women had been the victims of burglars, a DVD and the women’s handbags were taken from the house.

Mansfield took out fraudulent life insurance policies as she pretended to be Mandy, claiming the money would be used to take care of the children of a fictional sister in law.

She and her husband had set their sights on a 740,000 country home in Barsham, Suffolk, complete with swimming pool.

The family were renting a cottage in Beccles and the deadline for completion on the “dream” house was the end of February.

Iris and Mandy were killed, but their plan to make the murders look like a burglary soon fell apart.

Police examined cheap oakleys CCTV footage, near Iris’s home, and saw the family’s Vauxhall car making its way through the forecourt and out onto the A6 on the night of the murders.

The next morning the couple were arrested in Suffolk.

The shotgun was recovered and an examination revealed DNA found on the trigger linked Mandy and Michael Millcroft’s fingerprints to the gun.

Mansfield and Millcroft were jailed for life and were told they would serve a minimum of 30 years and 25 years respectively before they would be considered for release.