By Press Association 2021
Lynda Rickard
A woman who forged the will of a wealthy landowner before starving him to death to inherit a slice of his £3.5 million fortune has been jailed for life.
Carer Lynda Rickard, 62, was found guilty of murdering former auctioneer’s clerk James Sootheran, known as Anthony, 59, at his property, High Havens Farm in the village of South Newington, Oxfordshire, in March 2014.
She had been paid £47,000 a year to look after his elderly mother, Mary Sootheran, known as Joy, until her death, aged 92, in 2012, and lived at the farm with her American-born husband Wayne Rickard, 66, before they were evicted in 2017.