A year ago, Stephen Seddon was hailed as a hero. The 46-year-old's face was splashed all over the media when he "saved" his parents after driving his car into a canal with them in the back. He had hit a brick, he told some reporters. To others, he said he must have blacked out.
Some of those on the bank of the Bridgewater canal in Manchester on 20 March last year later recalled how odd it was that Seddon was jumping up and down on the car roof as it began to sink. But they didn't dwell on it too much at the time.
Police also thought it a little surprising that accident investigators could find no evidence of the hired BMW hitting a brick. Strange too that Seddon appeared in perfectly good health. And wasn't it lucky he was carrying not just a knife with which he could cut his seatbelt but a wheel lock to smash open his window as the car disappeared into the canal?
But it was only when Seddon's parents, Robert, 68, and Patricia, 65, were found shot dead four months later at their house in Sale, Greater Manchester, that detectives saw the "accident" in a very different light.
When the couple's dead bodies were found in their home in July last year, it looked at first like a suicide and a murder: that Robert had shot his wife and then turned the gun on himself. The sawn-off shotgun was in his lap when police arrived. But it wasn't long before ballistic experts were certain Robert could not have taken his own life. A double murder investigation was opened, and their only son was arrested.
On Wednesday Stephen Seddon, known to his friends as Nic, was found guilty for the cold-blooded "execution" of his parents for his £230,000 inheritance. He is likely to spend the rest of his life in jail after jurors at Manchester crown court found him guilty by a majority of 11 to one of two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder.
There was very little hard evidence to prove Seddon pulled the trigger. But he made the mistake of telling a few people that he was due to come into a significant inheritance before he killed his parents to get his hands on it.
A convicted fraudster, the father of three was better at spending money than earning it legitimately. Seddon had lived the high life in the past, posing in his Bentley Turbo, jetting around the world and staying at the Waldorf Astoria in New York on one trip.
The money came from a scam and he was jailed for fraud but his thirst for money remained unquenched.
Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, described him as the ultimate "ungrateful son" who had an "insatiable thirst for cash". His retired parents had already given him £40,000 in cash and bought his home in Seaham, Co Durham, to keep a roof over his head when he fell on hard times. Seddon's reaction when police called with the "news" of his parents' murders provided a telling clue as to what he valued most in life: "What am I going to do now?" he told the officer. "I'm going to lose the house, the mortgage is in my dad's name."
Robert and Patricia enjoyed a "modest but comfortable" life, with Robert getting an occupational pension from British Airways and his wife her state pension. The couple, married for 47 years, made a will in October 2009, naming each other as beneficiary if one of them died, with their estate worth £230,000. But if they both died, their son Stephen "got the lot".
They had had a hard few years by the time Seddon drove them into the canal in March 2012: in 2008 their daughter died, leaving them guardians of her severely disabled son Daniel, Seddon's nephew. Daniel was also in the car that day, but Seddon helped him to safety after a crowd gathered on the canalbank, foiling his first murder plot.
By the time he finished off his parents in July, his father had come to realise the terrible truth about his son's intentions. Robert Seddon confided in his GP that he believed the canal "accident" four months earlier had been a deliberate attempt to kill him – and he intended to confront his son. The next day he was dead.
His wife, still recovering from the car "accident", tried to fight Seddon when he produced the sawn-off shotgun. She was found in the hallway, blasted in the temple from close range as she lay on the floor. His father was shot in the neck as he got up from a sofa in the lounge.
Seddon denied the shooting and said it was "ridiculous" to claim he had tried to kill his own mother and father and "sick" to suggest he had intended to murder his nephew as well. He later tried to explain his movements on the murder day by claiming he was on a "drug run".
Eleven members of the jury did not believe him. He will be sentenced on Thursday.