A British expatriate in Australia has been found guilty of killing his wife and hiding her body in a barrel for more than 20 years.

Frederick Boyle murdered his wife Edwina and put her body into a hessian bag before sealing the corpse in a 44 gallon oil drum, which he left at the couple’s home in Carrum Downs, a suburb of Melbourne.

Boyle, 58, told his two daughters that Edwina had left him for a truck driver and for 23 years they thought their mother was living elsewhere.

The couple emigrated from the Vale of Glamorgan, south Wales, in 1972.

Although Edwina Boyle’s sister was suspicious and hired private detectives to investigate the apparent disappearance, the case remained unsolved for decades.

However the secret was uncovered in October 2006 during a clean-up of the house, when Boyle’s son-in-law opened the drum and discovered the bag and women’s clothing.

Two weeks later he found the same bag inside a wheelie bin in the garage of the house and found Edwina’s decomposed remains inside.

Boyle had denied murder, claiming he panicked when he found his wife dead in bed and feared he would be charged with murder because he was having an affair with another woman.

His explanation was rejected and, as the guilty verdict was announced at the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne, the Boyles’ eldest daughter Careesa, 35, sobbed while her father looked across and mouthed consoling words towards her.

After the verdict Careesa and her sister Sharon, 32, left without commenting.

Edwina Boyle’s sister, Valerie Bordley, from Watford, Hertfordshire, reported her sister missing in 1994. She travelled to Australia for the week-long trial and said she thought the case would never be solved.

“It was beginning to get to the stage where I thought we would never solve it,” she said.

Bordley, who has travelled to Australia from Britain four times to investigate the case, said it had been a harrowing experience hearing how and where Boyle’s body was found.

She said: “I just can’t get that out of my head. Justice has now been done — I just feel so sorry for my nieces.

“They have lived their lives all these years thinking their mother had deserted them and now with this verdict, it is probably going to devastate them - I have extremely mixed emotions.”

Bordley said the 23-year-long ordeal had taken its toll on her but she had kept fighting to solve the mystery of her sister’s disappearance. She said her sister was homesick and as time went on and she had still not heard from her, she became suspicious.

Bordley hired private investigators as well as consulting clairvoyants to find out what had happened to Edwina. “It’s taken a big toll but when you believe in something you just have to keep fighting - I needed to know what happened to my sister,” said Bordley. “I kept on to the police constantly - I’ve been to psychics and everything.”

Justice Jack Forrest remanded Boyle in custody for sentencing in the next two weeks.

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