A jobless mother and son accused of murdering an elderly relative so they could get their hands on a fortune she planned to leave to a home for abandoned pets and a cancer charity have been jailed for life.

A German court found them guilty of murder with the motive of greed after police found the body of victim Lieselotte Gerda Schuster, 74, decomposing in a box.

Her neighbours at her home in Heusweiler in Germany reported that she had not returned from a two-week holiday to the Black Forest with the evil pair, named as Sibylle D., 66, and Daniel D., 45.

The old woman had been invited there by her two jobless relatives who later persuaded her to join them at a property they had rented in the commune of Hargarten-aux-Mines in the department of Moselle, France.

When she was there however, she was killed in a frenzied knife attack with multiple stab wounds to her neck, chest and stomach carried out by Daniel D.

Prosecutors say that the two had plotted to take over her assets and home in western Germany.

She also reportedly had thousands of pounds in savings, as well as a collection of watches and cars including a BMW that the pair were found driving around in when they were arrested.

In contrast to the wealthy relative, the two survived on Sibylle’s widow’s pension of EUR 400 (GBP 343).

Neighbours had reported Lieselotte missing when she did not return from the holiday with her cousins last Autumn, the court heard.

Police arrested the pair in November after finding the missing OAP’s identity card and savings book in their car during a routine traffic stop, the Saarbruecken District Court was told.

When they searched the pair’s home across the French border they found Lieselotte’s partially decomposed corpse stuffed into a box.

They also found her luxury top-of-the-range BMW saloon at the sick couple’s house, the court was told.

She had been dead for approximately a month, according to French and German media.

Prosecutors say that Daniel D. stabbed Lieselotte repeatedly with a 17-centimetre (6.7 inches) German army issue knife.

The court heard how she was stabbed “at least seven times in the neck”, severing her carotid artery.

Prosecutors claim the pair, who were both facing financial hardship, were after the victim’s valuables and were plotting to take over her house.

One prosecutor is quoted in local media as saying: “The accused wanted to move into it to live there.”