Virginia McCullough, 36, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by Justice Johnson at the Chelmsford Crown Court, England, for the brutal murders of her parents, Lois and John McCullough.
According to the BBC, Virginia lived with the bodies of her parents for four years after killing them in their family home. She poisoned her father, John, and then stabbed her mother, Lois, to death in June 2019.
Prosecutor Lisa Wilding KC revealed that Virginia crushed prescription medication and mixed it into her father’s alcoholic drinks, leading to his death.
She then bludgeoned her mother with a hammer and stabbed her multiple times in the chest while she was listening to the radio in bed the following morning.
Virginia confessed that she killed her mother out of fear that she would discover what had happened to her father.
The remains of John, 71, and Lois, 70, were discovered in September 2023 at their home in Great Baddow, Essex. Both bodies were wrapped in sleeping bags—John’s concealed in a ‘homemade mausoleum’ of masonry blocks in his study, and Lois’s hidden in an upstairs wardrobe.
In addition to the murders, Virginia accumulated large debts by using her parents’ credit cards and continued to spend their pensions after their deaths.
Authorities found that she had been providing a string of excuses to explain her father’s absence, even cancelling appointments on his behalf.
Detectives from Essex Police described Virginia as an intelligent and skilled manipulator who wove an intricate web of lies. Documents found at the couple’s home painted a picture of a woman desperate to keep her parents from discovering the financial ruin she was facing, while falsely reassuring them about her employment and future.
Lead Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby of Essex Police called the case shocking, even for the most seasoned investigators.
A missing persons investigation was launched in September 2023 after the couple’s GP expressed concerns about not hearing from them for an extended period.
Virginia’s repeated excuses about their whereabouts raised suspicion, leading to a search warrant being executed at the family home, where the bodies were found.
During her arrest, Virginia admitted to the murders as well as confessed to concocting a ‘cocktail of drugs’ to poison her parents on June 17, 2019, using her father as a guinea pig to test the lethal mixture.
Virginia will serve a minimum of 36 years in prison before being considered for release.
