LONDON — A British woman who murdered her parents and then lived for four years alongside their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home was sentenced Friday to life imprisonment and told she won’t be eligible for parole for 36 years.
Virginia McCullough, who spent her parents’ money and went to great lengths to cover her tracks with family and friends through a web of lies, had pleaded guilty to murdering her parents in June 2019 at a previous hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court in southeast England.
Judge Jeremy Johnson said at the sentencing hearing that McCullough’s actions represented a “gross violation of the trust that should exist between parents and their children.”
When Essex Police raided her house in the village of Great Baddow last September, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
McCullough, 36, admitted to poisoning her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks and that a day later she beat her 71-year-old mother Lois McCullough with a hammer and fatally stabbed her.
“I did know that this would kind of come eventually,” she said while handcuffed in body-worn footage captured by police that was released Friday. “It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
After McCullough was arrested on suspicion of double murder she told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy,” adding that “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
Further footage from a body camera shows McCullough at the police station telling officers where they can find the hammer and kitchen knife she used to kill her mother.
In the words of the prosecution, McCullough kept her father in a “homemade mausoleum” in his ground floor bedroom and study, in a structure that was “composed with masonry blocks stacked together.” She had also wrapped the body of her mother in a sleeping bag in a wardrobe on the top floor of the property.
In the years between the murders and her arrest, McCullough ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and continued to spend their pensions. The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, or away on lengthy trips.
Statements from three unnamed siblings of the defendant were read in court by prosecutor Lisa Wilding. One said that “our parents were completely blameless victims” while another said, “Virginia always said mum and dad were fine and made up lie after lie about their daily activities.”
Concerns for her parents’ welfare were raised in September 2023 by a doctor, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred the concerns to police.
Judge Johnson said McCullough maintained an “elaborate, extensive and enduring web of deceit” over months and years and that he was sure there was a “substantial degree of both pre-meditation and planning,” given that she had accumulated a large amount of prescription drugs and had bought a knife and implements to crush and separate tablets.
Essex Police said documents found at the address built a picture of a woman “trying desperately” to keep her parents from discovering the parlous state of her finances while giving “false assurances” about her employment and future prospects.
“She is an intelligent manipulator who chose to kill her parents callously, without a thought for them or those who continue to suffer as a result of their loss,” said Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby. “The details of this case shock and horrify even the most experienced of murder detectives, let alone any right-thinking member of the public.”
Lawyer Christine Agnew, mitigating for McCullough, told the court that the defendant understands that she has damaged her siblings to such an extent that they are “unlikely to recover” and that she has said “I’m a happier person in prison than I was outside.”