An “intelligent manipulator” who murdered her parents then lived alongside their bodies for four years in England while spending their money has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years.
Virginia McCullough poisoned her father John McCullough (70) with prescription medication that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks in June 2019.
A day later she also beat her 71-year-old mother Lois McCullough with a hammer and fatally stabbed her.
Chelmsford Crown Court in England heard the 36-year-old hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, England, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns for Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments.
It was found that McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
She pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court to murdering her parents between June 17th and June 20th, 2019, and was sentenced at the same court on Friday.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink and put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100 per cent evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
Police said documents found at the address “built a picture of a woman who was trying desperately to keep her parents from discovering the depth of the financial black hole she continued to dig, while giving them false assurances about her employment and future prospects”.
