Inside Virginia McCullough's horror murder of parents before hiding bodies in home for four years

A callous artist her parents and plundered £150,000 from their finances as she lived side-by-side with their "makeshift tombs" for four years.

after slipping her father, John, 70, a lethal "cocktail of prescription medication" in his Guinness. Realising she faced jail for his murder, she then bludgeoned her mother, Lois, 71, with a rusty hammer and stabbed her eight times with a kitchen knife.

The 36-year-old killer under his bed in the downstairs study of their unremarkable three-bed terrace home. And she wrapped Lois' corpse in plastic sheeting and a sleeping bag before sealing her in a wardrobe in an upstairs bedroom of the property.

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For four years she used the cover of Covid to conceal her crimes, posing as the elderly couple in messages to her siblings and even pretending to be them in phone calls to the GP and the police. She even sent her siblings birthday cards purporting to be from her vulnerable parents which she ordered online with pre-printed messages.

But after McCullough continued to squander their pensions and built up debts on their credit cards. In total she stole cash to the tune of £149,697 before and after the murders. Police eventually began a probe and they stormed the family home in Plump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, on September 15 last year and discovered the elderly couple's badly decomposed bodies.

Socially awkward recluse McCullough was captured on body-worn footage making a chilling confession as Investigators discovered McCullough had been swindling their finances for years before the attack and struck as she feared her lies were about to be exposed.

Today prosecutors applied for a whole life order that would have meant McCullough died in prison, claiming she was "motivated for financial gain" and had made "concerted and extreme steps to conceal the bodies". It would have made her only the fifth woman in UK history to get a whole life sentence and put her in the same ranks as some of Britain's most heinous killers, including Rose West, and Joanna Dennehy.

The Honourable Mr Justice Johnson said McCullough's case was not a case of "last resort" but said she acted because her financial fraud was about to be discovered. He said: "You say you felt trapped and you wanted to be free from them. The reality is that you were trapped by your own dishonesty. You must have known that your lies and dishonesty were about to be discovered."

Chilling details of the callous murders

McCullough had attempted a number of dry runs to poison her parents in the months before their murders. The court heard she drugged their lunches and used her father a "guinea pig" but it only left the pensioners drowsy and sleepy However, prosecutor Lisa Wilding KC told the court, on June 17, 2019, McCullough crushed a "cocktail of prescription drugs" and slipped them into her father's alcoholic drinks. She calmly went to bed and woke the next morning to find the father-of-five dead with rigor mortis in his study where he slept.

It was then she knew she "had to kill" her mother. She armed herself with a hammer and a kitchen knife before bludgeoning her frail mother to death as she lay in bed listening to the radio through headphones.

McCullough entered guilty pleas to two counts of murder earliest this year. Ms Wilding says: “She [Virginia] poisoned her father with a fatal combination of prescription drugs that she put into his alcoholic drink and the following day she attacked her mother with a hammer and then stabbed her with a kitchen knife bought for that purpose.”

In a chilling confession after her arrest, McCullough told how she struck her mother with the hammer before she turned and begged, "What are you doing?" After raining blows down on her with a knife and a hammer, she said she held her mother's hand and kissed her as her life ebbed away.

After the murders McCullough - who is diagnosed as paranoid and autistic - went into Chelmsford town centre and bought plastic gloves and sleeping bags using her father's credit card. She also revisited the GP on the afternoon of June 18 and before visiting she phoned them. She was crying and saying quietly, "Sorry, I love you daddy."

McCullough's web of lies

Two days after the killing she placed an order with B&Q for 40 building blocks, cement, and sharp sand. A month later a step ladder, paper roll and gorilla tape among other items. But she was able to keep the murders a secret for years, posing as her parents in text messages and telling family they were spending time travelling.

Ms Wilding revealed John, Lois and Virginia were in debt at the time of the deaths. She said: “It’s clear the defendant was actively engaged in fraud and deception well before the killings. Following the killings her attention switched to deceiving the outside . She, amongst other things, continued to receive John’s teacher’s pension and spend it.

“Transcripts from calls even show her masquerading as her father. She used their credit cards and opened further accounts in their names. At the time of their deaths the family were all in debt.”
Financial investigators discovered she raided their credit cards and continued to claim their pensions, squandering more than £20,000 on online gambling sites.

She spun an intricate web of lies to take their money, begging for loans after pretending she was employed but had not been paid because her company had been targeted by Chinese hackers. She even faked emails from the Financial Conduct Authority to her parents, claiming they were in line for more than £160,000 in PPI pay-outs.

But when her financial "blackhole" became too much, she hatched a plot to kill them. Chelmsford Crown Court heard that for months she hoarded her own prescription medication and bought a kitchen knife from Lakeland and garden gloves from Wilkos. She claimed to have a number of jobs, but was secretly unemployed.

When she was arrested she made bogus claims that her parents had been abusive, saying they were "not the easiest to live with, not always kind and they were smacked as children". However McCullough's siblings described the allegations as "lies and a disgusting misrepresentation of our family".

'I just went for a wander around the house for a little bit'

In footage recorded after her arrest, McCullough said gave a haunting account of her mother's murder. She said: "I took her hand... she stopped moving and then that's when she just passed. I kissed her hand. That's when I came to the realisation I had killed them both. Then I just went for a wander around the house for a little bit."

Christine Agnew KC, defending, told the court McCullough's early guilty plea "prevent distress to John and Lois's family". She said McCullough was "sole carer" for her parents who had physical and mental health issues, saying "life was not straightforward".

However she said: "[McCullough] does not want to inflict any further pain upon her siblings and recognises that she has hurt and damaged them to the extent that they will never recover."

In a statement released after the sentencing, John and Lois's family said: "Our family has been left devastated and heartbroken at the deaths of our parents who were taken from us so cruelly. As we try to move forward with our lives, we will remember the happy times we enjoyed with them. Our Mum and Dad are forever in our hearts, and are loved and missed beyond any measure."

McCullough's deceit was 'shocking and monumental'

Det Supt Rob Kirby, from , said: “Virginia McCullough murdered her parents in cold blood. Her actions were considered, meticulous and carried out in such a way as to conceal what she had done for as long as possible.

"These were the actions of someone who had taken time to plan and carry out the murder of her parents in the interest of self-preservation and personal gain, before living within metres of the bodies of her two victims for a number of years. Throughout the course of our investigation, we have built a picture of the vast levels of deceit, betrayal and fraud she engaged in. It was on a shocking and monumental scale."

Locals around McCullough's home described her as an "eccentric" figure who showered people with gifts in a bid for attention while living in her parents’ home with their bodies for more than four years. She was also "paranoid’"that neighbours were spreading rumours about her, and became convinced that the Ring doorbell and her Wi-Fi router had been hacked.

She fobbed off inquiries from neighbours who asked what had happened to her parents saying they had moved to Clacton, Essex, after becoming fed up with people gossiping about them. She claimed that she was in their home to oversee repairs on a retaining wall, holding back an earth bank at the side of the back garden, before putting the property on the market.

McCullough's neighbours said she faked a pregnancy

One elderly friend of her parents is said to have been sent postcards from Clacton, allegedly written by Lois who signed them as being from her mother and father, in an apparent bid to pretend that all was well. Another friend who is said to have regularly met her snooker-loving father for a drink every Friday night at the White Horse pub in Great Baddow, is said to have been left shocked when he suddenly disappeared with no explanation.

In the months before their bodies were found, Miss McCullough who was known as Ginny apparently faked a , showing off an allegedly ‘bogus’ bump and wearing a maternity dress. Neighbours also believe that she made up claims that she had been attacked by an intruder in her garden in an early hours assault which allegedly left her with bruises and cuts to her face and arms.

Retired systems engineer Phil Sargeant, 68, said McCullough’s family had lived in the house for many years and were already there when he moved in two doors away around 20 years ago. He said he believed John had worked as a business studies lecturer at Chelmsford College before retiring.

Mr Sargeant added: "Her parents were quiet and kept themselves to themselves. They didn’t really mix at all. If you did see him, he would be scurrying around and looking busy. He would march out of his front door and be off.

"The mum was very dowdy and seemed to be shy, introverted and downtrodden. She would walk along, looking down at the pavement, and not making eye contact with anyone.

"I would see her in the local and she would not engage or smile. Sometimes she would have a screaming match or a row at home. I would hear her voice, but I didn't know who she was yelling at. It would be quite infrequent, maybe once every four or five months, and it would be more obvious in the summer when the windows might be open."