Woman jailed for life after murdering parents and living with bodies in Essex

A woman who murdered her parents and lived with their bodies for four years has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years.

Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father, John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks, the prosecutor Lisa Wilding KC told Chelmsford crown court. She then murdered her mother, Lois McCullough, 71, the following day.

The barrister said McCullough “beat her mother with a hammer and stabbed her multiple times in the chest with a kitchen knife bought for the purpose”.

Both murders took place in June 2019 at the couple’s home in Great Baddow, Essex, where the defendant continued to live with her parents’ dead bodies for the next four years.

McCullough “built a makeshift tomb” for her father, who had worked as a university lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, Wilding told Chelmsford crown court.

The “rectangular tomb” was found in a room that had been Mr McCullough’s bedroom and study, and was “composed with masonry blocks stacked together”. It was “covered with multiple blankets, and a number of pictures and paintings over the top”, Wilding said.

“She concealed the body of her mother, wrapped in a sleeping bag, within a wardrobe in her mother’s bedroom on the top floor of the property,” the barrister said.

The murders were uncovered after her parents’ GPs raised concerns over missed appointments and police forced entry to the home on 15 September 2023. For years McCullough told lies about their whereabouts, frequently telling doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.

McCullough gave a detailed account, to officers in custody after her arrest, of how she had killed her parents.

Wilding said the defendant “had been thinking about killing her parents since March 2019 and had been planning for it” and that she had not been employed for many years.

The prosecutor said the defendant “engaged in online gambling” and spent £21,193 in transactions related to gambling between 1 June 2018 and 14 September 2023.

Wilding said McCullough “made arrangements to ensure that she continued to enjoy the benefit of the pensions” that continued to be paid in her parents’ names after their deaths. The prosecutor said McCullough “benefited from” £59,664.01 from the state pension and £76,334.58 from McCullough’s teacher’s pension between 18 June 2019 and 15 September 2023.

Wilding said money appeared to have been “frittered away and the investigation has not revealed any expenditure on expensive, luxury or extravagant items”.

Richard Butcher, Lois McCullough’s brother, said in a victim impact statement that his niece was “very dangerous” and that the details of what had happened had “undermined my faith in humanity”.

The judge, Mr Justice Johnson, said McCullough’s actions were a “gross violation of the trust that should exist between parents and their children”.

Sentencing the 36-year-old, he said: “I’m sure a substantial motive for each of the murders was to stop your parents discovering you had been stealing from them and lying to them and to take money that was intended for them.”