Woman who murdered parents and lived with their bodies jailed for life

A woman who murdered her parents and then lived alongside their bodies for four years has been jailed for life.
Virginia McCullough, 36, did not react as she was handed a minimum sentence of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court on Friday after admitting hiding her mother’s body in a wardrobe and building a “makeshift tomb” for her father at a previous hearing.
In June 2019, she poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with a “cocktail of prescription drugs” and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, with a kitchen knife shortly afterwards.
Sentencing McCullough, Mr Justice Johnson told her that she had “robbed” her parents of “dignity in death”.
“Your conduct amounted to a gross violation of the trust that should exist between parents and their children,” he said.
He ruled that McCullough’s mental health conditions did not “substantially” reduce her culpability and that she had committed “murders done for gain” after prolonged “economic abuse” of her parents.
At the sentencing hearing on Friday, the court heard how McCullough had built a “makeshift tomb” for her father in a ground floor room of the family home, which had been his bedroom and study.
She is then said to have wrapped her mother’s body in a sleeping bag, within a wardrobe in her mother’s bedroom on the top floor of their home in Pump Hill in Great Baddow, Essex,
The bodies “remained there for four years until these events were discovered,” the court heard.
When officers searched the family home they found a “homemade “mausoleum” in a back room on the ground floor where McCullough’s father had been entombed.
Lucy Wilding KC, prosecuting, told the court: “The structure was in a corner of the room. The sides of the structure were composed with  masonry blocks stacked together and secured with white filler, forming a rectangular tomb with the end closest to the internal door composed of panels of wood.
“The structure was covered with multiple blankets, and a number of pictures and paintings over the top.”
Inside the structure there were at least 11 layers of “plastic and other material” covering the body of Mr McCullough which was wrapped in a sleeping bag.
The court also heard how McCullough spent £21,193 of her parents’ money for gambling following their murders.
Richard Butcher, Mrs McCullough’s brother, said he feared that McCullough would target other members of the family if she was ever released.
He said that while she is in prison she would have “a lot of time to plan something else”.
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The family statement continued: “Mum and Dad loved their trips to the seaside together, where they enjoyed many walks and visited lots of different attractions.
“Their love for the seaside was so great, they were hoping to move to the coast in their retirement years. Mum and Dad always enjoyed the time they spent with us, family was their pride and joy.
“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.
“We request privacy as we continue to grieve the loss of our dear parents.”
The family of John and Lois McCullough have paid tribute to them after their daughter, Virginia, was convicted of their murder.
“We would like to say a huge thank you to Essex Police, and in particular the major investigation team for their tireless work in trying to achieve the best possible justice for our beloved parents,” the family said in a statement.
“We would also like to thank other specialist services for their invaluable contribution to this investigation, and to everyone who has supported our family over the last year.
“Our Dad was caring and hardworking and he had a passion for education and writing. He worked tirelessly in his career in university education, which spanned many years.
“Dad enjoyed lots of hobbies, with particular favourites being golf and snooker. As we think of Dad, we remember the numerous jokes he used to tell us and the laughs he gave us.
“Our Mum was kind, caring and thoughtful. Mum delighted in her grandchildren.
“She had friends from around the world through her penfriend hobby, many of whom she had written to for several decades. Mum had a passion for history, and maintained a keen interest in the royal family.”
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has hailed the conviction of Virginia McCullough after what it called a “truly disturbing case”.
Nicole Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the CPS, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parent’s money and accruing large debts in their name.  
“Working with the police we built a strong prosecution case to show the level of McCullough’s deceit both before and after the killings, which helped deliver a guilty plea, thereby sparing the victims’ loved ones the pain of a trial.
“This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
Virginia McCullough’s murders horrified “even the most experienced of murder detectives”, Essex Police has said.
Det Supt Rob Kirby said: “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.
“McCullough lied about almost every aspect of her life, maintaining a charade to deceive everyone close to her and clearly taking advantage of her parents’ good will.
“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.
“The details of this case shock and horrify even the most experienced of murder detectives, let alone any right-thinking member of the public.”
McCullough did not react as she was sentenced to life imprisonment.
She nodded to the judge after the sentence was handed down.
Mr Justice Johnson has sentenced McCullough to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 36 years.
He did not impose a whole life order, meaning that McCullough may eventually be released from prison.
He gave McCullough a term of 36 years, minus the time she has already spent in prison on remand.
“You may now leave the dock,” he told her.
Mr Justice Johnson has said McCullough’s mental health conditions did not “substantially” reduce her culpability.
He said: “There is no scope for a finding that your mental health substantially reduces your culpability. On the contrary, there was no impairment of your ability to understand the nature of your conduct, to form a rational judgement and exercise self-control.”
He said McCullough’s lack of previous convictions only have “limited weight” because of the severity of her offences.
He added: “Your admissions and your co-operation with police amount to significant mitigation.”
Mr Justice Johnson went on to say that McCullough showed remorse but also “self-pity”, and that she had covered up the murders and spent her parents’ pensions.
McCullough had “symptoms of personality disorder”, Mr Justice Johnson has said.
“At the time of the offences, you had developed symptoms of personality order,” he said in his sentencing remarks.
He said McCullough also had signs of autism at the time and had since developed depression and psychosis.
He added that these were a mitigating factor in the murder.
McCullough “robbed” her parents of “dignity in death” by concealing their bodies, Mr Justice Johnson added.
He said it was an aggravating factor in the murder.
The judge added: “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.”
McCullough committed murder “for gain” after prolonged “domestic abuse”, Mr Justice Johnson has said.
He said that they were “murders done for gain” and that her prolonged “economic abuse” of her parents amounted to domestic abuse.
“Your conduct amounted to a gross violation of the trust that should exist between parents and their children,” he added. “That is a significant aggravating factor.”
Mr Justice Johnson said McCullough had engaged in “substantial planning and premeditation”.
“You had considered killing your parents over a period of three months,” he said.
“In that period you accumulated a large amount of prescription drugs. In May, you bought a knife as well as implements to crush the drugs.”
He added: “You had a primary plan which was to use the drugs to cause their deaths, and you had a back-up plan which was to use murder weapons including a knife if your primary plan failed.”
Mr Justice Johnson has said McCullough went shopping for “concrete blocks” to conceal her parents’ bodies on June 18 2019.
He said: “That morning you then went to the GP with help for a cut to your hand you had sustained that cut while stabbing your mother but you said it was the result of an accident chopping vegetables.”
McCullough then went shopping to buy the concrete blocks and other items she would use.
He added: “You set about concealing the bodies. You placed each of your parents in a sleeping bag that you had purchased on June 18th.”
Mr Justice Johnson said McCullough then used breezeblocks to barricade the wardrobe in which she placed her mother’s corpse before constructing a “makeshift mausoleum” around her father’s body.
“For four years and three months after your parents, you pretended they were still alive,” he said.
McCullough stabbed her mother “eight times”, Mr Justice Johnson has said.
He said: “[Your mother’s] last conscious moment was the realisation you, her daughter, had launched a murderous attack on her.
“She asked you what you were doing. She suffered defensive injuries as she fought for her life.
“You stabbed her eight times, including four times in her chest.”
Mr Justice Johnson has said McCullough stole from and lied to her parents.
“You secured loans in their names without their knowledge to increase the amounts you could take from them,” he said in his sentencing remarks.
“You spent their money gambling online and shopping.”
He added: “You invented police and corporate investigations with promises of payment, but which were always subject to delay.
“You lied to your parents that you had employment when you did not.”
He added that McCullough was £60,000 in debt when she murdered her parents.
Mr Justice Johnson has entered the courtroom to sentence McCullough.
Mr Justice Johnson has said he sentence McCullough at 3.05pm.
Ms Agnew added: “It is right to say that since her remand to prison, and she has been in HMP Peterborough, she has really accepted her fate.
“Ms McCullough knows that she is going to prison for if not the longest time, an extremely long time.
“She has worked hard not only to improve her own lot in prison by taking various exams and courses but she has sought in as much as can to help others in the prison environment.”
After speaking to McCullough in the dock, Ms Agnew told the judge: “She is keen to express to the court that she will accept the sentence of the court and she knows she must be punished for what she has done.”
Ending her remarks, Ms Agnew said that McCullough is not a “psychopath”.
She said the “grave but seemingly isolated offences” and her confession of them meant she did not have the disorder.
The court heard that McCullough’s autism was a relevant factor in her decision-making prior to the murders.
Ms Agnew said said that while McCullough was not trying to use her diagnosis as a defence, “her autism does in some way explain her actions”.
Ms Agnew said that McCullough had said her “self-esteem was 500 per cent higher” now that she was in prison and had admitted her guilt.
The court heard that McCullough told a psychiatrist that she became depressed and paranoid after the killings and self-harmed on occasion while living in the house with her parents’ bodies.
She claimed that she dreamed of her mother and father on a regular basis.
Ms Agnew continued: “She recognises she has hurt and damaged them [her siblings] to such an extent that they are unlikely to recover.
“She’s accepted from the earliest opportunity that she needs to be punished.”
Ms Agnew said McCullough viewed her parents money after the murders as “compensation for the fact that she and she alone with her parents… was responsible for running the household”. 
Christine Agnew said McCullough’s parents required “day to day care” and that McCullough’s mother suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder and that her father’s drinking caused issues.
She said it was highly unusual that the bodies had not been removed and noted that McCullough did not try to flee the scene.
Christine Agnew, defending, said: “She has accepted her actions with a remarkable frankness and remorse. There was no plan in relation to what she was going to do with the bodies or tell people.”
“She said that the age of the victims, 70 and 71, do not automatically render them vulnerable.” 
Ms Agnew added that McCullough “was the sole carer of her parents with no external support”.
The hearing has now resumed
The hearing has now broken for lunch and will resume at 2pm.
Christine Agnew, defending, said: “On behalf of Virginia McCullough this is not the case where imposition of a whole life order is necessary or justified.
“In particular it is submitted there are three relevant mitigating features.
“Firstly her admission and guilty pleas, second the expert evidence on her mental state and thirdly her remorse.”
Christine Agnew, defending, said in mitigation, that McCullough had entered a guilty plea at the “first available opportunity”. 
She told the court how McCullough had made a “full admission to officers who entered the crime scene” and highlighted her comment to officers: “I know why you are here.”
Ms Agnew said that McCullough had explained to the officers in some detail what she had done, how she had done it and “laid bare what had taken place some four and half years ago”. 
McCullough took “concerted and extreme steps” to conceal the bodies of her parents. The prosecution said the murders were motivated by financial gain.
Ms Wilding told the court that the prosecution were seeking a whole life order, meaning McCullough would never be released from prison.
She said the murders were “clearly premeditated” and “involved her thinking about and planning” from March 2019.
Richard Butcher, Mrs McCullough’s brother, said he feared that McCullough would target other members of the family if she was ever released.
He said that while she is in prison she would have “a lot of time to plan something else”.
He told the court in a victim personal statement that he “fears he has been manipulated over the years to think my sister is alive”.
He said that McCullough’s “ability to kill her parents undermines my faith in humanity”.
Since he was told of their deaths he said he had been “going through every possible scenario since I found out what happened which has plagued my mind every single day.” 
He added: “I wonder if I could have done anything to prevent this or how this could be different.”
Virgina McCullough’s sister said her three siblings are now orphans following her “evil, selfish and abhorrent actions”. 
The court heard how, following the killings, McCullough benefited from a total of £59,664.01 from the DWP state pension and £76,334.58 from Mr McCullough’s teacher’s pension between June 18 2019 and Sept 15 2023.
McCullough benefited from a total of £135,998.59. She also spent £3,576 on existing credit cards and £4,357.33 on new credit cards that she managed to secure.
Prof Nigel Blackwood, the psychiatrist who assessed McCullough, said: “Her callousness and lack of emotional empathic responding to her victims in the index offences and the deceptive behaviours employed thereafter are striking. 
“The lack of emotional empathy, together with the callous nature of the fatal assaults, represents evidence of the deficient affective experience more typically found in psychopathic personalities. 
“The deceptive interpersonal behaviours (observed across the lifespan but most prominent in the wake of the offences) are also more typically found in psychopathic personalities.”
He said that while she had traits of autism spectrum disorder she “knew what she was doing was wrong”.
He continued: “She knew the fundamental nature and quality of her actions at the time of the assaults (that is, she was aware that she was engaged in poisoning and assaultive acts likely to inflict a  serious injury on another). 
“And knew that what she was doing was wrong (note her concealment of the bodies and the prolonged period of deceptive behaviours thereafter designed to conceal her acts). 
“There was no substantial impairment of her ability to understand the nature of her conduct, to form a rational judgement, or to exercise self control.”
McCullough told the psychiatrist that she always wanted both her parents’ deaths to be “non-violent” and that she only had the murder weapon as a “back up”.
She described her murder plot as being “ad hoc” and said it was “not planned to the last detail”. She told the psychiatrist that she did not believe she would be caught.
She also admitted drugging her parents’ lunch on a previous occasion and spiking her father’s drinks two days before the murder with zopiclone and gabapentin. She said she was “using him as a guinea pig” .
Ms Wilding said the “financial deception perpetrated upon [McCullough’s] parents began long before their murder”.
She said: “There is clear evidence that the defendant was, during the latter part of their lives at least, falsifying that she was working and earning money, stealing monies from her parents and attempting to secure loans without their knowledge. 
“She would then invent various frauds, banking failures, and ‘hacks’ to explain the losses, and then invent complex police and corporate investigations which promised repayment, but which were always subject to delays. 
“It is clear that her parents entrusted the defendant to deal with the repayments, and that the defendant was forging documents from multiple financial institutions to give false explanations for delays.  
“It is equally apparent that the defendant was forging documents.”
McCullough spent £21,193 of her parents’ money for gambling following their murders. 
The court heard that during the search of the home “many financial documents, multiple debit and credit cards, and a multitude of SIM cards were recovered”.
Ms Wilding said that there were also a number of wrappers for SIM cards that served to remind McCullough “where she had used each number”.
For example, they were labelled “Dad”, “dad WhatsApp”, “bank” and “universal credit”.
Ms Wilding continued: “The ‘dad WhatsApp’ number was used to contact Lois’s brother’s wife when she was visiting from overseas and trying to arrange to meet John and Lois.
“The financial evidence is complex, but reveals that the defendant was taking advantage of her parents during their lives and then, after she had killed them, made arrangements to ensure that she continued to enjoy the benefit of the pensions that continued to be paid in their names.”
When officers searched the family home they found a “homemade “mausoleum” in a back room on the  ground floor,” where McCullough’s father was entombed.
Ms Wilding, proseucting, said “The structure was in a corner of the room. The sides of the structure were composed with  masonry blocks stacked together and secured with white filler, forming a rectangular tomb with the end closest to the internal door composed of panels of wood. 
“The structure was covered with multiple blankets, and a number of pictures and paintings over the top.”
Inside the structure, the court heard, there were at least 11 layers of “plastic and other material” covering the body of Mr McCullough which was wrapped in a sleeping bag.
McCullough recounted top officers how she struck her mother over the head with a hammer who had said during the fatal assault: “What are you doing, what are you doing.”
McCullough said she hit her again and again and when she was striking her mother it was “like someone badly playing the xylophone or something”.
She said she eventually “realised that the hammer was not going to work” and she did not want her mother to suffer. She began stabbing her mother with the kitchen knife.
She said that “right before she passed when I was holding her hand her… I said to her repeatedly ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry’. I held her hand with both hands and she looked like she wanted to say something, but she couldn’t.”
McCullough cried in the dock as she listened to the prosecution’s account of how she murdered her own mother. 
It is the first time she has visibly reacted during the hearing so far. 
The court heard how, while in custody, McCullough explained to officers how she murdered her mother and said that she “didn’t really have anything planned out as such”.
She said she put on a pair of “Wilko’s garden gloves” and armed herself with a kitchen knife and a hammer.
McCullough told police: “It was pretty much either do it or you’re gonna be arrested anyway for the murder of your father you’re gonna go to prison.”
On Sept 15 2023 officers attended McCullough’s home address and arrested her on suspicion of murder, the court heard.
After being cautioned, she asked to speak to officers in a room at the back of the house.
She pointed to a concrete structure that looked like a bed, the court heard, and said: “I know why you’re here, my father is in there, I murdered him.”
When asked where her mother was, she replied: “She’s upstairs in a double wardrobe.”
She said she had not opened the wardrobe since [she murdered her] so was “unsure of the state inside”.  
The court heard how an officer spoke to her over the phone but McCullough told them that “her parents were travelling but would be back at the property on 8 October 2023 in time for her mother’s [purported] birthday of 15 October 2023”. 
Ms Wilding continued: “She gave a detailed account as to their movements, including that they were visiting her sister – even giving a time and place that she said they would be having lunch with her. 
“She described how they do not like staying at home because she [the defendant] has a number of pending court cases where she was the victim of various public order and assault offences from neighbours. 
She stated that her parents did not carry their mobile telephones as they were not very “techy”.
When asked when she had last seen her parents, she said it was the Sunday before and they were “absolutely fine”.
The court heard that from 2019 to 2024 McCullough made 185 calls to the GP surgery including calls where she pretended to be her mother. 
“Undoubtedly the Covid restrictions and the remote appointments that flowed from them were a stroke of luck for the defendant in pursuing her deception that her parents were still alive,” Ms Wilding said.
One of the receptionists became concerned at the amount of appointments that were made by McCullough for her parents and subsequently cancelled. 
“In turn, a locum GP became concerned and raised the issue with the regular GP who in turn raised a safeguarding issue with the police on 1st September 2023,” Ms Wilding continued.
One of her siblings said how both McCullough’s and her mother’s phone numbers would regularly change. 
Ms Wilding, prosecuting, said: “In fact, police enquiries found 145 numbers associated with the defendant, mostly between 2022-2023. 
“Similarly, 10 numbers were found for Lois and 16 for John. The defendant utilised 10 different handsets from 2022 until 2023 and ‘SIM-swapped’ within them. One handset had 78 sim swaps within a year.”
The court heard how McCullough rebuffed attempts from her family to contact her parents and on one occasion attempted to pass herself as her mother Lois to one of her sisters in a phone call.
The court heard how just before 10.30am on the day of the attack McCullough went to her GP surgery with a cut to her finger that would not stop bleeding. 
“At the time she told them it happened when chopping vegetables but now accepts the cut was caused during the fatal stabbing of her mother,” Ms Wilding said.
The court heard that on the afternoon of June 18 she sent one of her sisters a text from her mothers phone that read: “your dad and I are at the seaside in walton this week. Mum x’.” The same night she sent another one that said: “Good night. Mum x.” 
“[She] maintained the pretence of Lois and John being away in Walton on the Naze in the immediate aftermath of the killings,” the court heard.
Ms Wilding told the court: “On the night of 17th June 2019 she gave her father a cocktail of prescription drugs crushed into various alcoholic drinks that she gave him. 
“She left him to die in his bedroom on the ground floor of the house and went to bed herself. 
“She sedated her mother with a lesser amount of drugs. 
“The following morning she discovered her father dead. She then set about murdering her mother, who was lying in bed listening to the radio, by a combination of striking her with a hammer and stabbing her eight times to her chest and neck.”
The court heard how McCullough described her mother as angry and violent who would smack her children while bathing them until 13 years of age, and said she was a “happiness hoover”.
McCullough had not worked “for a number of years” and lied to her parents about having a job, the court heard. 
Ms Wilding said that McCullough would often send her mother to buy her burgers from the local fish and chip shop because of her “illnesses” when “protein levels when the toxin level in her blood was raised”. 
“The prosecution observe that none of these medical conditions appear to have subsisted whilst the defendant has been in custody,” Ms Wilding said.
Mr McCullough was described by one of his children as “being on the autistic spectrum” and was “very much a man of routine”. 
He worked as a university lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and was a published author, Ms Wilding said.
Mrs McCullough was said to have a history of anxiety and was also agoraphobic and suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder.  
They were described as “loving parents who did love and care for their children” and “old fashioned in their ways [but] not prone to displaying affection”.
McCullough was described in court by her siblings as “socially awkward’ and a “compulsive liar”. It is said she complained of suffering from “complex medical issues including thunderclap headaches”. 
Ms Wilding told the court John McCullough was born on Jan 8 1949 and was 74 years of age at the time of his death. 
He had a medical history of hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, hypercholesterolaemia and glaucoma. He required ongoing medication that had to be regularly reviewed. 
“Ultimately it was his failure to attend for review appointments with his GP that triggered an enquiry and subsequent police involvement.”
The court was told McCullough’s fatal attacks, were, by her own admission, the culmination of months of thought and planning that began around March 2019.
The court heard how McCullough built a “makeshift tomb” for her father in a ground floor room of the family home, which had been his bedroom and study. 
Ms Wilding told the court: “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. 
“They remained there for four years until these events were discovered.”
Lisa Wilding KC told the court: “Between the 17th and 18th June 2019, Virginia McCullough murdered both of her parents. 
“She poisoned her father with a fatal combination of prescription drugs that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks on the night of the 17th June. 
“And the following day she beat her mother with a hammer and stabbed her multiple times in the chest with a kitchen knife bought for the purpose.”
McCullough has appeared in the dock wearing a purple top and spoke only to confirm her name.
She is flanked by two officers. No members of her family are in court.
Lisa Wilding KC is acting for the Crown Prosecution Service.
Christine Agnew is acting as defence for McCullough. 
Mr Justice Johnson is the presiding judge in the case.
Mr Justice Johnson will sentence McCullough on Friday at Chelmsford Crown Court.
Warning her at an earlier hearing that she faced a life sentence, Judge Christopher Morgan, who presided over the plea hearing, said: “You will understand that there is a single sentence that can be passed upon you in these circumstances.
“Consideration however has to be given to the minimum term.”