A woman who m*rdered her parents and lived with their c*rpses for four years told police “cheer up” upon her arrest. Virginia McCullough, 36, po!soned her 70-year-old father, John McCullough, by crushing prescription medication into his alcoholic drinks in June 2019. The next day, she be*t her 71-year-old mother, Lois McCullough, with a hammer and fatally st*bbed her.
On Friday, October 11, McCullough was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court. Bodycam footage released by Essex Police reveals the moment of McCullough’s arrest on September 15, 2023, where she confessed to the k!llings and directed officers to her parents’ bodies and the m*rder weapons.
Wearing handcuffs and a pink jumper, McCullough admitted to slipping drugs into her father’s drink, hiding his b*dy under a bed on the ground floor, and concealing her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
“I knew that this would eventually come, it’s appropriate that I serve my punishment,” McCullough stated. Arrested for double m*rder, she remarked to an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.” She also asserted, “I know I don’t seem 100 percent evil. I deserve whatever’s coming sentence-wise if that’s the right thing to do and that might give me some peace.”
She informed police of a handbag containing a bank card, noting numerous transactions over the last few years with money belonging to her parents. Additional bodycam footage shows McCullough at the police station directing officers to the hammer and kitchen kn!fe used on her mother.
Tearful and wiping her eyes, she elaborated: “The next part is very hard to talk about, probably the grizzliest detail, so on the ground floor, under the stairs, there are storage boxes, and in the middle—perhaps in one of the boxes or a bag—you’ll find a hammer; it’s forensically helpful.”
“I’m trying to help you find everything,” McCullough continued. “It’s under the stairs, likely rusted, but it will still have blood traces on it.” She added: “Not cooperating is pointless. There’s really no point in not cooperating.”
The trial revealed that McCullough concealed their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow, Essex, UK, while fabricating lies to cover up her actions. She accrued significant credit card debt in her parents’ names and continued using their pensions after their deaths.