Killer’s chilling confession after murdering parents and living with their bodies for 4 years

After brutally murdering her mum and dad, Virginia McCullough lived alongside their dead bodies for years, until the lies caught up to her.

Police bodycam footage has revealed the chilling confession of a woman who murdered her parents and lived with their bodies for four years.

Virginia McCullough was jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years after she fatally poisoned her father, John McCullough, 70, and then murdered her mother, Lois McCullough, 71, the following day.

The 36-year-old admitted crushing prescription medication into her father’s alcoholic drink, and then stabbing her mother to death in June 2019, the BBC reports.

She then stuffed their bodies into sleeping bags, placing John in a “homemade mausoleum” while Lois was stored inside an upstairs wardrobe.

Their bodies lay undiscovered at the couple’s Essex home, about an hour’s drive northeast of London, for four years until police were called for a welfare report in September 2023 after John failed to attend multiple GP appointments, The Sun reports.

When police swooped, bodycam footage shows McCullough’s eerily calm state, even capturing her spine-tingling admission of guilt.

“I did know that this would kind of come eventually,” she said while handcuffed by officers at the family home.

“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”

She then told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy,” before adding, “I know I don’t seem 100 per cent evil.”

McCollough, who previously admitted two counts of murder, was sentenced on Friday at Chelmsford Crown Court but “showed no emotion as she was sent down”, according to a local outlet.

John and Lois McCullough were murdered in June 2019 by their daughter Virginia. Picture: Essex Police

Essex Police said documents at the couple’s home “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”.

After the double murder, McCollough ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and also spent their pensions.

To cover her tracks she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips, the Independent reports.

McCullough lived with their bodies in the couple’s home for 4 years before police eventually caught up with her. Picture: Essex Police

Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby, head of major crime at Essex Police, said the case had “shocked and horrified” even the force’s most experienced murder detectives,” the BBC added.

He said McCullough had created a web of lies “on a shocking and monumental scale” and described her as “an intelligent and adept manipulator”.

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

The “rectangular tomb” was found in a room that had been John’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”.

When arrested by police, McCullough appeared eerily calm as she told officers “I’ll co-operate” while they handcuffed her.

She then proceeds to tell the officers “I need to tell you something about what’s upstairs on the top floor as well.”

Her father’s body was hidden in a ‘makeshift tomb’ in his bedroom and study. Picture: Essex Police

Cops and McCullough make their way past a wooden door, where the killer states: “My dad’s body is in there”.

However, when she is asked about her mum, she revealed it’s a “little bit more complicated” before she proceeds to explain that Lois’ body is in a wardrobe “behind the bed at the back next to a sink”.

The footage eventually switches to McCullough at the police station giving detailed information about where they can find the knife and hammer she used to murder her mum, admitting it is the “most grisly detail” of her crime.

McCullough told police: “When I was hitting her it was like someone badly playing the xylophone, it was willy-nilly.”

She chillingly told police to ‘cheer up’ during her arrest, before adding: ‘At least you’ve caught the bad guy.’ Picture: Essex Police

In total she benefited from more than £135,000 (about $A261,000) following her parents’ murders, The Sun said.

Professor Nigel Blackwood, the psychiatrist who assessed McCullough, told the court he found her behaviour following the horror was “more typically found in psychopathic personalities”.

This was due to her “lack of emotional empathy, together with the callous nature of the fatal assaults”.

Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson, sentencing, said to McCullough: “You think more of money than you do of humanity.

“Your parents were entitled to feel safe in their own beds and their own home, and they were entitled to feel safe with their daughter.

“You, nevertheless, made a full, conscious and deliberate decision to murder each of your parents.”

Originally published as Killer’s chilling confession after murdering parents and living with their bodies for 4 years