LONDON — A British lady who murdered her mother and father after which lived for 4 years alongside their our bodies in makeshift tombs on the household house was sentenced Friday to life imprisonment and advised she will not be eligible for parole for 36 years.
Virginia McCullough, who spent her mother and father’ cash and went to nice lengths to cowl her tracks with household and pals by way of an online of lies, had pleaded responsible to murdering her mother and father in June 2019 at a earlier listening to at Chelmsford Crown Court docket in southeast England.
Choose Jeremy Johnson stated on the sentencing listening to that McCullough’s actions represented a “gross violation of the belief that ought to exist between mother and father and their kids.”
When Essex Police raided her home within the village of Nice Baddow final September, McCullough confessed that her mother and father’ our bodies had been in the home and that she had killed them.
McCullough, 36, admitted to poisoning her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription treatment that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks and {that a} day later she beat her 71-year-old mom Lois McCullough with a hammer and fatally stabbed her.
“I did know that this could sort of come ultimately,” she stated whereas handcuffed in body-worn footage captured by police that was launched Friday. “It’s correct that I serve my punishment.”
After McCullough was arrested on suspicion of double homicide she advised an officer: “Cheer up, at the least you’ve caught the dangerous man,” including that “I do know I don’t appear 100% evil.”
Additional footage from a physique digital camera exhibits McCullough on the police station telling officers the place they’ll discover the hammer and kitchen knife she used to kill her mom.
Within the phrases of the prosecution, McCullough saved her father in a “do-it-yourself mausoleum” in his floor flooring bed room and examine, in a construction that was “composed with masonry blocks stacked collectively.” She had additionally wrapped the physique of her mom in a sleeping bag in a wardrobe on the highest flooring of the property.
Within the years between the murders and her arrest, McCullough ran up massive money owed on bank cards in her mother and father’ names and continued to spend their pensions. The courtroom heard she cancelled household preparations and incessantly advised docs and family members her mother and father had been unwell, or away on prolonged journeys.
Statements from three unnamed siblings of the defendant had been learn in courtroom by prosecutor Lisa Wilding. One stated that “our mother and father had been utterly innocent victims” whereas one other stated, “Virginia at all times stated mum and pa had been effective and made up lie after lie about their every day actions.”
Issues for her mother and father’ welfare had been raised in September 2023 by a health care provider, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding staff referred the considerations to police.
Choose Johnson stated McCullough maintained an “elaborate, in depth and enduring internet of deceit” over months and years and that he was positive there was a “substantial diploma of each pre-meditation and planning,” provided that she had gathered a considerable amount of pharmaceuticals and had purchased a knife and implements to crush and separate tablets.
Essex Police stated paperwork discovered on the tackle constructed an image of a girl “making an attempt desperately” to maintain her mother and father from discovering the parlous state of her funds whereas giving “false assurances” about her employment and future prospects.
“She is an clever manipulator who selected to kill her mother and father callously, with no thought for them or those that proceed to endure on account of their loss,” stated Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby. “The main points of this case shock and horrify even essentially the most skilled of homicide detectives, not to mention any right-thinking member of the general public.”
Lawyer Christine Agnew, mitigating for McCullough, advised the courtroom that the defendant understands that she has broken her siblings to such an extent that they’re “unlikely to get better” and that she has stated “I’m a happier particular person in jail than I used to be exterior.”
