Woman sentenced to life for murdering parents and living with their bodies
A British woman, who murdered her parents and lived with their bodies for four years, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday and is not eligible for parole for 36 years.
When Essex Police raided Virginia McCullough's house in Great Baddow last September, the 36-year-old confessed that her parents' bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
She admitted to poisoning her father, John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication that she put into his drink, and then a few days later, beat her 71-year-old mother Lois McCullough with a hammer and fatally stabbed her.
“I did know that this would kind of come eventually,” she said while handcuffed in body cam footage released by police on Friday.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
After McCullough was arrested, she told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy,” adding that “I know I don’t seem 100 per cent evil.”
Further body cam footage showed her at the police station telling officers where to find the tools she used to kill her mother.
She had pleaded guilty to murdering her parents at a previous hearing in June 2019.
In the words of the prosecution, McCullough kept her father in a “homemade mausoleum” in his bedroom and study, in a structure that was “composed with masonry blocks stacked together.”
She wrapped her mother's body in a sleeping bag and put it in a wardrobe on the top floor of the property.
In the four years after the murder, she ran up £149,697 ($AU289,792) on credit cards in her parents’ names and continued to spend their pensions.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and told doctors and relatives that her parents were unwell or away on a trip.
Statements from her three unnamed siblings were also read in court, and one said: “our parents were completely blameless victims”.
“Virginia always said Mum and Dad were fine and made up lie after lie about their daily activities," another said.
Judge Jeremy Johnson said at the sentencing hearing on Friday that McCullough’s actions represented a “gross violation of the trust that should exist between parents and their children.”
Judge Johnson said that she had maintained an “elaborate, extensive and enduring web of deceit” over months and years and that he was sure there was a “substantial degree of both pre-meditation and planning," that went into the murder.
Essex Police said documents found in the home showed that McCullough was trying desperately” to keep her parents from discovering the poor state of her finances, and gave “false assurances” about her employment and future prospects.
“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,” said Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby.
"The details of this case shock and horrify even the most experienced of murder detectives, let alone any right-thinking member of the public.”
Image: Essex Police/ 7NEWS