- After raising five daughters and working hard, John and Lois McCullough had retired
- Their youngest, Virginia, still lived at home and helped with their finances
- Months passed and the mum and dad were never seen outside the house
- Their doctor grew concerned and police contacted Virginia
- But what they found when they had to storm the house was horrific
John and Lois McCullough didn’t live a lavish lifestyle, but they were comfortable enough.
After years working as a business lecturer, John, 70, and his wife Lois, 71, were enjoying their humble retirement.
Together they’d raised five daughters. The eldest four had long moved out and started their own lives, but their youngest, Virginia, still lived at home.
An aspiring artist, Virginia struggled to make ends meet. So John paid his daughter a regular income in exchange for her taking care of her parents’ finances.
It was a load off John’s plate, who had multiple health conditions, including hypertension, type 2 diabetes and glaucoma.
On top of that, Lois battled with anxiety and agoraphobia – a fear of leaving her home. So when neighbours noticed that the couple hadn’t been out in some time, they didn’t think much of it. And if anything were to happen, they knew Virginia was on hand to help.
In September 2019, Lois sent one of her daughters a text message telling them that she and John had gone away.
Your dad and I are at the seaside… Mum x.
Later that evening, she sent another. Good night. Mum. x she wrote.
Yet weeks turned into months and the curtains at the McCullough household remained closed.
When concerned neighbours asked about her parents, Virginia said they’d moved away as they were fed up people were gossiping about them.
When the pandemic hit, it put a pin in any plans for John and Lois’ kids to visit their new home. But the parents made sure to keep in touch with their family, through texts, as well as birthday and Christmas cards.
Meanwhile, Virginia who’d remained at the property to see out repairs to the retaining wall, had befriended many of her neighbours.
Often she would drop off food and gifts at their doors to help bring a smile to their faces.
‘She’d come across as quite pleasant. She was funny, she was irreverent as well. She had a dark sense of humour,’ next-door neighbour Phil Sargeant said.
But in September 2023, John and Lois’ doctor had grown concerned that he hadn’t heard from the couple in some time.
Their appointments had been repeatedly cancelled and the GP wondered how John would be getting on without his medication.
When police phoned Virginia, she claimed her parents were on holiday.
But police didn’t buy it.
On September 15, they stormed the family home, yet nothing could have prepared them for what they’d find.
John and Lois had been murdered, their bodies kept in makeshift tombs since 2019. ‘I did know that this would come… eventually,’ Virginia immediately confessed.
Then shockingly, she said to the police officer, ‘Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.’
Virginia McCullough’s web of lies quickly unravelled. Unbeknown to John and Lois, their daughter had racked up over $117,000 in debt. She’d even taken out loans in her parents’ names, then claimed they’d fallen victim to fraud.
Unable to see a way out of the financial hole she’d dug herself, she came up with a plan to get rid of her parents to access their money freely.
As she was handcuffed, Virginia McCullough told police how one night in June 2019, she had slipped a cocktail of prescription drugs into her parents’ drinks to poison them.
The following morning, she discovered her father dead in his bed, but Lois was still alive. Virginia was well-prepared for that too.
After striking her mother over the head with a hammer, she’d stabbed her eight times in the chest with a kitchen knife.
She then wrapped her parents’ bodies in sleeping bags, hiding her dad’s remains in a tomb of concrete blocks disguised as a bed, and her mum’s in a wardrobe. Over four years on, their remains were so badly decomposed they had to be identified through dental records.
Despicably, while her parents’ bodies had been left to rot, Virginia McCullough plundered over $300,000 of their pensions to further her gambling addiction, as well as purchasing clothes and jewellery for herself.
Her horrified siblings were stunned at the sheer scale of her lies.
At Virginia McCullough’s trial at Chelmsford Crown Court in July 2024, Justice Jeremy Johnson addressed her directly.
‘You are described by one of your sisters as a compulsive liar, but that hardly captures the elaborate and enduring web of deceit you spun over numerous years. You think more of money than you do of humanity,’ he said. ‘These were murders done for gain.’
She was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 36 years for the murder of her parents.
In a letter to Virginia, one sister expressed ‘profound disbelief and hate’ for her.
The evilness and vindictive nature of your actions have rocked our family to its core, she wrote.
In a joint statement, the family spoke fondly of their parents.
Our dad was caring and hardworking and he had a passion for education and writing. Our mum was kind, caring and thoughtful. Mum and Dad always enjoyed the time they spent with us, family was their pride and joy.
Our Mum and Dad are forever in our hearts.
