Woman who murdered her parents told police ‘cheer up, you’ve caught the bad guy’

Virginia McCullough, 36, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court on Friday for murdering her mother and father.

Virginia McCullough killed her parents and lived alongside their bodies for four years (Elizabeth Cook/PA) (PA Archive)

A woman who murdered her parents then lived alongside their bodies for four years told police “cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy” when she was arrested.

Virginia McCullough poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks in June 2019.

A day later she also beat her 71-year-old mother Lois McCullough with a hammer and fatally stabbed her.

She was jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court on Friday.

Bodyworn video footage released by police shows the moment McCullough was arrested on September 15 2023 where she can be seen confessing to the murders and telling officers where they can find her parents’ bodies and the murder weapons.

It’s in the middle under the stairs, it will still have blood on it, it’s rusted but it will still have blood traces on it

McCullough told police where they could find a hammer

Handcuffed and wearing a pink jumper, she told officers she had slipped something into her father’s drink and put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and hidden her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.

“I did know that this would kind of come eventually, it’s proper that I serve my punishment,” McCullough added.

Having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, she can be seen in handcuffs telling an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”

“I know I don’t seem 100% evil,” she added.

“I deserve obviously whatever’s coming sentence-wise if that’s the right thing to do and that might give me a bit of peace.”

She can also be seen telling police that there was a handbag containing a bank card where there is “a lot of transactions that have taken place over the last few years from money that pertains to my parents”.

I know I don’t seem 100% evil

Virginia McCullough

Further footage from a bodyworn camera shows McCullough at the police station telling officers where they can find the hammer and kitchen knife she used to kill her mother.

Getting tearful and wiping her eyes, she added: “The next bit is very hard to talk about, that’s probably the most grisly detail, so on the ground floor, underneath the stairs there’s a few storage boxes and things and in the middle, I think it’s in one of the boxes or in a bag or something … you will find forensically it’s helpful – there’s a hammer.

“I’m trying to help so you find everything,” she continued.

“It’s in the middle under the stairs, it will still have blood on it, it’s rusted but it will still have blood traces on it.”

She adds: “Not co-operating is futile. There’s no point in not co-operating, there really isn’t.”

Her trial heard the 36-year-old hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.

She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths she continued to spend their pensions.