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THE CRIMES OF VIRGINIA MCCULLOUGH · NO FILTER

0:08
Speaker 1: The place.
0:13
Speaker 2: Is what we know about.
0:14
Speaker 3: Yes, take it.
0:16
Speaker 4: I need to tell you something about what's upstirting.
0:18
Speaker 3: Top four or.
0:21
Speaker 4: Welcome to Totally True Crime. Totally True Crime. Today's case
0:28
Speaker 4: takes us to Chelceford in Essex, in the east of England.
0:34
Speaker 4: In September twenty twenty three, a doctor just outside of
0:38
Speaker 4: Chelceford contacted Essex County Council. They were concerned about two
0:45
Speaker 4: of their patients. Married couple John and Lois mccullor. John
0:52
Speaker 4: hadn't attended any of his appointments since twenty nineteen and
0:58
Speaker 4: had failed to pick up prescribe medication When the staff
1:03
Speaker 4: at the doctor's surgery had tried to make contact. The
1:07
Speaker 4: couple's daughter, Virginia, had come up with a range of
1:10
Speaker 4: excuses to explain his absence and why he wasn't coming
1:16
Speaker 4: to the phone. She would say her parents were away
1:21
Speaker 4: on holiday, out shopping, or asleep. John's wife, Lois, had
1:28
Speaker 4: also not attended any medical appointments. The couple were in
1:33
Speaker 4: their seventies and the doctor found it hard to believe
1:37
Speaker 4: that their health was perfect and that they didn't need
1:41
Speaker 4: any medical assistants in their old age. Essex County Council
1:48
Speaker 4: were also concerned, and their safeguarding team contacted the police
1:54
Speaker 4: and asked them to conduct a welfare check on the couple.
2:00
Speaker 4: They lived in an area of Chelsford called Great Bado,
2:04
Speaker 4: and their home was a three story end of Terry's house.
2:09
Speaker 4: The police contacted the couple's daughter, Virginia, who was living
2:14
Speaker 4: in her parents' home. Virginia was thirty five years old,
2:20
Speaker 4: she wasn't married, and she didn't have any children. When
2:25
Speaker 4: the police spoke to her to inquire about her parents,
2:29
Speaker 4: she told them that they were traveling and that they
2:33
Speaker 4: would be back the following month. But somethink wasn't adding
2:38
Speaker 4: up for the police. They'd looked into the couple's finances
2:43
Speaker 4: and it was clear that something was wrong. They'd run
2:48
Speaker 4: up large debts on credit cards, their pensions were being spent,
2:54
Speaker 4: and their savings account that previously had over one hundred
2:58
Speaker 4: and fifty thousand pound was now empty. Family friends and
3:07
Speaker 4: neighbors hadn't seen the couple since twenty nineteen, telling the
3:13
Speaker 4: police that Virginia was always the one to make excuses
3:18
Speaker 4: for their absence at family gatherings. The police were now
3:24
Speaker 4: treating this as a double missing person's inquiry. The police
3:30
Speaker 4: executed a search warrant for the couple's house. Police started
3:36
Speaker 4: by smashing the back door to gain entry to the house.
3:53
Speaker 5: The police got.
3:57
Speaker 2: It for.
4:02
Speaker 5: We are.
4:06
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, that's why the talk jonder reconstriction of murders
4:14
Speaker 6: against Jonathan Collar and last think about my home defense question.
4:23
Speaker 2: Okays, is there anything in p we should know about?
4:28
Speaker 3: Yes?
4:28
Speaker 7: Can I take you to it?
4:30
Speaker 2: You can show me.
4:33
Speaker 3: Jes can tell you something. Yeah, anyways, and I said,
4:39
Speaker 3: I need to tell you something that what's upstairs on
4:41
Speaker 3: the top floor as well? Yeah, obviously I've got a.
4:53
Speaker 4: Chap, my dad's what is okay?
4:58
Speaker 3: Okay, yep, okay, obviously a little bit more complicated, can
5:07
Speaker 3: I That's why I said, can I go upstairs?
5:09
Speaker 2: And can you explain? We're trying to deserve it's now
5:13
Speaker 2: going to be seen, so we need to deserve this
5:15
Speaker 2: the best we can. So I don't want you to
5:17
Speaker 2: have you walking up there, because that's for your well
5:20
Speaker 2: being as well as ours. Okay, where where will we
5:24
Speaker 2: find your mom? Where we find Okay?
5:27
Speaker 3: So upstairs there are about five wardrobes. It's behind the
5:32
Speaker 3: bed but back next to the sink. That's the second one.
5:36
Speaker 3: I slips file of those into his drink. There were
5:41
Speaker 3: about two or three drinks that I brought downstairs. Yeah,
5:47
Speaker 3: they were basically he didn't drink all of them. He
5:52
Speaker 3: only drunk probably about half of two. But yeah, when
5:56
Speaker 3: I went in the morning, this was before my mother.
6:00
Speaker 3: When I went in the morning early hours. I got
6:02
Speaker 3: up about half an hour early, about six o'clock in
6:06
Speaker 3: the morning that came in and he was gone.
6:09
Speaker 2: It's it's absolutely if you want to talk. The thing
6:15
Speaker 2: is purpose of yourst the purpose of your rest is
6:19
Speaker 2: for a pump defective investigation as well as by questioning you.
6:22
Speaker 2: We can't do that here. It needs to be done
6:24
Speaker 2: at the PlayStation, all right.
6:28
Speaker 3: I did know that this would kind of calm eventually,
6:32
Speaker 3: and it's proper that I served my punishment.
6:36
Speaker 2: So yeah, okay, So Virginia, I'm just going to ask
6:48
Speaker 2: you this. This is what I've written down based on
6:49
Speaker 2: the information you just told us, because what we regard
6:51
Speaker 2: as a significant comment because you've made it under.
6:54
Speaker 5: Care from.
6:57
Speaker 2: My granddad's Okay, right, So I've written it space Ivy
7:01
Speaker 2: Junia McCulloch having formed police Constables seventh seventy nine Brown
7:06
Speaker 2: and seven nine three eight seven Bowers after and in
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Speaker 2: my house on Friday the fifteenth September twenty twenty three,
7:12
Speaker 2: that I murdered my father, John McCullough, who was stated
7:16
Speaker 2: was under a bed in the rear ground floor of
7:18
Speaker 2: the house and my mother upstairs in a cupboard next
7:21
Speaker 2: to sink or it.
7:22
Speaker 3: Is a double warder.
7:24
Speaker 2: I've written cupboard.
7:25
Speaker 1: It's like four, but.
7:27
Speaker 3: It's the one there is to think double order the government.
7:31
Speaker 2: What's significant, as I've written down there here. Now I've
7:33
Speaker 2: just read out to you. You're happy to sign that.
7:35
Speaker 2: They say that's a true, true account.
7:47
Speaker 7: Cheer a lot. At least you caught the bad guy.
7:50
Speaker 2: I've done my job. It's not a lot of it's
7:55
Speaker 2: a eagle, but we all.
7:57
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm not going to.
7:59
Speaker 2: Comment on anything. It's not much of the comment on it, okay,
8:01
Speaker 2: because I've got to be impartial with everything, Okay, So
8:03
Speaker 2: I'm not going to give you any comments.
8:05
Speaker 3: No, no, Well, I mean I deserve to obviously get
8:09
Speaker 3: whatever's coming sentence wise, because that's all right thing to do,
8:14
Speaker 3: and that might give me a bit of peace. Also
8:25
Speaker 3: in the handbag as well, there's and again because you're
8:30
Speaker 3: probably going to need to know about it. There's a
8:33
Speaker 3: card in there more money, and that's bank card where.
8:42
Speaker 5: There's a lot of.
8:44
Speaker 4: Transactions that have taken place. I've last a few years
8:49
Speaker 4: from money that obtained to my parents. Virginia is put
8:55
Speaker 4: into a holding celle. She's handcuffed and she's talking to
8:59
Speaker 4: officers and then tells them that there is a murder weapon.
9:05
Speaker 4: She tells them where to find it.
9:09
Speaker 5: So murder im is.
9:13
Speaker 6: Upstairs and when they through.
9:17
Speaker 1: A tun.
9:20
Speaker 8: It's in the middle with the brown carpet against the
9:25
Speaker 8: opposite shelves. So there are two long white shelves, so
9:28
Speaker 8: opposite where that ds. That's where the is.
9:35
Speaker 3: So next bit is very hard.
9:37
Speaker 6: To talk about.
9:38
Speaker 3: That's probably the most QUIZI to detail.
9:41
Speaker 5: So on the.
9:44
Speaker 7: Ground floor, underneath the stairs, there's a few like storage
9:48
Speaker 7: boxes and things, and in the middle, I think it's
9:55
Speaker 7: in one.
9:55
Speaker 4: Of the boxes or in a band or something.
9:59
Speaker 1: There.
10:02
Speaker 4: If you want me to shish up this, it's fine.
10:06
Speaker 7: But every bit helps you all want red.
10:09
Speaker 3: It's helpful.
10:09
Speaker 7: There's a hammer, I know, I know, I'm trying to help.
10:15
Speaker 4: You find everything.
10:16
Speaker 8: It's in the middle, and the neighbor steirs it will
10:19
Speaker 8: still have blood on it.
10:20
Speaker 4: It's frosted, but.
10:21
Speaker 3: It will still have blood traces on it.
10:27
Speaker 4: So not cooperating is futile.
10:31
Speaker 8: There's no point you're not corporating.
10:33
Speaker 3: Really, isn't a last a part of my young Why
10:36
Speaker 3: I should think? What about?
10:37
Speaker 7: That's the envirements doing our things.
10:40
Speaker 4: The police discover the bodies of John and Lewis. Both
10:44
Speaker 4: were wrapped in sleeping bags. As if this wasn't terrific enough,
10:51
Speaker 4: the police find out that Virginia had killed them in
10:55
Speaker 4: June twenty nineteen, meaning she'd been living in the house
11:00
Speaker 4: with both of her parents' corpses for over four years.
11:07
Speaker 4: The bodies had naturally been decomposing in the house with
11:11
Speaker 4: a family living next door to them. The police discovered
11:15
Speaker 4: that Lois and John McCullough had five daughters in total,
11:20
Speaker 4: and Virginia was the youngest of their children. Investigators wanted
11:26
Speaker 4: to know why nobody else had reported the couple missing,
11:32
Speaker 4: especially their other four daughters. They told the police that
11:38
Speaker 4: COVID helped Virginia in being able to keep her dark
11:42
Speaker 4: secret hidden from them and the rest of their family
11:45
Speaker 4: and friends. None of them had seen John or Lewis
11:49
Speaker 4: for four years, but shockingly, nobody had also spoken to
11:55
Speaker 4: them on the phone, and yet nobody had tried to
12:00
Speaker 4: do a welfare check. If their doctor had not raised
12:04
Speaker 4: the alarm, they could still be lying undiscovered today. The
12:11
Speaker 4: police started looking at what Virginia had been doing in
12:14
Speaker 4: the four years between murdering her parents and her arrest.
12:20
Speaker 4: They found that in that time she had spent over
12:24
Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty thousand pounds of their money. Twenty
12:28
Speaker 4: one thousand pounds of that money was spent on online
12:32
Speaker 4: gambling websites. Her parents had been questioning her about her
12:38
Speaker 4: job prospects before their murders, which she had found annoying.
12:44
Speaker 4: She would often get them to give her money, manipulating
12:48
Speaker 4: their goodwill. Virginia had taken loans out in their names
12:54
Speaker 4: and withdrawn large amounts of money from their savings account.
13:00
Speaker 4: Before their deaths. They were already in over sixty thousand
13:04
Speaker 4: pounds worth of debt, debt that their youngest daughter had
13:09
Speaker 4: got them into. Her parents had been vulnerable. Lois had
13:16
Speaker 4: anxiety and agrophobia, and she also had traits of obsessive
13:23
Speaker 4: compulsive disorder. John had diabetes and hypertension, plus a few
13:29
Speaker 4: other minor health conditions. This added to their vulnerability and
13:36
Speaker 4: made them easy victims. They had believed Virginia when she
13:42
Speaker 4: told them that money missing from their account was down
13:45
Speaker 4: to banking errors and being hacked by scanners. The police
13:50
Speaker 4: also discovered that Virginia had told her parents that she
13:55
Speaker 4: had employment when she didn't, and also told them that
13:59
Speaker 4: she was suffering from medical conditions that she didn't really have. Ironically,
14:07
Speaker 4: a month before her arrest, the police had visited Virginia
14:11
Speaker 4: at her home because she'd been the victim of an
14:14
Speaker 4: alleged assault. The police had interviewed her in the home,
14:20
Speaker 4: just meet us away from the two concealed bodies. The
14:25
Speaker 4: alleged assault was an unrelated incident. Essex police had a
14:31
Speaker 4: clear picture of why Virginia had killed her parents, but
14:36
Speaker 4: now they needed to know how. One of the most
14:39
Speaker 4: shocking things they discovered was that Virginia had been planning
14:43
Speaker 4: their murders since March twenty nineteen, three months before she
14:49
Speaker 4: killed them. She had started collecting prescription medications. She'd brought
14:55
Speaker 4: a gadget that crushed pills, and she also had brought
14:59
Speaker 4: an John, who had been seventy years old in twenty
15:05
Speaker 4: nineteen had been poisoned with prescription medication, which Virginia had
15:11
Speaker 4: crushed up and put into his drinks one night in June.
15:16
Speaker 4: In the morning, she went to check on her father
15:20
Speaker 4: and found him dead in his bed. She had tried
15:24
Speaker 4: to do the same to her mother, but she had
15:27
Speaker 4: used a smaller dose and her mother hadn't finished the
15:31
Speaker 4: drink that Virginia had given her, so the plan hadn't worked.
15:36
Speaker 4: But Virginia had a sinister and horrific plan B. She
15:42
Speaker 4: decided to take a hammer to her mother, beating her
15:45
Speaker 4: with it before stabbing her mother to death with a
15:48
Speaker 4: kitchen knife. She did this as her mother lay in
15:52
Speaker 4: bed listening to the radio. Her mother had been aware
15:57
Speaker 4: of the attack and asked her daughter what she was doing.
16:02
Speaker 4: Her last moments on this earth were the realization that
16:06
Speaker 4: her life was being taken by her own daughter. Virginia
16:11
Speaker 4: told the police that hitting her mother was like quote
16:17
Speaker 4: playing a xylophone, and that she did it willy nilly.
16:23
Speaker 4: She'd then gone into Chelmsford Town Center, where she'd purchased
16:27
Speaker 4: two sleeping bags on her father's credit card. When she
16:32
Speaker 4: got home, she wrapped each of their bodies in the
16:35
Speaker 4: sleeping bags. She'd made a makeshift tomb under the stairs
16:40
Speaker 4: for her father, and she'd put her mother's body in
16:43
Speaker 4: a wardrobe. Virginia also went to her doctor because she
16:49
Speaker 4: had sustained a cut to her hand when she was
16:52
Speaker 4: stabbing her mother. She told the doctor she got the
16:57
Speaker 4: cut from cutting vegetables. The following day, she called the bank,
17:03
Speaker 4: pretending to be her mother to get a new credit
17:07
Speaker 4: card and pin number. She then used that card to
17:12
Speaker 4: buy herself new clothes and jewelry. Just hours after she
17:18
Speaker 4: killed her parents, Virginia got her mother's phone and text
17:23
Speaker 4: one of her sisters, saying, your dad and I are
17:27
Speaker 4: at the seaside in Walton this week. She carried this
17:32
Speaker 4: on for four years and three months. It seemed so
17:37
Speaker 4: far fetched, and there was some explanation in those messages
17:42
Speaker 4: of how she managed to carry out this macabre charade.
17:48
Speaker 4: Virginia continued to use text messages as the main method
17:52
Speaker 4: of contact, texting her siblings and other family members' messages
17:58
Speaker 4: that looked like they were from lower On one occasion,
18:03
Speaker 4: Virginia managed to pull off calling one of her sisters
18:07
Speaker 4: and impersonating their mother. She would send them pre printed
18:12
Speaker 4: birthday cards from a gift website to family members on
18:16
Speaker 4: their birthdays, signing them from her parents. She'd even managed
18:22
Speaker 4: to call her father's pension provider and pretended to be him.
18:28
Speaker 4: Virginia spent their pensions, their savings, and their winter fuel payments.
18:34
Speaker 4: But not only that, she would call the local police
18:38
Speaker 4: station pretending to be her mother to complain about trivial matters.
18:45
Speaker 4: She had also called the doctor pretending to be her mother.
18:50
Speaker 4: One of Virginia's sisters told the police that she'd always
18:55
Speaker 4: been a compulsive liar, but no one could have predicted
19:00
Speaker 4: just how deep her lies could run. The police had
19:06
Speaker 4: enough evidence to charge Virginia with double murder. She pled
19:11
Speaker 4: guilty to both charges. The judge had this to say,
19:16
Speaker 4: there are some interesting points. This is not his voice,
19:21
Speaker 4: but they are his words.
19:24
Speaker 5: Your parents were not of advanced old age. They were
19:28
Speaker 5: able to take care for themselves, and they were not
19:31
Speaker 5: particularly vulnerable, but they were to some extent vulnerable because
19:36
Speaker 5: of their age and because of your father's ill health.
19:40
Speaker 5: As their daughter and someone who they trusted with their finances,
19:44
Speaker 5: you were in a position of trust in relation to them.
19:48
Speaker 5: You had a significant level of responsibility towards each of them,
19:53
Speaker 5: and they were each entitled to rely on you. These
19:56
Speaker 5: are each aggravating features. However, they are also linked to
20:01
Speaker 5: the domestic context, and there is a considerable degree of overlap.
20:07
Speaker 5: I take account of the overall impact of these factors
20:11
Speaker 5: in increasing the seriousness of the offenses, rather than artificially
20:15
Speaker 5: compartmentalizing and then adding different overlapping aggravating factors. The fact
20:22
Speaker 5: that you concealed your parents' bodies for so long and
20:25
Speaker 5: maintain the deceit that they were both still alive is
20:29
Speaker 5: a substantial aggravating factor. It robbed them of dignity in death,
20:36
Speaker 5: and it no doubt substantially increased the distress and suffering
20:40
Speaker 5: of your siblings.
20:42
Speaker 4: Virginia mccullor was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum
20:48
Speaker 4: term of thirty six years before she can be considered
20:52
Speaker 4: for parole. Superintendent Rob Kirby of Essex Police said this
21:00
Speaker 4: outside of Chelceford Crown Court after she was sentenced.
21:04
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, Virginia McCullough murdered her parents in cold blood.
21:10
Speaker 1: Her actions were considered meticulous and carried out in such
21:15
Speaker 1: a way as to conceal what she had done for
21:17
Speaker 1: as long as possible. These were the actions of someone
21:22
Speaker 1: who had taken time to plan and carry out the
21:25
Speaker 1: murder of her parents in the interests of self preservation
21:29
Speaker 1: and personal gain, before living within meters of the bodies
21:33
Speaker 1: of her two victims for a number of years. Throughout
21:38
Speaker 1: the course of our investigation, we have built a picture
21:42
Speaker 1: of the vast levels of deceit, betrayal and fraud that
21:46
Speaker 1: she was engaged in. It was on a shocking and
21:49
Speaker 1: monumental scale. McCulloch lied about almost every aspect of her life,
21:57
Speaker 1: maintaining a charade to deceive everyone close to her, and
22:01
Speaker 1: clearly taken advantage of her parents goodwill. She is an
22:06
Speaker 1: intelligent manipulator who chose to kill her parents callously, without
22:12
Speaker 1: a thought for them or those who continue to suffer
22:15
Speaker 1: as a result of their loss. The details of this
22:20
Speaker 1: case shock and horrify even the most experienced of murder detectives,
22:25
Speaker 1: let alone members of the public. It therefore follows that
22:29
Speaker 1: the wider family of John and Lois understandably could never
22:34
Speaker 1: have guessed or anticipated that McCulloch would be capable of
22:39
Speaker 1: undertaking these murders before committing herself to this level of deceit.
22:45
Speaker 1: They have been left utterly devastated by the circumstances of
22:49
Speaker 1: this case. And they continue to feel the loss of
22:53
Speaker 1: John and Lois each and every day. This process from
22:58
Speaker 1: the finding of and Lois's remains so the unraveling of
23:03
Speaker 1: McCulloch's web of liars has taken a huge toll on
23:06
Speaker 1: the wider family network. With this sentence and with all
23:11
Speaker 1: that we have uncovered throughout our investigation, we hope they
23:15
Speaker 1: can now start to find a way forward with their lives.
23:20
Speaker 1: The family have continued to struggle with the intense media
23:23
Speaker 1: interest in this case, and I would repeat in the
23:26
Speaker 1: strongest possible terms their wish for their privacy to be
23:30
Speaker 1: respected as they continue to grieve their loss. Thank you.
23:35
Speaker 4: John and Lois's other four children released this statement after
23:40
Speaker 4: their sister was sentenced. Our dad was caring and hard working,
23:47
Speaker 4: and he had a passion for education and writing. He
23:51
Speaker 4: worked tirelessly in his career in university education, which spanned
23:57
Speaker 4: many years. Dad enjoyed lots of home hobbies, with favorites
24:01
Speaker 4: being golf and snooker. As we think of Dad, we
24:05
Speaker 4: remember the numerous jokes he used to tell us and
24:09
Speaker 4: the laughs he gave us. Our mum was kind, caring
24:13
Speaker 4: and thoughtful. Mum delighted in her grandchildren. She had friends
24:19
Speaker 4: from around the world through her pen friend Hobby, many
24:23
Speaker 4: of whom she had written to for several decades. Mum
24:27
Speaker 4: had a passion for history and maintained a keen interest
24:31
Speaker 4: in the Royal family. Mum and Dad loved their trips
24:36
Speaker 4: to the Seaside together, where they enjoyed many walks and
24:41
Speaker 4: visited lots of different attractions. Their love for the seaside
24:46
Speaker 4: was so great they were hoping to move to the
24:49
Speaker 4: coast in their retirement years. Mum and Dad always enjoyed
24:54
Speaker 4: the time they spent with us. Family was their pride
24:57
Speaker 4: and joy. Our family has been left they devastated and
25:01
Speaker 4: heartbroken at the deaths of our parents, who were taken
25:05
Speaker 4: from us so cruelly. As we try to move forward
25:09
Speaker 4: with our lives, we will remember the happy times we
25:12
Speaker 4: enjoyed with them. Our Mum and Dad are forever in
25:17
Speaker 4: our hearts and are loved and missed beyond any measure.
25:24
Speaker 4: Thank you for watching. If you found this video interesting,
25:29
Speaker 4: don't forget to subscribe for weekly true crime videos like this.
25:34
Speaker 4: This has been totally true crime