Virginia McCullough murdered her parents and then lived with their decomposing bodies for four years - she even put her mum's corpse in a cupboard so 'maggots and flies' wouldn't infest her home.
Michael Moran
21:00, 15 Jan 2026
A woman who killed both her parents before living alongside their decaying remains for four years made a chilling admission to police upon her arrest. Virginia McCullough revealed she had concealed her mother’s body inside a wardrobe after “maggots and flies” began gathering on the corpse just days after the killing.
In a new documentary examining the case, former Essex police detective Simon Dinsdale said: “The disposal of a dead body is not an easy thing to do.”
He noted that McCullough’s “level of sophistication” in concealing the two bodies was unlike anything he had encountered before.
McCullough had sealed her father’s body in one of the ground-floor rooms of their shared home in Great Baddow, Essex. “To explain about some of the building materials in the garden, I said a garden wall was being done,” she said.
“I made a wooden and concrete block-type enclosed structure out of my father’s original bed. I put wood at either end and extra blocks … I told the next-door neighbour that I was building a fireplace to make an excuse for any noise.”
Channel 5’s How I Murdered Mum & Dad: The Virginia McCullough Confessions reveals how the killer then draped her father’s makeshift tomb with a blanket, along with several paintings and photographs. But the manner in which McCullough handled her mother’s body was far more brutal.
She confessed to police: “The following day I went upstairs and, while crying, moved my mother’s body into a four-door wardrobe. I taped up the gaps in the wardrobe to get rid of any remaining maggots or flies that had initially started to appear.”
McCullough had initially attempted to poison her parents. With her father, this method proved relatively successful. John McCullough was a fairly heavy drinker, and she had managed to hide a substantial quantity of sedatives in his evening glass of wine.
Her mother, Lois, survived the poisoning, though she was reportedly left extremely drowsy following the massive sedative overdose. McCullough described how she then struck her mum with a hammer “like someone playing a xylophone” before stabbing the 71-year-old multiple times in the back.
“What Virginia did is staggering,” Simon Dinsdale says. “The concept that you could treat your parents in that way; first to murder them, and then to hide them away, is incredible.”
He added: “What must she have been feeling as she’s walking around that house, knowing that her parents are in the next room?”
When she was eventually arrested, McCullough appeared almost relieved and was eager to reveal the secret behind her parents’ disappearance.
In the years after their murder, she had continued to collect their pensions while also using their credit cards, profiting by around £150,000. An Essex court heard that she had spent approximately £21,000 on online gambling between 2019 and 2023.
However, a darker backstory to McCullough’s crimes emerged, with the 36-year-old alleging a lifetime of neglect and abuse from her parents—particularly her mother. Describing her troubled relationship with them, McCullough said she had never been toilet-trained and was frequently sent to school in dirty clothes, which resulted in cruel treatment from her classmates.
One former schoolmate recalled: “She was weird at school – but not ‘murder your parents and hid their bodies’ weird.”
As an adult, McCullough maintained that reputation for “weirdness,” constantly fabricating dramatic stories that none of her neighbours quite believed. Shortly before her arrest, she contacted police claiming she had been assaulted in her home and was even told to “stop calling” with complaints about disputes with neighbours.
In the years following Lois and John’s deaths, McCullough maintained a pretence, spinning conflicting tales about their whereabouts. She told local shopkeepers that her parents were away on holiday or had relocated, all while returning each evening to the horrific scene of her crimes.
The coronavirus lockdowns provided McCullough with cover to dodge uncomfortable enquiries.
However, the lies she told merely delayed the inevitable. The McCulloughs’ family doctor flagged concerns after John and Lois failed to attend multiple appointments, prompting police to visit the household.
“Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy,” she told arresting officers with composure.
In October 2024, McCullough, then 36, was sentenced to life imprisonment at Chelmsford Crown Court for both murders, with a minimum term of 36 years expected to be served.
How I Murdered Mum & Dad: The Virginia McCullough Confessions airs on Channel 5 at 10pm, Thursday, January 15.