Calm Virginia McCullough confessed in detail of how she carried out the murders of both her dad John and her mum Lois, who were both in their 70s, before living with their corpses for four years
A woman who beat her elderly mum to death with a hammer after fatally poisoning her dad, told officers of the moments she went into the bedroom for the final time.
Virginia McCullough has today been jailed for life for murdering mum Lois and dad John. She killed them in 2019, then lived with their decomposing bodies for four years after racking up huge debts in their name.
Today as she was sentenced for her crimes, details that calm McCullough made in her confession, have been revealed for the first time. In one chilling description she called the hammer blows she delivered to her own mum as like “someone badly playing the xylophone – it was willy-nilly”.
After her arrest, McCullough told officers said she poisoned her father with a “cocktail of prescription drugs” in his Guinness, red wine and brandy. She had given Lois a sleeping drug but it was not enough to kill her, so when she woke in the morning and discovered her father dead with rigor mortis, she knew she had to kill her mother.
It was then she attacked her mother as she lay defenceless on her bed listening to music, the court was told. She told cops: “I did go upstairs, I didn’t really have a plan as such. I had a rough idea of what I might do.
“So I had Wilko garden gloves, I had a kitchen knife and I had a hammer. I went into my mother’s only wearing the gloves. I had the hammer and the knife was still in my room. I knew I was going to be arrested for the murder of my father and I was going to go to prison.
“I looked at her and she looked so innocent. She was just listening to the radio, she was not doing anything. I went in with the hammer probably about four times. I went in three times maybe to build up the gumption, I knew I had to get it done.
“I raised the hammer a couple of times, I didn’t do anything. I raised it a final time and I struck a blow… She didn’t pass… She turned over and said, ‘What are you doing?’ That’s when I hesitated for 20 seconds because she was staring at me in disbelief…
“I realised the hammer was not going to work. I didn’t want her to suffer, I wanted her to be like my father, but my mother didn’t drink… I left the room, I took off one of the garden gloves… I got the knife, which was from Lakeland, it was a large kitchen knife. I didn’t have much time, she was still awake, she didn’t say anything, other than, ‘What are you doing?'”
After stabbing her, McCullough said: “I took her hand… she stopped moving and then that’s when she just passed. I kissed her hand. That’s when I came to the realisation I had killed them both. Then I just went for a wander around the house for a little bit.”
