An “intelligent manipulator” murdered her parents “in cold blood” and then hid them in makeshift graves and lived next to their bodies for four years.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription drugs and fatally stabbed her 71-year-old mother Lois McCullough soon after.
She then lied about their whereabouts and spent their money.
Judge Mr Justice Johnson jailed McCullough, of Chelmsford, Essex, for life with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court on Friday after she admitted their murders between June 17 and 20, 2019, at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Richard Butcher, brother of Lois McCullough, said in a statement that his niece – the defendant – was “very dangerous” and what had happened “undermined my faith in humanity”.
McCullough poisoned her father, who had worked as a senior lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, with prescription drugs which she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks – then, a day later, she beat her mother with a hammer and fatally stabbed her.
The sentencing hearing was told she hid their bodies in makeshift graves at the family home in Pump Hill and then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
She ran up huge credit card debt in her parents’ names, and after their deaths she continued to use their pensions.
The court heard she canceled family events and often told doctors and relatives her parents were ill, on holiday or away on long trips.
But concerns for Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice and Essex County Council’s safety team referred these to the police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and expected scheduled appointments.
It emerged that McCullough had frequently canceled appointments, using a variety of excuses to explain his father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were traveling and would return in October.
It became a homicide investigation, and when officers forced their way into the house on September 15, 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed McCullough told officers, “I knew this was going to come eventually.
“It is fitting that I serve my sentence.”
She said she slipped something into her father’s drink, then put his body under a bed on the ground floor and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, who has been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Hang on, at least you caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100 percent evil.”
At the police station, she told officers the location of a kitchen knife, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer, which she said “will still have blood on it”.
Essex Police said documents found at the address “built a picture of a woman desperately trying to keep her parents from discovering the depth of the financial black hole she continued to dig, while giving them false reassurances about her employment and future prospects”.
Sentencing, the judge told the defendant she was nearly £60,000 in debt before the killings and that she “spun and maintained” an “elaborate, extensive and sustained web of deception” over months and years.
Justice Johnson described her actions as a “gross violation of the trust that should exist between parents and their children”.
He said: “I am sure that a significant motive for each of the murders was to prevent your parents from discovering that you had stolen from them and lied to them and to take money that was intended for them.”
McCullough, who has shoulder-length dyed blonde hair and wore a purple top, signed off on the judge before she was led from the secure dock to the cells.
Christine Agnew KC, mitigating for McCullough, told the court the defendant “says ‘I’m a happier person in prison than I was outside'”.
Detective Inspector Rob Kirby, of Essex Police, said: “Virginia McCullough murdered her parents in cold blood.
“Her actions were deliberate, careful and carried out in such a way as to conceal what she had done for as long as possible.
“These were the actions of someone who had taken the time to plan and carry out the murder of her parents in the interest of self-preservation and personal gain before living within meters of the bodies of her two victims for a number of years.
“Over the course of our investigation, we have built a picture of the enormous levels of deceit, treachery and fraud she engaged in.
“It was on a shocking and monumental scale.
“McCullough lied about almost every aspect of her life, maintained a charade to deceive everyone close to her and clearly took advantage of her parents’ goodwill.
“She is an intelligent manipulator who chooses to kill her parents callously, with no thought for them or those who continue to suffer as a result of their loss.”
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both her parents before hiding their bodies in makeshift graves at their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions and the police, using her parents’ money and racking up huge debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case which has left a trail of devastation and I can only hope that the sentence handed down today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John to begin to heal.”