Blogger investigated for images taken in murder home

Police are investigating a blogger who gained access to and photographed inside the house where a woman murdered her parents and lived beside their bodies for four years.

Virginia McCullough was jailed for at least 36 years after admitting fatally poisoning her father and stabbing her mother to death at the family home in Great Baddow, Essex, in June 2019.

Footage posted on social media showed where both John and Lois McCullough's bodies had been crudely hidden, until they were found and removed in 2023.

An Essex Police spokesman said: "We are aware of footage, taken from within a private property, circulating on social media."

He added: "Whilst our inquiries into this footage and how it was obtained are ongoing, we ask people not to share it any further out of respect for the grieving family at the heart of this matter."

Virginia McCullough, 36, told police "cheer up, at least you've caught the bad guy" when officers arrested her at the property on Pump Hill in September 2023.

Detectives combing through the house found the body of Mr McCullough, 70, hidden in a "homemade mausoleum" made of masonry blocks in his study.

The remains of 71-year-old Mrs McCullough were discovered wrapped in a sleeping bag in an upstairs wardrobe.

Their daughter was handed a life sentence at Chelmsford Crown Court in October after admitting two counts of murder.

Both scenes were shown by the blogger in footage and pictures published online. The bodies were not present in the images.

The BBC understands the property, which is still in police possession, has been forensically cleaned since the images were taken.

Former Essex Police officer Paul Maleary said the content was "invasive, gratuitous, unacceptable".

"It is repugnant, inexcusable - what this person has done is absolutely disgusting," he told BBC News.

"I get the morbid curiosity of true crime, but to cross the threshold of a murder scene that is secure is just beyond the pale."

Virginia McCullough racked up large debts on credit cards in her parents' names and spent their pensions after she murdered them, the court heard when she was sentenced.

A missing persons' investigation was launched in September 2023 after Mr and Mrs McCullough's GP raised concerns about not hearing from them, with a raid later carried out at the family home.

McCullough confessed to police she poisoned her father with prescription medication that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks, prosecutor Lisa Wilding KC said.

She murdered her mother by beating her with a hammer and stabbing her multiple times as she listened to the radio in bed the following morning.

Following the murders, McCullough concealed the bodies and lived alongside them for four years, lying about their whereabouts to family, friends and local authorities, Ms Wilding said.

"Covid restrictions were a stroke of luck for this defendant in pursuing the deception that her parents were still alive," the prosecutor added.

The court heard McCullough benefited from £149,697 as a result of murdering her parents - combined from their pensions and spending on their credit cards, as well as selling assets.

However, Ms Wilding said most of the money was "frittered away", including £21,000 spent on online gambling.

Richard Butcher, brother of Lois McCullough, said in a victim impact statement that what happened had "undermined my faith in humanity".

Sentencing McCullough, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson said: "You think more of money than you do of humanity.

"Your parents were entitled to feel safe in their own beds and their own home, and they were entitled to feel safe with their daughter.

"You, nevertheless, made a full, conscious and deliberate decision to murder each of your parents."

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