28: CAUGHT IN THE ACT! Confesses On Camera | The McCullough Murders

McCullock lied about almost every aspect of her life maintaining a charade to deceive her actions were considered meticulous and carried out in such a way as to conceal what she's done for as long as possible. We have built a picture of the vast levels of deceit, betrayal and fraud that she was engaged in, it was on a shocking and monumental scale. I did know that this would kind of come eventually. On September 15th 2023, police in Essex, England showed up to a three-story home in the neighborhood of Great Batow. Now, their arrival there was to figure out something very basic. Were John and Lois, McCullock okay? And the concern for this couple hadn't come from neighbors. It wasn't like somebody had reported screams or any suspicious activity. There was also no frantic 911 call. But instead, it started with something much quieter. Their doctor, noticing that two of their long-time patients had essentially disappeared. Appointments had been getting cancelled, yet prescriptions were still being refilled, so it wasn't a huge red flag immediately. But then one of the very important medications wasn't picked up. And when the doctor started looking a little bit closer, he realized something else. He hadn't actually seen John or Lois any years. And something about that just did not sit right with him. So he alerted the police and the officers went to that house to do a welfare check. They knocked, there was no answer, and so then eventually they forced their way inside. Yet once they got inside the house, they found a woman just standing there. And this woman was Virginia McCullock, the couple's daughter and caretaker. She was just standing there calm, cool, collected. Within moments, the situation shifted from a routine welfare check to something far more disturbing. Because Virginia just begins calmly telling these officers where her parents are. Not where they went, not where they're staying, where their bodies are. And later, when I play the full body camp footage, what really stands out isn't just what the officers find. That is horrific. Don't get me wrong. It isn't even also what Virginia says. It's just how she says it. Because she's calm, cooperative, almost as if she has been waiting for this moment for years. And as shocking as all of that sounds, this didn't come completely out of nowhere. Because when you start looking closer, there were warning signs, the isolation, the control, the lies, the money, and years going by where almost nobody was checking in. But to understand how things reached that point and what exactly happened, we do have to go back a little bit. So, hey guys, my name is Annie Elise. This is 10 to life, and we are going to jump right in. Virginia McCulloch was born on October 20, 1987 to her parents, John and Lois. She was the youngest of six children, all living together in this beautiful three-story home in the rural English area of Great Batow. Now, for many years, John worked as a management consultant. Eventually, he changed careers and he began teaching business studies at a university in Cambridge. Now, as for her mother Lois, Lois stayed home. She ran the household. She took care of the children, making sure that everything functioned smoothly and that all six children were taken care of. And the family mostly kept to themselves. Now, I will say this, Great Batow was one of the kinds of places where families often had roots going back generations and generations. So people tended to know each other pretty well. There was history there. However, the McCullochs, they were different. They weren't really part of the community. Neighbors didn't describe them as friends or even as casual acquaintances. They weren't planning play dates with other families or socializing much at all. And John mostly kept to a routine of going to work and then coming straight home, which that commute alone, it could take anywhere from two to four hours a day. So it wasn't like he had all this extra spare time to be, you know, hanging out with the neighbors. But whenever he wasn't working, he largely kept to himself. And he was also known to pour himself a drink or a couple drinks in the evenings. And whether it was a day off or an actual work day, that routine was something that he stuck to pretty consistently. Some of the children later even described him as more of just like a functional dad than an affectionate one. Meaning he handled what he needed to get done, but the emotional warmth element wasn't really part of the dynamic. And one thing that I also saw mentioned was that John was reportedly on the autism spectrum. And that because of that, he was extremely rigid about routines. There are also some conflicting reports about what parenting style was going on inside that house and what it was really like inside those four walls. Some accounts that say that it could be very rough. And according to BBC News, the children were no strangers to being smacked if they acted out or if they broke their parents rules. It seemed to be a pretty tough household. According to the True Crime Society blog, Virginia later told police that Lois could be angry and violent. And that she also had repeatedly smacked her whenever she was bathing her as a child. Virginia said that that only stopped once she hit puberty at around age 13 and began having more privacy in the bathroom. But up until then, it was apparently pretty tumultuous. But the BBC also reported something different. That Virginia herself had never been smacked at all, and that only the older children experienced that type of discipline. So that's one of those details where reports don't fully line up. It's one version versus the other version. Now even though Lois was, yes, a stay at home mom to all six of her kids, she rarely left the house at all. For much of her life, she struggled with severe OCD and agorophobia. And according to people who knew the family, it only worsened as she got older. Her children said that a typical day for Lois involved getting down on her hands and knees, scrubbing the house just completely clean. I'm talking the floors, the floorboards, the walls, basically any surface where germs or bacteria could possibly exist, she was scrubbing it. Again, just that agorophobia and OCD element. Some of the kids just described her as quote, a clean freak. But I will say this, if you have experienced OCD yourself or you know someone who has, you know it's much deeper than that. It's not just being a clean freak. You're not just cleaning because you want things tidy. You're cleaning because your brain convinces you that if you don't, something terrible may happen. And that can then just completely spiral into this exhausting mental loop. And honestly, I feel for Lois in that sense. Living with that kind of anxiety, it can be incredibly draining over time. Yet that being said, it also doesn't excuse some of the parenting choices that allegedly were going on and that would later come up as I, you know, get into that in a little bit here. But people around town said that they were aware of some of these dynamics as well. One man who worked at a nearby supermarket had even said he had worked with one of Virginia's older sisters when she was a teenager. He would talk with her during these shifts and tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, even though people in town often referred to the family as loners and weirdos. But apparently she had really opened up to him. Likely because outside of her siblings, she didn't have many people that she felt comfortable confiding in. And according to him, the siblings were all terrified of their dad, John. And Virginia's sister shared one specific incident with him that really stuck out. Apparently, she had come home a little bit past her curfew one night. And as punishment, John made her cut the grass in the backyard, not just cut with like a lawnmower, but with scissors until it was completely finished. Now, I don't know how big their backyard actually was, but regardless, I mean, that's a pretty intense punishment to get on your hands and knees and have to use scissors to cut every single blade of grass throughout the whole yard. I mean, pretty rough. Another source claimed that the kids were never well dressed. Now, what that exactly meant isn't totally clear. It could mean that their clothing was dirty, maybe too small. It could also mean that they simply weren't wearing the newest or trendiest items, like other kids, who really knows. But whatever the case was, it kind of became something that people noticed and something that people made fun of all of them for. And after some time, Virginia and her siblings got used to being bullied. And this, because it started pretty early on, not and not just by other kids at the school, but sometimes even by adults within the community. It was almost as though this whole family kids and adults alike were just the outcast and everybody tormented them a little bit. And honestly, some of John and Lois' parenting decisions, it only made things worse if we're going to be honest. At one point in the early 1990s, when Virginia was still very young, she started wetting the bed. even though she had already been potty trained. And allegedly, what her mother Lois did to handle the situation was not good at all. Instead of trying to find the root of the problem and figuring out why she's wetting the bed or help her work through it, she punished her for it. And not with something like being grounded or, you know, we're putting plastic on your sheets or whatever, which would still be unfair in this situation, and maybe not the plastic, but you know what I mean. But according to reports, Lois allegedly forced Virginia to wear the same wet pajamas that she wet herself in that night to school the very next day. So imagine being a kid already getting bullied for what you wear, how you act being a loner, and then walking into school wearing pajamas, pajamas that are soaked in urine while everybody else is dressed normally. I mean, it is very, very cruel. And you could probably guess how that all went down, right? I mean, classmates were vicious and they began calling her, quote, "smelly Jenny." And apparently, the nickname stuck for quite a while. So as she got older, it only made it harder for her to make friends, because kids around her already had this perception of who she was. By the time Virginia and her siblings were teenagers, their social lives hadn't improved much either. I mean, really, it seemed like the same experience across the board for all six of them. All going through this bullying, this hazing, and this outcast feeling. And by that point, most of the children had one clear goal in mind. Get out. They wanted to build lives separate from their parents and separate from the reputation that their family had developed around the town. So once they graduated high school, they knew that they needed to figure it out, and they began moving out and starting their own lives. Which given everything that we've talked about so far, I have to say, it isn't very surprising. They wanted out. They wanted a fresh start. They wanted to hit the reset button. Now, by the time that most of them had left, Virginia was still under the age of 18. Eventually, she became the only child still living at home. Her siblings would still speak with her from time to time, and they would, you know, catch up here and there occasionally, but it doesn't really sound like any of them were particularly eager to come back to the house and visit very often. Because visiting Virginia also meant they had to be around to their parents, John and Lois. And according to her siblings, during Virginia's teenage years, they began noticing a pretty significant shift in her behavior. They described her as becoming a pathological liar. They said that she would lie about almost anything. It didn't matter if she was talking to strangers or talking to her own family. It didn't matter if the topic was something big or something completely trivial. They claimed that she simply just didn't tell the truth to the point where it was honestly baffling how often it happened. Now, I will say this, everyone processes childhood differently, right? And I can't sit here and diagnose Virginia or say exactly what was behind that behavior. But I do think that it's pretty clear that she was dealing with a lot, both at home and socially. Still, her siblings said that they mostly just side-eyed the lying kind of didn't make much of it. They usually could tell when she wasn't being truthful and they just chucked it up to, you know, Virginia's lying again, and they had their own lives and problems to deal with. So worrying about their younger sister, it wasn't exactly at the top of their priority list. And unlike her siblings, Virginia didn't seem to be in any sort of rush to leave the house. The other kids had basically been counting down the days until they could move out, but Virginia, for whatever reason, stayed. And eventually, that actually ended up working out in a way that benefited all three of them. Virginia, her dad, John, and her mom, Lois. By 2019, John and Lois were both getting older and they were struggling with their health. John was 70 years old and Lois was 71 years old. At this point, John had retired and the two of them were spending most of their time at home together. But this wasn't exactly the retirement that most people imagine. Both of them were dealing with serious health issues. John, in particular, had a long list of medical problems, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, glaucoma, and way more. And since both of them were declining physically, it wasn't like one person could really step up and step in and take care of the other. So at a certain point, it wasn't safe for them to be living alone in their large three-story home any longer. So the siblings started asking the question of, you know, what do we do? Do we start looking into assisted living at home nursing? But then eventually, they landed on another solution. Virginia was 31 years old at this point and she was still living at home, rent-free, just living with her parents. So the family decided collectively that she would become the full-time caretaker for her parents. I mean, she already lived in the house, right? She already knew their routines, she knew their illnesses, their medications. It made the arrangement much easier than asking a different sibling to move back in. And honestly, given everything that we know about the family dynamic, it also doesn't really sound like that would have been a very popular option if to have one of the other siblings move in anyway. Plus Virginia didn't have a job at the time. In fact, she had struggled to keep steady employment most of her adult life, which it's not entirely clear why, but her last known job had been in 2017 working at a bar. However, that position didn't last very long. So it seemed like this was going to be the perfect solution. Now during the period when she was unemployed, I also want to mention that Virginia had told her parents that she was studying to become an artist. And she talked about it a lot, even telling them that one day she would become so successful that she would be able to financially support not just herself, but the entire family. Now whether of any of that was actually realistic, that's up for debate, that's another question, because as we've already talked about, Virginia had a reputation for lying. And apparently during the time that she was living with her parents, she told them a lot of different stories, not just about being a struggling artist, but much more. At one point, she even reportedly faked an entire pregnancy and miscarriage. So I mean, there were already some very complicated dynamics in that household, right? But regardless, the plan moving forward was clear. Virginia would stay home and she would act as the permanent live-in caretaker for John and Lois. And at first, it actually seemed like the arrangement was working. Virginia appeared to be taking good care of them, both physically and mentally. Her parents even trusted her enough to put her in charge of their finances. She was handling the bills. She had full access to their financial information. So it was just one less thing that they needed to worry about in the grand scheme of things while they were worrying about their health. And in theory, it just allowed them to relax and enjoy retirement as best as they could given the situation. They also agreed to give Virginia a weekly allowance as a thank you for taking care of them. And honestly, caregiving like that can easily be more than a full-time job. So it seems like they were trying to treat it that way as well. Yet I don't know if she was actually getting paid aside from the allowance. But once Virginia's siblings saw that this arrangement appeared to be working, they largely stepped back. They didn't have to constantly worry about whether their parents were okay, whether they had their medications, whether someone was looking after them. They knew that they were in good hands. That responsibility was now all on Virginia. And this is where things start to shift. Because that perfect setup, it only works if the person in the middle of it is trustworthy. And the question that we're about to get into and answer is, "What if they're not trust worthy?" Now for some of you who are really close with your parents, I know that that might sound kind of shocking. Like, what do you mean Virginia's siblings just stopped worrying about their parents and stopped checking in. But like I mentioned earlier, the family had been trying to escape for years and the dynamic here was very complicated. So I'm sure that each of the siblings loved their parents in their own unique way, but they weren't very close with them. They weren't friends with them. And none of them were rushing back to take care of John and Lois as they got older and their health declined. There's a reason that they had all moved out and built lives elsewhere. That said, though, they hadn't cut their parents off completely. They didn't pretend that they didn't exist or that they had just, you know, vanished, they would still check in from time to time. A quick text, maybe a short conversation here and there, and since John and Lois didn't have much else going on socially, they would often send little things back to them. I mean gifts, cards, small gestures, kind of just letting their kids know that they were thinking about them. Now this was all happening in 2019 when Virginia had officially become their full-time caretaker. Then the next thing that everyone knew, COVID hit. Lockdown started. People were working from home. They were, you know, getting laid off. Businesses were closing. It was a very strange and very stressful time for just about everyone. I mean, hi, we all lived through it, right? Now for John and Lois, though, staying home probably made the most sense anyway. Their health wasn't great to begin with. And Lois had already been dealing with agoraphobia and a deep fear of germs long before the pandemic started. So getting her out of the house regularly, it wasn't really happening either way. And then more time passed, and the family wasn't getting together for the holidays, they weren't seeing each other regularly, they started skipping birthdays, no casual visits, no dropping by just to spend time together, and 2020 passed, then 2021 passed, then 2022 passed, and before anyone really stopped to even question it, years had gone by. So fast forward to September of 2023. By this point, most of the COVID restrictions were long gone, and life had mostly returned to normal, or at least as normal as things were going to get for that time period. And on what started out as a fairly ordinary day, a doctor, whose name hasn't been made public, was just going through his routine. He got up, went to work, started seeing patients, but as he was working, something kept bothering him. There were two specific patients that he hadn't seen in a very long time. A husband and a wife who had always come to their appointments together. They were older too, so he knew that mobility might have become more difficult over time, and as their doctor, he was aware that both of them had a number of ongoing health issues. And over the past few years, their appointments had just repeatedly been canceled or rescheduled. Which of course wasn't ideal, but at the end of the day, patients always have the right to make those decisions. It's not like he could just show up at their home and force them to come in for a checkup, right? So the appointments kept getting moved around, but he kept continuing to refill their prescriptions. Now by now, you've probably guessed those two patients were John and Lois, right? But then one day, the doctor noticed something that really stood out. A prescription that he had written for John hadn't been picked up, and it wasn't just any prescription. It was medication that John had been taking for years, something important for maintaining his quality of life. Because remember, John had a long list of medical conditions. Type two diabetes, hypertension, glaucoma, and so many more. So these were issues that simply went away. They required ongoing treatment and medication. So the fact that no one, not John, not a family member, not even a caretaker had picked up that prescription. That was unusual. And that's when that nagging feeling really started to set in for him. So not knowing what else to do, the doctor contacted the Essex Police on September 13th, and he requested that welfare check on John and Lois. Now in the best case scenario, maybe they had switched to doctors and the records hadn't been updated, or maybe someone had simply forgotten to pick up the prescription. That would still be, you know, a little bit strange, but obviously not unheard of. Worst case, though. Something was wrong. And in situations like that, it's always better to play it safe and err on the side of caution. So that's exactly what he did. And thankfully, the Essex Police took the call very seriously. In fact, they took it serious enough that they decided not only to conduct a welfare check, but to treat the situation as though John and Lois could potentially be missing. So officers went to the three-story home in Great Batow, where the family lived. And they started knocking on the door. They waited and waited. Nobody was answering. But eventually, someone did open the door. However, it wasn't John or Lois. It was Virginia, their daughter, their caretaker. The officers explained the situation to her from start to finish. Here's what's going on. We got a call. We are concerned. Want to just follow up. And Virginia was very calm, very cooperative, but she told them that she unfortunately couldn't really help them. It wasn't like John and Lois were sitting in the living room watching television, where she could just invite the officers inside and show them that everything was fine. Because according to Virginia, her parents weren't home. In fact, she said they weren't even in Great Batow anymore. She told the officers that after John had retired, her parents had decided that they wanted to start working through a bucket list together, traveling to all of the places that they never had been able to visit while John was working, and while Lois was raising their six kids. So they had left the area entirely. And according to Virginia, they hadn't look back. She was simply living in the house on her own at this point. And interestingly, part of that story wasn't completely out of nowhere. See, John and Lois had mentioned to Virginia and to neighbors and some distant relatives too, that they had thought about possibly moving to the coast after retirement. But from what people understood, it was more of a distant idea or a dream, really, not something that they were actively planning or preparing for. But still, the story was rooted in some truth. So officers listened to Virginia's story and her explanation. And at first, they considered that maybe it could be true. After all, there are plenty of people who wait until retirement to travel or move somewhere new. But most people in that situation still handle things responsibly, right? They make sure that their medications are filled, make sure that their stuff is packed with them, that they transfer doctors, whatever it may be, they'll line up a new doctor in the area that they're moving to, especially if they have ongoing health conditions. And from everything the people knew about John and Lois, they were very by the book people. They didn't seem like the type to just suddenly pack up their bags and disappear with no clear plans. So Virginia's explanation didn't exactly make the most sense and it didn't really make officers feel reassured, especially considering it had already been a very long time since their doctor had seen either of them in person, or even heard their voices for that matter. And I'm not even sure if the officers knew about Lois's agoraphobia at this point or the history, because if they had, that probably would have raised even more questions. I mean, that's not something that people just suddenly get over overnight because of their husband's retirement. That's not how it works. It doesn't work like that. And on top of that, the officer still had an open welfare check. And before they could close it out, they needed some kind of confirmation that John and Lois were actually okay. And something about the situation, it just didn't sit right. You could call it a hunch, or maybe just years of experience doing this kind of work, but the officers had a very strong feeling that John and Lois's whereabouts needed to be looked into further. So they started digging a little deeper. And that's when things really started looking more and more concerning. Because remember, this was September of 2023. But John and Lois had been canceling or rescheduling doctor's appointments since 2019 for four years. So that meant that neither one of them had actually been seen in a doctor's office for literal years. And another detail also stood out to the officers. It was never John or Lois calling to cancel these appointments. It was always Virginia. Now on its own, that could make sense. She was their caretaker after all. But when it happens repeatedly, year after year, it starts to raise some questions. And there was also something else in all of this. Virginia was also the only person who ever picked up John's prescriptions. Again, in a normal caregiving situation, that might not seem unusual. But when you add it in with everything else that's going on, I mean, the canceled appointments, the years without seeing them, the story about them suddenly leaving town, it starts to look a lot more concerning. So a question began to form in the minds of these investigators. Could John and Lois be dead? I mean, surely not, right? If they had passed away, somebody would have been notified. There would be a death certificate, some kind of official documentation. But there wasn't. I mean, as far as any records it showed, John and Lois were still alive and well, or relatively speaking. And honestly, that didn't make the officers feel any better. Because the absence of a death certificate doesn't actually prove that someone is alive and well. So over the next two days, investigators drafted a search warrant for the house, while also continuing to look into John and Lois's whereabouts. And they came up with nothing. No records showing that they had moved, no indication that they had relocated, no new doctors, nothing that supported Virginia's story that they had just packed up and left town. Then by September 15th, the warrant was finally approved. And this time when the officers knocked on the front door, they wouldn't be leaving without answers. And the plan wasn't just to talk with Virginia. They knew that they were there and they were going to arrest her. So the officers arrived at the family's home. They knocked on the door, but nobody was coming to the door once again. And this time, unlike before, after some time when Virginia finally answered the door, no one answered the door. So then they forced their way inside. And what they saw when they entered the house is honestly something that still stands out to me. Because Virginia was just standing there in the middle of the hallway, almost like something out of a horror movie. She was calm. She was still. She didn't run. She didn't panic. She didn't even look particularly worried or surprised. And what happened next might go down as one of the strangest confessions that you will ever hear. Virginia didn't react the way that most people would have policed suddenly broke into their home. She wasn't asking what was going on or demanding an explanation. I like, what are you doing here? Instead, she just stood there, completely calm, no visible panic, no real expression at all on her face. She didn't even move until the officers told her that she needed to put her hands up. Now we need an amendment. Hold on. The plates. Got it. So where you are? So where you are? So where you are? Yeah. Do you need? Yeah. It's one of these four 12. You don't draw a suspicion of murder against. Do you want to pick one color? And the last one color. Okay. Do you have anything? But it might harm defense. No, I don't think I've got a question. No question. No, I just want anything to do. Okay. All right. Then one of the officers asked a very simple question. Is there anything that we should know about? And honestly, I don't even think that they realized what they were about to hear when they asked that question. Is there anything in the pockets we should know about? Yes, there is. Can I take you to the room? No, you can tell me. Can we go in there for a second? Just so we can tell you something. I'll go see you. Yeah. I need to tell you something. What's upstairs on the top floor as well. It's fine. It's okay. It's a bit of a problem. I do. Is it me over there? Yeah, yeah. It's fine. It's fine. No, it's fine. I know. But it's okay. It's okay. I don't know. That's what he's meant. All right. Okay. Yep. Obviously I'll say. Where by the law? A little bit more complicated. Okay. Can I, that's why I said, can I go upstairs? Can you explain me to your spaces? We're trying to preserve this. It's now going to be the same. We need to preserve this the best we can. So I don't want you to have your walking up there. All right. That's for your wellbeing as well as ours. Oh, not up. Okay. Okay. Where will we find your mum? Okay. So upstairs, there were about five old roads. Yep. It's behind the bed. But back next to the sink. That's the second one. Just like that, casually. She told them that her father's body was in the very room that they were standing in. And that her mother's body was upstairs. And the way that she says it almost sounds like she's explaining where her purse is or where she left her keys. Just so casual and cavalier. Which honestly, that detail really stuck with me. But as shocking as that is, it's not even the most unbelievable part of this story and this case. After calmly explaining where both bodies were, Virginia then began describing how she had killed her father. This was before officers had even asked. I've slipped five of those into his drink. There were about two or three drinks that I bought downstairs. They were basically. He didn't drink all of them. He only drunk probably about half of two. But yeah, when I went in the morning, this was before my mother. When I went in the morning, early hours, I got up about half an hour early. About six o'clock in the morning. It came in and he was gone. He was gone. It's up to you if you want to talk. The thing is, purpose of your arrest. For a prompt defective investigation as well as a broad question in you. We can't do that here. It needs to be done at the police station, all right? It's proper that I serve my punishment. So yeah. Now it almost feels like she had been holding on to something and waiting to tell and that she was just waiting for someone to ask and it just all came pouring out of her. Even the investigators seemed a little taken aback by all of this. Like, okay, we need to slow this down. We need to move this conversation to somewhere more formal. Like, what's going on here? You're just unleashing all of this. So they decided to continue at the police station. Hi, so I've written this face. I'm Virginia McCulloch. I've been informed police constable 77329 Brown. And 7-9-387-Bowers, after and in my house on Friday the 15th September 2023. That I murdered my father, John McCulloch, who was stated was under a bed in the rear ground floor of the house. And my mother, upstairs, in a cupboard, mixed and sink. Water, water, is the double-water. I'll bring cupboard. It's like four walls. But it's the one that has to think of a water. The cup, then. Yeah. What's significant that's all written down there here now or I've just read out to you. Are you happy to sign that? The site, that's the true account. Yeah. And then something else happened that is honestly very difficult to wrap your head around. After signing her confession, Virginia had actually tried to comfort the officers. Chair, I want to let you put it back on. Which can you even imagine what that was like? You have this killer confessing all of these details to you. And then they're trying to comfort you being like, oh, you know, you got him, buddy. It got the bad guy. It's me like, it's so bizarre. So after this dramatic arrest, Virginia was taken to the police station where she continued confessing to essentially every single detail of the crime, where her parents' bodies were, where the investigators could find evidence, I mean, everything. And at that point, one thing was clear. Virginia had murdered both of her parents. And more than that, she had been living in the same house with their decomposing bodies for years. But the real question is how did even get to that point? Because just four years earlier, she was the one that the family trusted the most. So how did someone go from being their living caretaker to their killer? Well, the truth may surprise you. To really understand what happened in this case, we have to go back to 2019. And Virginia first took the role of caretaker for John and Lois. Earlier, I mentioned that at first everything seemed to be working, right? And technically, it was, just not for very long. It's hard to say exactly, and it's hard to pinpoint the exact moment when things started going downhill, but based on the research, one turning point seems pretty clear, which is when John and Lois gave Virginia access to their finances. The arrangement should have been simple. She would pay their bills, she would handle any other things that they needed to get done, make sure everything was running smoothly. And remember, they were also giving her a weekly allowance for helping care for them. And for the first time in quite a while, Virginia now had a steady source of income. Because remember, she wasn't able to really hold a job in the past. But instead of simply managing the money responsibly, Virginia began taking advantage of the access that she had and not in small ways. Pretty much as soon as she had control of their bank accounts and their credit cards, she started spending and she started spending a lot. She was using their credit cards to fund major online shopping sprees. She was also gambling online, excessively. And if you've ever seen how quickly money can disappear with online gambling, you know how that can spiral incredibly fast. I mean, one click and thousands of dollars can be gone. And it wasn't just spending, it was also taking out loans in her parents' names. Which even for 2019, that's pretty wild that she managed to do that repeatedly without getting caught sooner. Unless she had some sort of power of attorney and some other things in place, but still, they usually would flag things. I don't know. It's bizarre. Now, even though Virginia was technically in charge of paying the bills, John did still try to stay involved to some degree. And when I say involved, I mean that he would stand nearby while she worked and he would ask her questions. And honestly, it was kind of like normal dad behavior. I mean, it was his money after all. And after handling the finances himself for years, I'd imagine that it probably wasn't easy for him to suddenly just hand over that responsibility entirely. But every time that John asked questions, Virginia seemed to get more and more irritated. John started noticing that there were piles of letters from the bank showing up. So he'd ask her about them. Which to him, that amount of mail from the bank, it seemed highly unusual. Except in reality, it made perfect sense. Because Virginia had been taking out so many loans, John just didn't know it yet. Eventually, though, he managed to get his hands on one of the bank statements. And what he saw immediately raised alarms. There was about $77,000 missing. So of course, he started asking the obvious question, where the hell did all of our money go? And honestly, he was completely justified in freaking out. Even though Virginia clearly found his questions annoying and she had an answer ready to go. And remember what her siblings had said about her, that she was a habitual liar. People who lie easily can often come up with explanations very quickly off the cuff and make them sound convincing. And that's what Virginia did. Virginia told her father that she unfortunately had become the victim of fraud while paying their bills. She said that she had already reported the fraud to the bank. And that everything was being handled and, you know, going to be worked out. So there was no reason to panic. Everything, as she claimed, was under control. But she just was trying to basically appease him and like get him to stop asking questions. Which, how sad is this? Because you're lying to your parents who you're taking advantage of. They trust you. Your daughter and she was defrauding her own parents and then blaming it on somebody else. Now what's even more unbelievable is that Virginia didn't stop at just telling her father this fraud story. She actually went out. step further and she drafted fake letters from the bank. These letters basically repeated the same explanation that the bank was conducting an internal investigation into somebody who had been hacking their accounts and had been stealing their money. And apparently these letters looked legit, they can look convincing enough that John believed her. And honestly, why wouldn't he? She was his daughter, right? So even though John accepted that explanation in the moment, Virginia knew that she had put herself in a dangerous position. Whether she hadn't thought through what would happen if he ever checked the accounts himself or whether she assumed she would never get caught, I mean at this point, the situation was spiraling. And after all of John's questions, she realized something pretty quickly. This wasn't gonna just go away. John was going to keep asking questions, he was going to want updates. And eventually, she knew that the truth was going to come out. And if that happened, the consequences for Virginia could be huge. Her parents could kick her out, they could cut off the allowance that she was living on. She could suddenly find herself at 31 years old with no job, no money and nowhere to live. And that's when her thinking started shifting into a very dark direction. She started planning. In Virginia's mind, the solution became simple. John and Lois had to die. And she believed that she could pull it off. I mean, after all, her parents didn't have a large circle of close friends. Their relationships with family were already very distant. So if she lied about where they were, it actually may work, at least for a while. So on the night of June 17th, 2019, Virginia decided that it was time. She had already been thinking about how she might kill both of her parents. And ultimately, she believed that the easiest method would be making them overdose on medication. Compared to other options, she thought that this would be the quickest and the least messy. So for weeks, leading up to that night, Virginia was running what I guess you could call experiments. She had been crushing pills, secretly mixing them into John's food, trying to see what worked, what didn't. And not because she expected it to kill him, or at least not kill him right away. But she wanted to observe what would happen. And she would measure exactly how much she used. She would watch for side effects. She'd pay attention to how he reacted. But whatever dose she had been using, they weren't doing very much. John seemed yeah, a little more lethargic, less energy, but given his age and his medical issues, neither he nor Lois found that particularly unusual. But even after weeks of experimenting, though, Virginia ended up changing her plan slightly when the night of the murders arrived. On the evening of June 17th, she cooked dinner for both of her parents, something that she did regularly, and the meal itself was completely normal. Nothing was added to the food. But afterward, Virginia told them that she wanted to make each of them an evening drink, a nightcap, if you will. And that's when the pills came in. She'd crushed up a large amount of medication, and she slipped it into both of their drinks. Far more medication than she ever had before. Anything more than anything she had experimented with. John's drink contained alcohol, which wasn't unusual for him. I mean, as we talked about earlier, he was known to have a couple of drinks before bed. But this drink, it was quite the mixture. It had Guinness, Brandy, and crushed prescription pills. Now Lois, on the other hand, she didn't drink alcohol at all. You couldn't even convince her to have the occasional glass of wine, so her drink was non-alcoholic. But it still contained the crushed pills. Afterward, Virginia helped both of them get ready for bed and tucked them into their separate rooms, because they slept separately. Because by that point, John and Lois hadn't slept in the same room for years, just medical issues age, you name it. So she tucked them in in both of their rooms, and then she waited. And her plan was simple. When she would wake up the next morning, they would both be dead. So when Virginia woke up the following morning, she took her time getting up. She put on her robe, she slipped into her slippers, and she started walking toward her dad's room. It was around 6am, which for John was actually a pretty normal time to start waking up, or maybe even already be awake. But when she entered the room, it was quiet. Dark. No movement. Which to Virginia, it seemed like a good sign. Part of her had worried that she might wake up to a completely normal morning, and that it wouldn't have worked, that John would already be out of his bed and starting his day. But instead, he was still lying in bed, not moving. At first, she quietly said his name, wondering if maybe he was just sleeping. But he didn't respond. And as she got closer, she realized something else. He wasn't snoring. His chest didn't appear to be rising and falling. And that's when it became clear. Her plan had worked. John had finished every single drop of that drink that Virginia had given him. And now he was dead. And in Virginia's mind, her biggest problem had just been solved. But she wasn't quite as confident about her mom, Lois. At some point, whether it was the night before or that morning, Virginia had noticed that Lois hadn't finished her entire drink. She still had consumed quite a bit of it, and Virginia had loaded the drink with pills. So I mean, there was still a chance that it had worked. But when Virginia reached Lois' doorway that morning, she immediately realized that the plan hadn't worked the same way that it worked on her dad. Because Lois was awake, and it looked like she had been awake for quite some time. Even in her later years, Lois followed a very strict morning routine. Each morning, she would lie in bed, she would wear big black headphones, and she would be listening to talk radio. And this morning was no different. Virginia could see the headphones. She could see the small movements that Lois was making as she listened. And Lois was turned away from the doorway, just completely unaware that her daughter was standing there watching her, hoping that she was dead. But Virginia wasn't standing there, completely empty-handed. In one hand, she was holding a hammer, and in the other hand, she was holding a knife. And everything happened very quickly. Virginia crept up behind her mother, who still had on her headphones and was listening to talk radio. She wasn't facing Virginia. Her back was to her, and she had no idea what was about to happen. Then Virginia struck her in the back of the head with the hammer. However, the blow didn't kill Lois. Lois was hurt, and she was confused, but she managed to roll over and look directly at her daughter, which I can't even imagine what must have been going through her mind in that moment. I mean, did she realize that her own daughter was trying to kill her? Or did she still trust Virginia enough that she didn't fully understand what was happening to her in that moment? But after Lois rolled over, Virginia didn't hesitate. She then used the knife. She stabbed her once, then stabbed her again, and then again, and again. And in total, Virginia stabbed her mother eight times. Seven of those wounds were to her chest. The eighth was to Lois's hand, likely being a defensive wound as she was trying to shield herself from the attack. So Lois's death ended up being far messier than Virginia had ever planned, and during the attack, Virginia had even sliced her own hand. And what she did next, just hours after killing both of her parents, it honestly says a lot, and it shows you how dark of a person she truly is. The cut on Virginia's hand was deep enough that she knew that she needed to go and get stitches. So she went to the bathroom. She cleaned all of Lois's blood off of herself. She changed her clothes, and then she left the house and went to a doctor's office. And the professional liar in Virginia already had a story ready to go when she got there. I mean, the injury looked like a knife cut, and it was on her hand. So she simply planned to say that she had accidentally cut herself while she was chopping vegetables that morning. Easy peasy, right? Now while Virginia was in town getting stitches, her parents' bodies were still lying inside the house. If anyone had walked into that home at any moment, they would have come across a very violent and bloody scene. But Virginia knew that that wasn't likely to happen, because everything had gone almost too smoothly for her. She was confident that nobody was going to be knocking on the door anytime soon. Everybody had kept been keeping their distance for years at this point, so she didn't rush back home. Her mind had been racing all morning trying to figure out what she was going to do with their bodies, but she wasn't in any hurry to do it. Now even though John and Lois were elderly and frail, moving two bodies by herself, it would have been extremely difficult. And there were also neighbors nearby, so it's not like she could drag them out the front door and then load them into a car without somebody potentially noticing, right? So she needed another solution. And honestly, calling what she came up with a plan might be giving her too much credit, because most people who commit a crime like this try to hide the evidence in a way that they believe will never be discovered, whether that's dumping bodies somewhere remote, burying them, something like that. But Virginia had already admitted something very important when the officers had confronted her later. She knew that she would eventually be caught and that it was just a matter of time, so her plan was in never meant to last forever. And honestly it's surprising that it went unnoticed for as long as it did. On the day of the murders, Virginia went out and she bought two sleeping bags. She placed each of her parents' bodies into separate sleeping bags, believing that by sealing them inside of the sleeping bag it may prevent the smell from spreading, which realistically probably didn't work the way that she had hoped that's not how it works. But Virginia put Lois' body into one of the sleeping bags and then she shoved it inside a wardrobe on the upper floor of the house, which a wardrobe is basically one of those like dressers or chest where it has like the big doors, the drawers, all of those things. And then she started taping the gaps around the wardrobe doors, apparently to try to stop flies or maggots from getting in or out, which it's honestly so disturbing to picture that. It's like you're just going to live with your parents' dead bodies for years and you're trying to like conceal the smell, but you go to sleep knowing that your mom's body is tucked inside this wardrobe. It's so sick. Now John's body I will say, it was handled differently. Compared to Lois, his remains were treated with what almost seemed like a strange attempt at dignity, or at least as much dignity as you can have in a situation like this. Virginia placed his body in the sleeping bag just like she had done with her mother and then she laid it in his bedroom study. Then she went online and she ordered concrete blocks. Once the blocks arrived, she stacked them all around the sleeping bag, building what was essentially a structure around the body, almost like a makeshift tomb or mausoleum, but inside his bedroom. Later she covered the blocks with blankets and she placed pictures and paintings on top of them, almost like it was a shrine. And honestly, it's hard to know what her reasoning was with all of this. Like why do that with your dad, but why not do it with your mother? And was she trying to disguise it so that it would look like some piece of furniture or some piece of art if somebody ever walked into the room? Because from a distance, it apparently did resemble something like a table or a bed. Or I don't know, was this her version of some kind of memorial? I mean with Virginia, it's difficult to tell. But one thing does seem clear. She didn't appear to have any real remorse about what she had done. Because after killing her parents, she simply continued doing the very thing that had pushed her to commit the murders in the first place. She kept spending their money and kept stealing from them. The very next day while their bodies were still inside of the house, Virginia called the bank pretending to be lowest. She requested a new credit card and a new pin number, although it's not entirely clear why she needed that since she already had access to their accounts. But for whatever reason, she did it. And then the spending just continued. She bought clothes, food, jewelry. She continued gambling and gambling online almost daily. And in her mind, life had actually gotten easier. She didn't have her parents questioning her anymore, questioning her spending. She didn't have to care for them. No one was looking over her shoulder. For Virginia, it seemed like the perfect situation. Within about a year, she had spent roughly $190,000 of their money. And during this time, unfortunately, very few people were asking about John and Lois. When someone did ask, it was usually someone who wasn't particularly close to them, sometimes a neighbor, sometimes maybe a local grocer who remembered John from years earlier. But often it was just casual curiosity more than anything else. Nobody was pushing for answers or trying to investigate further or truly wondering where they were. And realistically, most people probably accepted Virginia's explanation that her parents had moved away. Because who would just jump straight to the conclusion that someone's daughter would murder them, right? Then fast forward and in 2020, COVID hit. Which in a very strange way, this both complicated things and helped her. On one hand, Virginia was now spending even more time inside house where her parents' bodies were present and decomposing. But on the other hand, the pandemic created the perfect excuse for why no one was seeing John and Lois anymore. People everywhere were isolating. So the timing, it really did work in her favor. Later though, once lockdowns started easing, Virginia made more of an effort to keep up appearances with family members. That's when the gifts and the cards began arriving. But those gifts, those trinkets, they weren't actually from John and Lois. They were all coming from Virginia. And there's something interesting to me about that detail. Because according to people who knew her growing up, giving gifts had actually been a pattern for Virginia for years. Apparently, when she struggled socially as a teenager, she would sometimes try to win people over by giving them gifts, almost like a way of trying to secure friendships. So now she was doing this with her own family. Also, when she worked at the bar in 2017, co-worker said that she would give people random items fairly often. So often, in fact, that it stopped feeling like a kind gesture and started feeling a little uncomfortable. It was obvious that she was trying to create closeness with people, but when that connection isn't natural, gifts can't really force it and it felt weird. And looking back, some people have wondered whether that pattern should have been more of a red flag in the beginning. I don't know, maybe the siblings all simply felt reassured by receiving things that seemed to come from their parents. Maybe they didn't question it. It's really hard to say. But one of the biggest questions that people have asked in this case is how Virginia managed to keep this going on for four full years. Because that's a very long time to convince everyone around you that your parents are still alive. But honestly, the explanation, it may be simpler than people expect. This wasn't an especially close-knit family. It wasn't unusual for siblings to go long periods of time without seeing their parents, especially when Virginia was providing believable explanations. So it might seem impossible to, I don't know, understand from the outside, but if you've ever seen families with that kind of distance, then you can see how something like this could go unnoticed longer than it should. One thing that still surprises a lot of people, though, is that the bank and the doctor's office didn't raise concerns earlier. And before people rushed to put the blame on John or Lois' family, it's important to remember that this situation has been incredibly devastating for them. Losing both parents is already unimaginable, but then layering on that you learn that your own sister is responsible? I mean, that has only made the grief even more complicated. In a statement that they released, the siblings described their parents this way. Quote, "Our dad was caring and hardworking, and he had a passion for education and writing. He worked tirelessly in his career in university education, which spanned many years. Dad enjoyed lots of hobbies, with particular favorites being golf and snooker. As we think of Dad, we remember the numerous jokes he used to tell us and the laughs that he gave us. Our mom was kind, caring, and thoughtful. Mom was delighted in her grandchildren. Our family has been left devastated and heartbroken at the death of our parents who were taken from us so cruelly. Our mom and dad are forever in our hearts and are loved and missed beyond any measure." Now as for Virginia, she remained cooperative after her arrest, which is actually fairly unusual in cases like this. She had already admitted that she expected to be arrested eventually, so I don't know it's possible that she had already decided that when that moment came, she would tell the truth. But that's what she did. Virginia ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of murder. She was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 36 years before she can apply for parole. Her earliest possible release date would be the year 2059. And in the end, people who knew Virginia were left with the same unsettling realization. For years, they believed that they understood who she was, almost like they had the pieces of a puzzle that fit together. But the truth turned out to be far more complicated and far darker than anyone realized. Because for years, more than four years, Virginia deceived every single person around her and deceived them in the most devastating way possible. This case was a lot to take in, start to finish. I mean, the fact that two innocent people were killed all for just a few years of shopping. It's hard to wrap your head around. But it's important to know red flags to look for in dangers and maybe other siblings will check in on their parents more. I don't know. But thank you so much for listening to Lois and John's story. I'm curious to know what you think was it all about the money? Was there still maybe some resentment harboring from the allegations that she made about her childhood? What do you think the truth was? I mean, it seems pretty clear to me that this was just motivated by greed, right? And a lack of wanting to care for your parents. But what do you think? Thanks for tuning into another one. Please take a quick moment. Press the like button on this video, smash the subscribe button. It's a free way to support the channel. And that way you will also be notified of new episodes as they release. Until the next one, stay safe. Bye.