How did this poor couple’s four other daughters not realise…

[Zippidydoodah]

…that they’d been dead for four years?

I don’t normally start threads, nor do I post about horrific news reports like this one, but I am shocked beyond comprehension that a family would just accept their sister’s claims that their parents were fine……while they were actually dead, for FOUR YEARS.

Those poor, poor people. 😔

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/virginia-mccullough-murder-essex-great-baddow-police-arrest/

Bloody hell. How did not ONE person question where they were after a while?! Nobody , not their children, any other relative or friend , it is stated they had a lot of friends, wondered? No meetings or phone calls in four years? Very sad and very weird.

Some families just aren't very close I guess.

This is the 2nd time today a poster (so it's not just you OP!) has posted a month old newsstory. No reason to mention this other than the oddness and unusualness. Time waaaarrrp.

@Zippidydoodah yeah I thought the same as you. She was sentenced last month and some articles around the time discussed the excuses she'd made for why her parents were unavailable but I found them hard to believe. Fears around covid, travelling, ill...unless your parents and you have a particularly cold and distant relationship why wouldn't you say enough is enough and it has been 4 years without a call or a visit!

I know we had a pandemic too but still! My DM lives abroad and I manage to see her once a year. Would be very weird if she didn’t FaceTime anymore or speak to the grandchildren on their birthdays etc

I’m sorry. I’ve only just seen this, as I tend to avoid the news except for the main headlines. It’s so very sad and odd, especially- as you say- with the availability of FaceTime and all kinds of technology.

Another news article about this case said one of the siblings described the parents as "functional rather than affectionate" and said there had been social service involvement in their childhood. So perhaps the siblings had forgiven the parents enough to make nice statements after their murder, but had kept a distance and accepted the lack of contact before that.

Theres some footage of the police entering her property where she admitted everything. She was totally normal about it all. Tres bizarre.

I think it's quite unsurprising that the other children clearly weren't close to the parents. It seems overwhelmingly likely that it was not a happy or 'normal' childhood given how it all turned out. The way she treated each parent's body, and the difference between them, show pretty clearly that this wasn't just a callous and greedy murder (though it clearly was that), it was the product of a very disturbed mind.

Strangely enough I was watching the YouTube video about this just last week and thought exactly the same thing about how no one (even their GP) raised any concerns.

This is the video, there are others, but this channel is good, IMO anyway.

I think when you read the comments by them in this article it's astounding.

Loved grandchildren, wonderful parents.

It's so strange.

I'd missed this detail in the original reports. I'd assumed she was an only child.

I think their relationship was strained anyway which is why the other children didn't think about it. I did wonder about the friends and GP though. I read that the daughter had told people that they had gone away to get away from covid so perhaps she told the GP that too.

What was most chilling is the way she was so calm upon her arrest. She told the police exactly where the bodies were and exactly what she did to them. It was very calculated and extremely chilling.

It was the GP receptionist who flagged it up they hadn't been heard or seen of for years. On the ball obviously. An odd situation

I'm not surprised to hear social services had been involved during their childhood. Clearly there must have been some history there for the other children not to have raised concerns in four years, it was the GP surgery that raised the alarm.

I can't get over how she lived in a house with two bodies for years. Surely the smell would have been overpowering?

I’d put money on the other siblings going NC for whatever reasons

From what I was reading, and please someone correct me if I'm wrong but she sort of made a crypt for them which presumably stopped the smell.

No one knows what those girls’ childhoods were really like apart from them. Perhaps they were perfectly happy keeping the couple at arms length.

I wonder if the other 4 sisters blame her.

Reminded me of this story - ( my old home town too) where daughter killed and buried parents in garden - over 15 years- drew their pensions and cash and got away with it all that time!!

www.chad.co.uk/news/crime/forest-town-bodies-in-the-garden-murderer-susan-edwards-loses-bid-to-have-jail-term-cut-2242834

It is such a strange statement for NC a children though. Surely it would be

We are devastated at the loss of our childhood parents etc,

But the comments about grandchildren and spending time with them.

It's like when a neighbour is found and the next door says oh we were great friends and saw them daily.

It's just so heartbreaking

The only way this makes sense to me is if the siblings assumed the parents were angry at them. Otherwise, there would have been at least phone calls or facetime at Christmas and birthdays. I suppose you wouldn't imagine your sibling would murder your parents and hide this bodies!

I've just read the sentencing remarks for the first time, and I hadn't actually realised the effort she went to to fool her siblings, though I am still astonished they worked for four years:

For 4 years and 3 months after you had murdered your parents, you pretended that they were still alive. That started right from the day of their deaths. That afternoon you sent a text message from your mother’s phone to one of your sisters. The message was “your dad and I are at the seaside in Walton this week. Mum x”. Then, that night, another message “Good night. Mum. x” You continued to send such messages over the following months and years. You even spoke to one sister pretending to be your - and her - mother. You used a large number of different SIM cards to contact your siblings and others pretending to be your parents. You sent pre-printed birthday cards using an online service.

www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Rex-v-Virginia-McCullough-Sentencing-remarks.pdf

Well I havent heard this story before.

That video!

Its like she's just been caught parking in the disabled bay or something

I dont understand where the GP came in. I dont think my GP surgery could care less or even notice if they didnt hear from me for 4 years.

Same, I've not been to the GP in longer than four years! However, I wonder if because of their age, they had routine appointments; flu and Covid jabs etc and it was flagged that they didn't attend for them. Or perhaps they had health conditions that would usually require routine appointments and it would be unusual for them to suddenly stop.