Virginia McCullough knew why the police had smashed through her front door, but part of her wondered why it took them so long to discover she had murdered her parents. “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy,” she calmly told the officers handcuffing her. Neighbours thought John and Lois McCullough had retired to the seaside, but the reality was they were callously poisoned by their daughter. Why did she do it?

The goings-on inside the McCullough family home in Great Baddow near Chelmsford, Essex, were becoming increasingly secretive in 2019.

Relatives were asked to stay away and friends were told Mr and Mrs McCullough had retired to the Clacton area on Essex’s sunshine coast.

The gruesome reality was very different. It would be four years before anyone found out the horrors that took place behind closed doors on Pump Hill.

John McCullough, a retired business studies lecturer, had been fatally poisoned and the 70-year-old’s body was hidden in a crudely-built tomb made out of breeze blocks and blankets.

The corpse of his 71-year-old wife, Lois, was stashed behind sleeping bags and duvets in an upstairs wardrobe.

Mrs McCullough had been battered with a hammer and stabbed, but she too had also been poisoned with prescription medication administered by her daughter.

Virginia McCullough, 36, was handed a life sentence at Chelmsford Crown Court for their murders, to serve a minimum of 36 years, on Friday.

“The curtains were always drawn and you couldn’t see if anybody was in the house,” said Phil Sargeant, who lived next door to the McCulloughs for 20 years.

“They were just like shadows, they’d move very quickly from A to B.”

Mr Sargeant now knows why there was such secrecy at his neighbours’ house.

“I find it quite difficult even to say that Virginia murdered her parents or killed her parents,” he added.

“She’d come across as quite pleasant; she was funny, she was irreverent as well. She had a dark sense of humour.”

In September 2023, Essex Police took a call from Essex County Council’s safeguarding team.

A GP at Mr and Mrs McCullough’s registered practice had raised a concern for their welfare, having not seen them for some time.

Their absences had been explained by their daughter, who offered a range of excuses for each appointment she cancelled on her parents’ behalf.

Conveniently for her, the country had been in Covid-enforced lockdowns for a large period of time they had not been seen.

But when police spoke to McCullough, it became clear something was not adding up – why were her parents always out of the area?

Alan Thomson, who rented a television to the McCulloughs, also had his suspicions.

It followed a phone call from McCullough, abruptly cancelling the rental on her parents’ behalf.

When Mr Thomson’s staff arrived at the family home to pick it up, they were told they could not enter the property – and the TV was already prepared by the front door.

“I got the feeling perhaps she was a bit of a fantasist, but no way would I have thought she’d be a murderer,” he said.

When police raided the property, it was not the first time they had visited.

Weeks prior to the discovery of the bodies, McCullough invited officers inside to discuss an allegation of an assault against her.

Only she knew the intent of this call, but some believed she was testing the water.

Ultimately, the assault allegation came to nothing.

McCullough was more forthcoming when officers returned in September 2023.

“I did know that this day would come eventually,” she confessed.

“I deserve to get what’s coming, sentence-wise, because that’s the right thing to do and then that might give me a bit of peace.”

Documents recovered inside the property painted a picture of a woman desperately trying to keep her parents from discovering a financial black hole she had dug.

Abusing their goodwill, she had been living rent free, spending their money and racking up large credit card debts in their names.

Forged letters showed McCullough had been tricking her parents into thinking they had lost money through scams. In reality, it was money “frittered away” by their daughter.

To them, she was well-qualified, suitably employed and working hard towards becoming an artist – a future she claimed would also bring financial benefits for her parents.

Instead, she was reaping the financial rewards of manipulating, abusing and taking advantage of her parents’ kindness.

In total, 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.

The court also heard she spent £21,000 on online gambling between 2019 and 2023.

Her lies – and the fear of being exposed – ultimately led to her cruelly killing her parents.

Paul Hastings, a greengrocer at the Vineyards shopping centre near their home, had also noticed their disappearance.

He was told by McCullough that her parents, who used to purchase goods from his shop, were no longer living in Great Baddow.

Mr Hastings said her peculiar nature meant she could say things without arousing much suspicion.

“She came in to the shop and said ‘The police are after me, they think I killed my mum and dad’,” Mr Hastings said.

“I thought ‘That’s a bit odd’ but didn’t think anything else of it, I just thought it was her eccentric nature.”

He explained McCullough would sometimes visit his shop four times a day, before disappearing for the next fortnight.

Debbie Pollard said McCullough would visit the flower shop she ran and bombard her with food and presents.

“We knew she was odd but I would never have dreamt she would ever be capable of doing what she actually did,” she said.

“She’s actually lived in that house all those years with her mum and dad’s remains in there – that horrifies me. Horrifies me.”

Both Mr Hastings and Ms Pollard both said McCullough had also pretended to be pregnant, even creating a fake bump under her clothing.

Throughout her sentencing on Friday, McCullough stared at the floor, emotionless.

It was only when she listened back to her interview with police, describing how she murdered her mother, that she began to weep.

“She looked so innocent; she was just sat there listening to the radio,” McCullough told the officers.

“I did go in three times to build up some gumption but I knew I had to get it done and can’t hesitate.

“She was just staring at me in disbelief.”

Det Supt Rob Kirby, from Essex Police, said her otherwise composed reaction in court was typical of the “considered, meticulous” murderer she was.

“Throughout the course of our investigation, we have built a picture of the vast levels of deceit, betrayal and fraud she engaged in,” he said.

“It was on a shocking and monumental scale.

“McCullough lied about almost every aspect of her life, maintaining a charade to deceive everyone close to her and clearly taking advantage of her parents’ good will.

“She is an intelligent and adept manipulator who chose to kill her parents callously and without a thought for them or those who continue to suffer as a result of their loss.”

Where does a wounded political party start after suffering its worst defeat in a general election ever?

It is a big question, and both Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have a different prescription.

The two remaining candidates in Conservative leadership race – after centrist James Cleverly was ejected by MPs – are both young and seen as being on the right of the party.

But there are plenty of points of difference for Tory members – who begin voting soon – to chew over.

Badenoch, the 44-year-old former business secretary, has argued for returning to core Conservative values.

“You start with principles first, not throwing out a succession of policies,” one Badenoch campaign source said.

The actual plan for renewal, Team Badenoch says, will come in time. Her campaign is entitled Renewal 2030 – which she says will be her first year as Conservative prime minister.

A source from Jenrick’s team said party members faced a choice between a candidate with detailed policies to fix the NHS, the economy and migration, or “risking being drawn into endless” spats and distractions.

In his conference speech, 42-year-old Jenrick laid out five key changes for the party to challenge Labour: an immigration cap, opposing Labour’s “mad plans” on net zero, embracing housebuilding, reducing the size of the state and “defending our culture”.

Badenoch is known for her direct approach and willingness to speak her mind.

At the Conservative Party conference, there was controversy over her suggestion that maternity pay had “gone too far”. She later said she had been “misrepresented”, but the criticism drowned out her campaign.

But Badenoch’s pugnacious approach to debate means she “has cut through to the public,” says supporter and conservative commentator Albie Amankona.

People see she is “fiery, opinionated, brave and competent,” without the need to be attention grabbing, he adds.

Her allies see hints of Margaret Thatcher in her take-no-prisoners style. Jenrick is also a Thatcher fan – one of his daughters has Thatcher for a middle name – but Badenoch’s supporters have accused him of being a “shapeshifter”.

Seen initially as an ally of David Cameron on the more “moderate” wing of the party when he became an MP in 2014, Jenrick has shifted to the right after quitting as immigration minster last year.

Those backing Jenrick insist his right-wing credentials are bona fide.

Jamie Mulhall, a Conservative councillor in Derby, called Jenrick a “conviction politician” whose views adapt when evidence changes.

Mulhall, who is part of Jenrick’s campaign team, said the former minister likes to “step back and has had a good long hard look at what happened” before coming up with the “clarity, vision and polices that appeal to the common-sense common-ground”.

Cutting immigration is a top priority for both candidates.

Robert Jenrick’s signature policy is UK withdrawal from the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), which he argues had made it “impossible to secure our borders”.

He describes the idea of reforming the treaty – as some Tories want – as a “fantasy” and has said all members of his shadow cabinet will have to share his position on this issue.

Badenoch has said she would be willing to leave ECHR if necessary but thinks wider – and deeper – reform of the British state and the immigration system should be tried first.

Focusing on the ECHR “shuts down the conversation we need to have with the entire country” about migration, she has said.

Sometimes labelled a “culture warrior” – a tag she disputes – Badenoch is popular with many on the right of the party for her “anti-woke” stance.

As equalities minster, she gained attention by rejecting claims of widespread institutional racism in the UK and fighting to preserve single-sex spaces for women over gender-neutral toilets.

At the party conference, Badenoch told the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show “not all cultures are equally valid” when it comes to deciding who should be allowed into the UK.

Jenrick has in the past stayed away from these hot-button topics, reportedly warning young activists in his party not to “go down a rabbit hole of culture wars”.

But in his conference speech, he vowed to “take a stand to protect our nation, culture, identity and way of life” which he said were at risk due to mass migration and a lack of integration.

Both candidates have served in the cabinet, but their journey there could not have been more different.

Born in south London, to parents of Nigerian origin, Badenoch grew up in the US and Nigeria, where her psychology professor mother had lecturing jobs.

Her exposure to instability in Nigeria “a place where fear was everywhere” forged her conservative appreciation for “security, democracy, equality under the law and above all else freedom,” Badenoch said.

She is married to Hamish Badenoch, a banker and former Conservative councillor – they have two daughters and a son.

At the Tory conference in Birmingham, Jenrick described himself as “a Midlands man” – having been raised in Shropshire while attending a private school, Wolverhampton Grammar.

After working as a corporate lawyer in London and Moscow, he moved into business, becoming an international managing director at auction house Christie’s before becoming an MP at the age of 32.

He is married to US corporate lawyer Michal Berkner, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. They have three daughters.