“I Lived in Terror: Sister Breaks Silence on Chilling Family Secret Behind Murder and Mummification”

Here’s a story that feels like it wandered straight out of a dark thriller flick—but nope, it’s painfully real. Imagine living under the same roof with your parents’ lifeless bodies for FOUR years, carrying on as if everything’s peachy—how does someone even begin to process that? Virginia McCullough did exactly that, hiding a gruesome secret after taking the lives of her elderly parents back in 2019. Then came the chilling aftermath: a twisted masquerade that finally unraveled last year when local authorities made a grim discovery in Essex. Fast forward to October 2024, when Virginia was sentenced to life behind bars, while her older sister Louise Hopkins steps out of the shadows for the first time. Louise’s revelations are anything but straightforward—she speaks of forgiveness without reconciliation, peace without visits, and grapples with a grief so heavy it haunts her still. It’s a tangled family saga that forces us to question the limits of loyalty, the nature of forgiveness, and whether some truths are too heavy to bear. Ready to dive into a tale of deception, heartbreak, and uneasy forgiveness?
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The older sister of the woman who killed her parents and lived with their bodies for four years has spoken out for the first time.

In October 2024, 36-year-old Virginia McCullough was handed a life sentence after being found guilty of killing her elderly parents John, 70, and Lois, 71, in 2019, before spending the next few years pretending they were still alive.

Shocking evidence revealed in court detailed how McCullough had ‘beat her mother with a hammer and stabbed her multiple times in the chest’ while also poisoning her father with a ‘cocktail of prescription drugs‘.

She spent the next four years pretending her parents were still alive while their bodies rotted inside the home she lived in.

Now – over six months on from McCullough’s sentencing – her older sister Louise Hopkins has spoken out revealing that she forgives her younger sibling but has no intention of visiting her in prison.

“I have forgiven her for what she’s done. I am not drinking other people’s poison,” she told The Sun.

After spending four years lying to the outside world McCullough’s web of lies came crashing down in September 2023, after a local GP raised concerns about the welfare of John and Lois.

Essex police were then dispatched to the McCullough family home, where the bodies of John and Lois were discovered. McCullough, who was at the property at the time, was arrested, with chilling bodycam footage revealing the locations of her parents’ bodies to officers.

“It’s proper that I serve my punishment,” she can be seen saying on police bodycam footage, before chillingly adding: “Cheer up, at least you caught the bad guy.”

Virginia McCullough had lived in the house alongside her parents’ decomposing bodies (PA)

Explaining why she had no desire to visit her sister in prison, Hopkins continued: “I forgive my sister but I would not visit her. I have created a life of peace and tranquillity for me and my children.

“I walked away from all of them in 2018 after physically leaving home in 1997.”

Hopkins has also addressed the guilt and grief she’s experienced since learning about the true fate of her parents, revealing in an episode of the Speakmans Hope Clinic podcast that she had been estranged from the family since 2018.

“The worst thing is that my parents were left to rot,” she tearfully told hosts Nik and Eva Speakman.

Louise Hopkins also revealed details about the relationship she had with her parents growing up (PA)

“The grief has haunted me.”

Revealing how her father had struggled with alcoholism while her mother had battled anxiety, agoraphobia and OCD, she continued: “I will never forget them. I loved them, but I didn’t like them.”