A TikTok explorer who posted footage of the inside of a house where a daughter killed and entombed her parents is at the centre of a police investigation.
Ben, who did not want to give his surname, has 1.2 million followers of his videos of abandoned buildings around the world.
However, the British content creator is now at the centre of a police investigation after he posted a video of the inside of a house where a couple had been murdered by their daughter.
Footage posted on TikTok and Instagram under @places_forgotten shows the interior of the home where the bodies of John and Lois McCullough were hidden for four years.
Virginia McCullough lived alongside the bodies of her elderly parents John before she was sentenced to a minimum of 36 years in prison in 2024.
Ben claims the private property in Great Baddow, Essex, had not been cleaned forensically since the arrest of McCullough in 2023.
She was handed a minimum sentence of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court last October after admitting hiding her mother’s body in a wardrobe and building a “makeshift tomb” for her father.
Ben claims a back door to the abandoned property was left open and that there was “no harm done” by the filming.
He said: “I was respectful and I didn’t take anything. Some people may see my footage as insensitive but if you go online and see crime scene photographs and documentaries, they can be much worse.
“I document abandoned and forgotten places with a sad or macabre past.
“I was aware of the arrest in 2023. I thought it was crazy – like something out of Bates Motel.
“Most people – when they commit a murder – they dispose of the body so to live with two for four years is crazy.”
Ben’s TikTok account has 1.2 million followers as he documents his abandoned building adventures across the globe.
He claimed that he does not remove anything from the properties but documents the state which they have been left in.
Ben said: “The house hadn’t been touched since Virginia’s arrest which is amazing to think about.
“I could see orange squash on the side, noodles in the sink, packets of crisps.
“It was like time had stopped since she’d been arrested and taken to prison.
“The grizzly scene of John’s tomb downstairs was largely untouched as were the bedrooms upstairs.
“Virginia had spray-painted the bath and sink in the bathroom black. It was done really crudely as if there was no care in it.
“The house has sat there like that for a year and a half. No one is coming back to that house and neither is Virginia.”
Ben claimed he has not been contacted by the police yet despite Essex Police confirming an investigation was under way.
He added: “I was sent the news coverage by a couple of people on my Instagram page.
“When it said the footage was being investigated, I thought, ‘Well, it’s not a crime scene as she’s been investigated and sent to prison’. I haven’t heard anything at all from the police yet.
“If I had gone into the house and it was completely empty and stripped, there would be nothing for me to photograph.
“But why hasn’t the house been stripped after so long and after the investigation has been wrapped up? Why is it still like that?”
An Essex Police spokesman said: “We are aware of footage, taken from within a private property, circulating on social media. While 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.”
