On 18 December 2022, Natalie McNally, a 32‑year‑old woman from Northern Ireland, was stabbed to death in her home in Lurgan, County Armagh. Her boyfriend, Stephen McCullagh, who initially claimed to have been live‑streaming on his YouTube channel at the time of the killing, was convicted of her murder in March 2026 and later sentenced to life with a minimum of 31 years in prison. The circumstances of the attack generated widespread public concern across Northern Ireland.
Background In August 2022, Natalie McNally first made contact with Stephen McCullagh via Bumble, and they soon began a romantic relationship. In November 2022, McNally revealed to her family that she was pregnant with McCullagh's child.
On the night of 19 December 2022, officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland were called to a house at Silverwood Green in Lurgan at around 10 pm, where they discovered the body of 32-year-old Natalie McNally. A post‑mortem examination later found that, in addition to multiple stab wounds, McNally – who was 15 weeks pregnant at the time – had been severely beaten and had sustained several facial fractures and broken bones in her neck. Detectives found no signs of forced entry at the property, suggesting that McNally knew her killer and had allowed them into her home. A 32‑year‑old man was arrested at the scene, but he was released the following day after being ruled out as a suspect.
Murder investigation Detectives investigating McNally's death established that she had watched the 2022 FIFA World Cup final with her parents in Craigavon before returning to her home in Lurgan sometime after 5 pm. After reviewing local CCTV recordings, police released footage of a person seen acting suspiciously near her home on the day she was last seen alive. The footage showed a man carrying a rucksack, whom detectives believed to be the killer, entering Silverwood Green at 8:52 pm on 18 December 2022 and leaving again at 9:30 pm. On 31 January 2023, the PSNI announced that they had re‑arrested the man initially detained on suspicion of McNally's murder.
On 2 February 2023, 32‑year‑old Stephen McCullagh, from Woodland Gardens in Lisburn, was charged at Lisburn Magistrates' Court with McNally's murder. The court heard that McCullagh had been arrested soon after her death but was ruled out as a suspect because he appeared to have an alibi in the form of a six‑hour live‑stream of him playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on his YouTube channel on the night in question. Subsequent forensic examination of his digital devices determined that the "live‑stream" had been pre‑recorded and broadcast as if it were live. Detectives noted that McCullagh stated at the start of the video that he could not engage in live chat with his 37,000 subscribers, due to "technical issues", and that he repeatedly referenced the purported current time throughout the recording, which investigators believed was an attempt to reinforce the timeline of his alibi.
PSNI Detective Chief Inspector Neil McGuinness told the court that McCullagh admitted during interviews that the video had been recorded around 14 December 2022. McGuinness also stated that, after being ruled out as a suspect, McCullagh declined to co‑operate with aspects of the investigation, including providing a statement describing the scene when he arrived at the property before paramedics entered. He further told the court that CCTV evidence, witness statements from a taxi driver and the inactivity of McCullagh's mobile phone between 6 pm and 11:16 pm on the night of McNally's death linked him to the killing. District Judge Watters refused bail and remanded McCullagh in custody to await trial.
Pre-trial legal proceedings During a court hearing on 17 February 2023, McCullagh's defence team argued that the murder charge against him centred on an inconsistency relating to the live‑streaming of a video game. Defence lawyers stated that McCullagh, who denied murdering McNally, accepted that the video on his YouTube channel had been pre‑recorded but maintained that he had been drinking at home on the day in question and had fallen asleep around the time of the killing.
On 6 March 2023, during a bail application at the Belfast High Court, prosecution barrister Natalie Pinkerton urged the court to refuse bail, asserting that a "strong and persuasive" prima facie case had been established and that McCullagh had demonstrated significant premeditation and deceit by constructing an elaborate hoax of live‑streaming an Xbox gaming session to create an alibi. Pinkerton told the court that CCTV footage from a bus in Dunmurry showed a masked individual matching McCullagh's physical description travelling to Lurgan, where at around 9 pm two of McNally's neighbours heard her screaming. Shortly afterwards, a taxi driver picked up a fare outside Fa Joe's Bar on Carnegie Street and drove him to McCullagh's home in Lisburn; the driver later identified the man as McCullagh during a police lineup.
The court also heard that McCullagh went to McNally's house the following day, alerted police to her death and suggested to officers that an ex‑partner had been harassing her in the preceding weeks. Pinkerton further noted that, during the gaming session, McCullagh had deliberately selected an optional side mission titled "Waste the Wife", in which the player must kill a woman and stage the death as an accident. The prosecution argued that this was intended as an "Easter egg" to taunt McNally's family. Defence lawyers maintained that the case against their client was entirely circumstantial and that the timing of the mission relative to McNally's estimated time of death was a tragic coincidence. Justice Siobhán Keegan refused bail.
On 12 January 2024, McCullagh formally entered a plea of not guilty to the murder of McNally. On 20 September 2024, he was again denied bail, with Justice O'Hara citing the risk of interference with witnesses as a reason for his continued remand in HMP Maghaberry. On 3 November 2025, McCullagh's defence barrister, John Kearney, successfully sought an adjournment to the murder trial after hundreds of new documents were disclosed during pre‑trial evidence review. Justice O'Hara granted the adjournment after hearing that up to 30,000 pages of additional material might ultimately be transferred to the defence.
Trial of McCullagh On 16 February 2026, a jury of six men and six women were sworn in before Mr Justice Patrick Kinney at Belfast Crown Court for the trial of McCullagh on a charge of murdering McNally. Addressing the issue of previous media coverage, judge Kinney instructed the jurors that they must decide the case solely on the evidence presented in court and warned them not to conduct any independent research. He also advised that the proceedings were expected to last for around five weeks. The Public Prosecution Service would later describe the case as unprecedented in Northern Irish legal history due to "the premeditation, the levels of deception and concealment, and really the extraordinary amount of planning to kill this young woman".
Opening statements On 23 February, prosecuting barrister Charles MacCreanor KC told the jury that McCullagh had made a 999 call from McNally's house in Lurgan at around 10 pm on Monday 19 December 2022, a recording of which was played in court. Police and paramedics arriving at the scene found McNally lying in a pool of blood while a visibly distressed McCullagh was attempting CPR. McNally had three stab wounds to her neck and further lacerations to the top of her head, while subsequent examination found that manual compression of the neck had also contributed to her death. According to the prosecution, McNally was 15 weeks pregnant at the time and McCullagh was the father of her unborn child. The estimated time of death was between 8:50 pm and 9:30 pm on Sunday 18 December. The prosecution asserted that the killing was "planned, calculated and pre‑meditated", that McCullagh was the sole perpetrator and that he had "put on an act" afterwards to conceal his involvement.
Although McCullagh told the PSNI that he had been live‑streaming for six hours on his YouTube channel on the night in question, technical experts later determined that the footage was pre‑recorded. The Crown contended that he had travelled from his home in Lisburn to Lurgan by public transport and had changed his clothing and appearance during the journey to avoid detection. After his re‑arrest, McCullagh admitted that the video had been pre‑recorded and broadcast on YouTube on 18 December, but claimed that he had consumed a large amount of alcohol before falling asleep at home. When asked about a taxi arriving at his house that night, he asserted that what he described as "the true killer of Natalie" had deliberately created a trail of circumstantial evidence to frame him for her murder.
Prosecution evidence Paramedic Graham Thompson testified that he was first on the scene and observed that McNally's hands and lips had turned blue. PSNI Constable Archibald told the court that she detected a foul odour in the house on arrival, while PSNI Constable Feeley stated that he recovered a knife a few feet from McNally's body in the living room, where blood was present on the floor and the walls. McCullagh was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder, but he told officers that he had been livestreaming throughout the previous evening and was later released from custody because he appeared to have an alibi. State pathologist Dr James Lyness testified that he conducted the post‑mortem examination, documenting dozens of injuries to McNally's upper body, including stab wounds, strangulation injuries, lacerations, and bruises. Although Dr Lyness could not identify a single definitive cause of death, he stated that either the stab wounds or the neck‑compression injuries could have been fatal on their own and that McNally had endured a "prolonged assault".
The prosecution also read WhatsApp messages exchanged between McNally and McCullagh, including a message at 5:57 pm on the day in question in which McCullagh said he was about to begin livestreaming on YouTube. The jury were reminded that McCullagh initially relied on the purported "live‑stream" as an alibi, but later admitted it was pre‑recorded after the PSNI's cyber‑forensics team established that it had not been broadcast live. Sections of the video, titled "The Violent Night Christmas Live Gaming Stream", were then played to the jury, during which McCullagh repeatedly referred to technical issues preventing him from engaging in live chat. The prosecutor told the jury that the faked live‑stream, which appeared on McCullagh's YouTube channel between 6 pm and midnight on the night McNally was murdered, was "a cover story" created by the accused.
Detective Constable Matthews of the PSNI's cyber‑crime unit told the court that material recovered from McCullagh's computer demonstrated that the video broadcast on 18 December had not been streamed live. He said the OBS Studio software showed no background activity during pauses in the programme, which would not have been possible during a genuine live transmission. According to his evidence, a single six‑hour recording had been created on 14 December, saved in the early hours of 15 December, and then manually deleted shortly after midnight on 19 December. He added that digital-forensics analysis showed no user interaction with the computer at any point between 6 pm on 18 December and 12:05 am on 19 December, further indicating that the broadcast could not have been produced in real time.