A man who staged a fake YouTube gaming livestream to provide an alibi while he murdered his pregnant girlfriend will serve at least 31 years in prison, a judge in Belfast has ruled.
Stephen McCullagh gave no reaction as he was handed the life sentence tariff at Belfast Crown Court for the murder of Natalie McNally in her home in Lurgan, Co Armagh, in December 2022.
The 36-year-old defendant, of Woodland Gardens, Lisburn, was found guilty of the murder by a jury at the same court earlier this year.
Ms McNally, 32, had been 15 weeks pregnant when she was subjected to what judge Mr Justice Kinney described as a “brutal and frenzied attack”.
There was silence in the public gallery filled with Ms McNally’s family and friends as they watched McCullagh being led from the dock following the tariff hearing. As the door closed behind McCullagh, many in the public gallery turned and hugged each other.
Justice Kinney said the staged livestream of McCullagh playing computer games on the night he killed Ms McNally was an “integral” part of his murder plan.
McCullagh denied the murder to detectives, claiming that he had been livestreaming on his YouTube channel at the time she died. But police experts discovered the six-hour stream had actually been filmed four days before and broadcast as live on December 18.
The judge said the staged livestream had been “carefully curated to appear as if it was streaming live and to provide the defendant a carefully planned complete alibi to the murder”. McCullagh then mounted a “concerted effort” to pass the blame for murdering Ms McNally to her ex-boyfriend, the judge said.
Justice Kinney also highlighted that McCullagh spent time with Ms McNally’s family in the aftermath of her death. The judge said McCullagh presented to the family as “devastated, distraught and shocked”. “When he first arrived at the house on Christmas Day, during Natalie’s wake, the family brought him in and comforted him,” said the judge. “They allowed him to spend extensive time alone with Natalie, ostensibly to grieve for her.”
The judge said when considering the tariff he assessed McCullagh’s culpability as “extremely high”. He said it was “difficult to find words” to describe the “abhorrence” of his murder of Ms McNally. “The defendant did not just kill Natalie McNally, her unborn child also died as a result of the murderous assault,” said the judge. “The defendant was fully aware that Natalie was pregnant. He intended to kill her and he knew that her baby, at such an early stage of the pregnancy, would have no chance of surviving the attack.”
Ordering McCullagh to stand before he set the 31-year prison term, Justice Kinney said the sentence passed “cannot possibly reflect the value of Natalie’s life, or indeed that of her unborn child, Dean” or meet the family’s sense of “grief and loss”. “Stephen McCullagh, you have committed a brutal and senseless murder,” he said. “You planned this murder in remorseless detail. You attacked someone you profess to love in a frenzied assault, which was characterised by its excessive and gratuitous violence. Despite that frenzy, the killing was cold-blooded and calculated, as evidenced by the extensive planning leading up to the murder and your actions afterwards. Your behaviour towards the McNally family showed your absolute determination to cover your tracks.”
