- When Natalie McNally met her partner Stephen McCullagh on a dating app, he ran a YouTube channel for video gamers with 37,000 subscribers
- One night, she logged on from her home to watch the live stream Stephen was filming in his own house. But the following day, she was found lying in a pool of her own blood
- Although Stephen was the first to call for help, police would go on to discover he may not have been as innocent as he claimed
Natalie McNallly was always busy. A marketing executive, she was often out with friends or at home with her beloved Alsatian, River, and her two cats.
Natalie, who lived with diabetes, was close to her parents, Noel and Bernadette, and her three brothers, Declan, Niall, and Brendan. The family loved to watch soccer together.
But in November 2022 her life was set to get even busier.
After a whirlwind romance, she was expecting a baby with her partner, Stephen McCullagh, 32.
Natalie had matched with Stephen on a dating app three months earlier. Stephen ran a YouTube channel for video gamers with 37,000 subscribers.
On December 18 that year, Natalie visited her parents for a roast dinner and to watch the World Cup soccer final.
Stephen messaged Natalie to say he was spending the night at home, live-streaming himself playing a video game on YouTube, so his viewers could watch him.
Natalie headed to her own home. ‘I’ll see you on Monday or Tuesday,’ she told her mum.
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Back home, Natalie logged on to watch Stephen’s live video.
He was dressed in a Santa hat and drinking Guinness as he played.
‘I’m not leaving the house tonight,’ he told his followers.
The next day, Stephen tried to get hold of Natalie, but didn’t get any replies.
Worried about her diabetes, he went to her house. Inside he found a terrible scene. Natalie was unconscious lying in a pool of blood.
‘I’m not leaving the house tonight.’
Frantic he called an ambulance. ‘Please come as soon as you can, she’s pregnant, she’s cold… she’s gone… there’s blood everywhere,’ he cried to the operator before performing CPR.
Police arrived and both Natalie and her unborn child, a boy named Dean, were pronounced dead.
A knife was found nearby, and neighbours said they’d heard chilling screams the night before.
Natalie had sustained 48 separate serious injuries including three stab wounds to her neck, nicking her jugular vein, compression injuries to her neck consistent with strangulation, and blunt force trauma to her head.
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Stephen explained he’d been gaming at home when Natalie was killed, but told police that Natalie’s ex-boyfriend was abusive and had been harassing her.
Police arrested Natalie’s ex, but released him after they found he had a solid alibi. He wasn’t her killer.
Natalie’s family reeled, perplexed why anyone would want to murder her.
Holding a wake at their home, the family were shown an engagement ring by Stephen that he’d hoped to give to Natalie.
Distraught, when he visited again on Boxing Day he forgot his phone, returning to get it some time later.
Stephen’s computer revealed something strange.
But detectives discovered Natalie had doubts about Stephen. She was thinking about leaving him in the New Year and had chatted to other men.
And Stephen’s computer revealed something strange.
His ‘live’ stream on his YouTube channel, on the night Natalie was killed, hadn’t been live at all… It was a pre-recorded video he made four days earlier.
In February 2023, Stephen McCullagh was arrested. Officers put it to him that he’d recorded the live stream as a sinister ruse for a fake alibi in an elaborate plot to conceal murdering Natalie, and he was charged with murder.
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Natalie’s heartbroken parents were floored to discover their daughter’s killer had been hiding in plain sight.
In February this year, Stephen McCullagh, 36, appeared at Belfast Crown Court pleading not guilty to murder.
Prosecutors said McCullagh had brutally stabbed and strangled Natalie, and delivered blows to her head. In a final twisted act, he’d placed her head in her dog’s bowl.
CCTV footage showed McCullagh travelling by bus to near Natalie’s home. He was wearing dark clothing, a hood, black gloves and holding a green shopping bag concealing a black rucksack.
More vision showed McCullagh in a black hat and wig taking a taxi back home later that night.
He then sent Natalie and friends concerned messages, before pretending to discover her body.
He’d lied about Natalie being harassed by an old flame. And the phone he’d accidentally left at Natalie’s parents’ home had been secretly recording them, to suss out if he was under their suspicion.
His motive had been his discovery, made by looking at Natalie’s phone, that she was unhappy and interested in seeing other people.
McCullagh’s defence was that he’d been asleep at the time of the murder.
A jury found him guilty as charged.
Before sentencing McCullagh said, ‘I’m sorry for what I did to that family, to Natalie and to baby Dean. I’d take it back in a heartbeat if I could.’
‘I’m sorry for what I did to that family…I’d take it back in a heartbeat if I could.’
Judge Patrick Kinney called the hideous crime ‘callous, wicked and cruel’ and spoke of the frenzied assault and gratuitous violence. He added the killing had been extensively planned and was cold-blooded.
McCullagh was jailed for life with a minimum of 31 years to be served.
Outside court Natalie’s brother Declan said she would have made an amazing mother.
Her mum, Bernadette, recalled how McCullagh would tell her how he found her daughter. ‘He was just taking pleasure out of telling us, it was so horrific,’ she said. ‘I miss her so much every day.’
And her dad Noel said, ‘Bernadette, my boys and myself are serving a life sentence since the murder of our beloved Natalie, but hopefully [McCullagh’s sentence] will serve as a deterrent to help stop violence against women and girls.
