YouTuber accused of faking murder alibi with pre recorded stream
YouTuber Stephen McCullagh, who has about 35,600 subscribers on the platform, has been arrested by the police in Northern Ireland for the second time in connection to the murder of Natalie McNally on December 18, 2022. He had previously been ruled out as a suspect after being taken in custody, since he supposedly live streamed GTA on the night of the murder.
It turns out, however, that the stream was pre recorded, with McCullagh explaining oddities such as his failure to interact with the chat as technical difficulties. This and other suspicious activity, such as his refusal to cooperate with investigators after being let go from custody and his spying on the victim’s family, have led to another arrest on January 31, 2023, reports Keighley News.
McCullagh will appear before Craigavon Magistrates’ Court on February 24, 2023, his application for bail having been rejected.
A Public Prosecution Service (PPS) lawyer stated that the “defendant has in this case hatched a sophisticated, calculating and cool headed plot to kill Ms McNally.” She commented that the alleged murderer would now “be desperate” and “has shown he is capable of deception beyond imagination.” For this reason, there “are absolutely no bail conditions that could alleviate the risks posed here.” The lawyer fears that McCullagh, if freed, could potentially interfere with witnesses or be a threat to the victim’s family.
McNally’s parents had welcomed McCullagh into their home after his initial release, where he allegedly left his cell phone on purpose to record what the family was saying after he left. Chief Inspector Neil McGuinness told the court that he believed that this an attempt to see if the family still suspected him of committing the crime. The PPS lawyer called this “chilling” and said: “Had there been any suspicion voiced by the family and any expression of an intention to talk to police, we just don’t know what would have happened.”
The sitting judge ruling on the bail application agreed with the prosecution on all points, asking: “[I]f he can carry out an attack like this, if the police case is right, then who knows what else he is capable of?”
While McCullagh’s defense seeks to refute the growing body of evidence, the prosecution certainly seems to think that it gathered more than enough proof that the suspect did murder the 32-year old woman, who was 15 weeks into her pregnancy.
