YouTuber accused of faking murder alibi with pre recorded stream

Suspect gets rearrested after initial release
YouTuber accused of faking murder alibi with pre recorded stream
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.


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Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg