Man staged fake livestream to cover brutal murder of pregnant girlfriend before making "fake crying" emergency call

The chilling fake cries and pleas for help from evil Stephen McCullagh during a 999 emergency call after the murder of Natalie McNally have been revealed.

In newly released audio from the PSNI, the killer can be heard mock weeping as he describes how his pregnant girlfriend "was cold" and "there’s blood everywhere".

Pretending to be shocked and hysterical during the call he made the day after killing Natalie at her home on December 19, 2022, McCullagh urges the operator "please come as soon as you can".

The PSNI also released haunting CCTV showing the movements of the killer on the night he faked a YouTube livestream to try to set up an alibi for the killing.

McCullagh, 36, of Woodland Gardens, Lisburn, was handed a life sentence for the murder today and told he will serve at least 31 years in prison.

The evil killer staged a fake YouTube livestream while he murdered his pregnant 32-year-old girlfriend, Natalie.

Police said Natalie’s family are left with ’unimaginable heartache’

CCTV footage of McCullagh getting the Dunmurry to Lurgan bus

Footage showing McCullagh walking away from Silverwood Green

Footage showing cops interviewing McCullagh

The sick person had been given a life sentence in March, after a jury unanimously found him guilty of Natalie’s murder.

The tragic victim had been 15 weeks pregnant when she was subjected to what judge Mr. Justice Kinney described as a "brutal and frenzied attack".

Natalie’s life was brought to a tragic and violent end just months after meeting the brute.

On August 7, 2022, evil McCullagh sent his first WhatsApp message to Natalie after they made contact on the online dating app Bumble.

His first message read: "Hey Nat, it’s that robot weirdo from Bumble."

The pair discussed meeting for their first date that week and would then exchange hundreds of messages over the next 133 days.

During this period, McCullagh had also accessed Natalie’s phone and saw messages she had exchanged with other men.

In October, the person first meets Natalie’s family, who are told the following month that the couple is expecting a baby.

But just weeks later, evil McCullagh will lay the groundwork for an alibi to try to help him get away with a savage murder.

On December 14-15, the thug pre-records The Violent Night Christmas Live Gaming Stream.

McCullagh caught on CCTV walking along Church Place towards Market Street

CCTV showing McCullagh boarding a bus

The six-hour and four-minute gaming session shows McCullagh playing Grand Theft Auto while drinking alcohol, swearing, and at one point repeatedly shouting at a character in the game to die.

During the session McCullagh makes repeated mentions that it is being broadcast live on the Sunday — December 18 — in a bid to plot his alibi.

Then on December 16/17, he tells friends he will broadcast a gaming session live on Sunday evening.

But a trawl of street CCTV footage and bus cameras will help the cops expose the web of lies that the evil killer tried to spin.

On December 18, Natalie leaves McCullagh’s home in Woodland Gardens in Lisburn to go to her parents’ house for the World Cup final between Argentina and France, before returning to her own house at Silverwood Green in Lurgan.

Meanwhile, at 4 pm that same day, vile McCullagh posts an advert on YouTube about his "live" gaming session.

Then at 5.57 pm, McCullagh messages his pregnant partner saying that he is "off to stream the night away", to which she replies: "Good luck, I might have a peek at your livestream later."

Three minutes later the pre-recorded livestream begins and McCullagh’s telephone becomes inactive.

At 6.36 pm, CCTV captures a man walking with a bag close to McCullagh’s house which the prosecution in the trial said was him.

An hour later, bus CCTV shows the same man with his face covered traveling from Dunmurry to Lurgan.

After getting off the bus in Lurgan, he is tracked on a number of cameras traveling down Market Street towards William Street, Lough Road, and into Silverwood Green, where Ms. McNally lives.

At 8.24 pm, Natalie logs onto YouTube to watch part of McCullagh’s gaming session.

He enters her house at 8.51 pm before leaving at 9.31 pm, with CCTV footage then picking up a man getting into a taxi near Fa Joe’s bar in Lurgan at 9.49 pm.

The taxi then arrives at McCullagh’s house at 11.12 pm and he is seen on CCTV throwing two items over a hedge.

Four minutes later McCullagh’s phone is unlocked and becomes active, while the recording of his gaming broadcast is manually stopped at 12.05 am on December 19.

Three minutes later, at 12.08 am, McCullagh messages his partner who he just left dead in her house hours before.

The sick person continues his vile plot at 5.05 pm with another message to her saying: "Are you ok?", followed by another at 5.25 pm, saying: "Getting a little worried, let me know you are safe."

Later that day at 9.07 pm, his sick ruse deepens with another message to his dead partner stating he is "very concerned now".

McCullagh then arrives at Natalie’s house at 9.59 pm and makes a 10-minute 999 call, during which he pretended to plead for emergency services to "please come as soon as you can".

He added that "she’s pregnant" and "she’s cold".

Asked by the call handler: "Is the patient breathing?" the person responds with fake emotion and through wails: "No, she’s gone."

He adds "there’s blood everywhere".

The trial heard that the victim had suffered a "horrendous beating".

Prosecutor Charles MacCreanor KC said: "Three stabs to the neck, multiple traumatic blows to her head. Injuries consistent with throttling and choking of her neck. I’m sorry to say it, left with her face in a dog bowl, like an animal."

McCullagh was questioned by police about the death that day, and in his initial interview he put his alibi into work by telling cops he was doing a livestream when she was murdered.

He also told cops that he believed her ex-boyfriend is the "only one that would harm her".

He is asked by police "Had you anything whatsoever to do with the death of Natalie?" to which he replied: "No comment".

His solicitor tells him: "Sorry, I think you could answer that." McCullagh tells police "No, no, no comment."

The following day, on December 20, McCullagh was released and on Christmas Eve the McNally family was told that he was no longer a suspect.

The next day the killer attended Natalie’s wake at her parent’s home.

Over the coming weeks investigators begin to unravel McCullagh’s evil plot, and on January 31, 2023 he is lifted again.

During a police interview on February 1, McCullagh replies "no comment" to a series of questions about the murder.

He is confronted for the first time with evidence that his gaming session had been pre-recorded as a detective tells him that his devices had been examined and showed no user-generated activity during the hours when he claimed to be broadcasting live.

The killer replied: "That is literally impossible because you can see it on YouTube."

Following the interview McCullagh provides a statement to police in which he says the gaming session had been pre-recorded.

He added: "I think it is obvious the true killer of Natalie has left a clear circumstantial trail to link me to the murder."

After his plot was foiled by cops, evil McCullagh was charged with Natalie’s murder on February 2.

McCullagh then went on trial on February 23 of this year and was found guilty by the jury a month later on March 23.

Speaking after the person’s sentencing, a senior prosecutor told how she had never before encountered a domestic murder with "such a level of premeditation" as that involved in the killing of Natalie.

Catherine Kierans, assistant director in the Public Prosecution Service in charge of the serious crime unit, described the "absolutely chilling" experience of watching YouTuber Stephen McCullagh’s fake livestream gaming session, which he attempted to present as his alibi for the murder.

She said: "At the heart of it was the brutal murder of a very young woman who was pregnant, and that is unusual in society.

"I know there’s a lot of talk about domestic violence, but we’re not so immune that a murder doesn’t still shock and horrify everybody.

"So, we’re dealing with a domestic murder, then you’ve got these really unusual features, the level of planning, the premeditation here was off the scale.

"An absolutely calculated murder planned at least for several days in advance, probably longer.

"You’ve then got the framing of an innocent person and saying that they committed the murder, and so it had these unusual features, and probably the one that’s gathered most attention is the fact that McCullagh used a YouTube recording as his alibi in the case, a six-hour video that he claimed he’d been making at the time that this murder was carried out.

"He maintained that lie for several weeks through a lot of police interviews until finally police experts were able to discern that this was not a live video, he had pre-recorded it and played it out on that Sunday, the 18th of December, and once police had cracked that, even McCullagh had to accept then that it was not a live recording.

"He still maintained that he had not committed the murder, and that in fact, it had been Natalie’s ex-partner."

Ms. Kierans said the case was "unprecedented" in her experience.

She added: "I have been a lawyer for 27 years. I’ve never seen a case like this in terms of domestic murder with such a level of premeditation, planning, thinking of every possible aspect, the wearing of a disguise, the forensic awareness, the framing of the ex-partner.

"The most insidious aspect, which was the ingratiating himself with the bereaved family and spying on them, recording their private conversation, really shocking aspects to this case."

The prosecutor said that even though the case against McCullagh was circumstantial, she was always confident he would be convicted.

She said: "When you consider the strong strands of evidence that we did have, I’m thinking primarily of the CCTV evidence.

"Through meticulous work, police had analyzed thousands of hours of CCTV and were able to piece together the journey that the murderer had taken from Dunmurry all the way to Lurgan, then all the way out to Natalie’s home, and then retrace that person all the way back through until they got a taxi to McCullagh’s house.

"Then we did have footage from nearby McCullagh’s home of him once that taxi had dropped a person off.

"He then came out and disposed of rubbish in a bin he knew was going to be collected the next morning, and also that his phone had activated, having been inactive all afternoon."

She added: "Then you’ve got the fact that his alibi was demolished, it was an elaborate charade.

"When we talk about a circumstantial case, sometimes people might think that that’s a weaker case, but it’s not at all.

"A circumstantial case can be incredibly strong and it’s all about pulling together lots of strands of evidence."

Natalie’s devastated family said they hope McCullagh’s sentence will act as a deterrent in terms of violence against women and girls.

Speaking outside court, Ms. McNally’s father Noel said his family is already serving a life sentence following the loss of "our beloved Natalie".

He said they hoped the sentence would serve to deter others from violence against women and girls.

"Over the past three-and-a-half years, our family have been through unimaginable pain and grief from the loss of our beautiful Natalie," he said.

"We would just like to thank everyone who has helped us get to here today — all our family and friends, the whole community of Lurgan, Craigavon and throughout this country and beyond for all the kindness and support we have received.

"We would also like to thank the PSNI and the prosecution service for getting us to the conclusion here today.

"Today is not a celebration of the sentence handed down as Bernadette, my boys and myself are serving a life sentence since the murder of our beloved Natalie, but hopefully it will serve as a deterrent to help stop violence against women and girls in this country."

He added: "With respect, we are now asking for some privacy as we continue to grieve."