A 999 call made by a man accused of murdering his pregnant partner was played to a jury at Belfast Crown Court today (Monday).
Natalie McNally, who was 15 weeks pregnant, was beaten, strangled and stabbed in her Lurgan home in December 2022.
The father of her unborn child, 36-year old Stephen McCullagh, has been charged with and has denied her murder.
He sat in the dock flanked by two prison officers yards from where Ms McNally’s family sat in the public gallery.
As the Crown opened it’s case to a jury of six men and six women, prosecuting barrister Charles MacCreanor KC said “this was a pre-planned, calculated, pre-meditated murder by the defendant.”
Mr MacCreanor told the jury that the evidence they will hear during the murder trial will point to the fact Ms McNally was killed in her Silverwood Green home in Lurgan between 8.50pm and 9.30pm on Sunday December 18, 2022.
At 9.59pm the following evening, McCullagh made a 999 call from her home when he hysterically told the operator “please come as soon as you can.”
McCullagh was told to perform CPR and during the call he also said to the operator “she’s pregnant” and when asked how many weeks, he said “I think it’s 15, we have a scan tomorrow.”
The jury also a sobbing McCullagh tell the operator “she’s cold” and “there’s blood everywhere”.
In his opening, Mr MacCreanor said Ms McNally had suffered “serious and multiple stab wounds”.
As well as three knife wounds to her neck, she also sustained bruising to the left and right sides of her neck which they Crown say “suggested fingertips grasping.”
In addition, Mr MacCreanor said there was “blunt force trauma” in the form of five lacerations which were “in keeping with having sustained at least five heavy blows to her head.”
Regarding the 999 call made by McCullagh, the prosecuting KC branded this as “an act, a put-on” and “part of his plan to do the murder and get away with it.”
Mr MacCreanor revealed that after the emergency services arrived at the scene, McCullagh told police he knew what had happened and said an ex-partner of Ms McNally’s had done it.
He said there was blood everywhere and that ‘someone had knocked ten bells out of her.’
At the scene, he said he had been live-streaming from 6pm to midnight the night before and that he thought Ms McNally was angry with him as he had been drinking alcohol during the live-stream and she hadn’t replied to his messages.
McCullagh also told police the last time he heard from Ms McNally was around 6pm the evening before and that he had gone to her home that evening as she was diabetic and he was concerned that she may have had a hypoglycaemia attack.
He also spoke of finding his partner at the top of the stairs and calling 999 and said the last time had seen her was at his Woodland Gardens in Lisburn at around 1pm the day before.
McCullaugh was arrested at the scene on the evening of Monday December 19, 2022 on suspicion of murder.
He was interviewed the following day when he reiterated his claim that the last time he had seen Ms McNally was at his home and that he had called at her home the following evening to see if she was okay.
McCullaugh also spoke of an ‘abusive’ ex-partner and due to his alibi that he was live-streaming at the time of the murder, he was released from police custody on December 20, 2022.
This live stream – entitled The Violent Night Christmas Live Gaming Stream – appeared on YouTube between 6pm and midnight on Sunday December 18.
Continuing the Crown’s opening, Mr MacCreanor said an “extensive investigation” into Ms McNally’s murder was launched.
This included a trawl of CCTV footage as well as an examination of telephones and McCullagh’s computers.
The prosecutor said that due to these examinations, experts from the PSNI’s cyber team determined that this six hour stream “was not in fact live at all” but “had been recorded some days before.”
Mr MacCreanor said instead, McCullagh had “simply played a recording that lasted some six hours, making it look like it was happening on Sunday evening.”
The jury heard that at 5.57pm, McCullagh messaged Ms McNally and said ‘Right, I’m off to stream the night away. Wish me luck’ and that two minutes later she replied and said ‘Good luck. I might sneak a peak at your live stream later’.
Branding the live streaming as “a cover story” with McCullagh “peddling a false alibi”, Mr MacCreanor said that instead of live streaming, McCullagh got the bus from Dunmurry to Lurgan then walked to Ms McNally’s home carrying a bag.
He told the jurors that during the trial, they will be shown CCTV footage which the Crown say indicated that McCullagh “changed his clothes and is in disguise.”
This includes footage of a male wearing a beanie hat with a mop of dark hair underneath getting into a taxi outside a pub in Lurgan.
The taxi is then driven to Lisburn with the male passenger left outside McCullagh’s house at around 11pm.
At this point, the jury was shown several images taken from McCullagh’s Instagram account which depicted him wearing a beanie hat.
The prosecutor said the figure of the suspect captured on CCTV in Lurgan had “the same look that the defendant has used before.”
The prosecutor also told the jury that following the murder and after his initial release, McCullagh visited the McNally family.
Mr MacCreanor said McCullagh left his phone in their home, that the device was recording them and that he returned around half an hour later to retrieve it.
This, the prosecutor said, may have been McCullagh trying to get information about what was happening and what was being said about him.
Mr MacCreanor said that as the murder investigation gathered pace, McCullagh was re-arrested at the end of January 2023.
During an interview on February 1, the evidence from the cyber experts was put to him which challenged his version of events regarding the live stream.
In a subsequent pre-prepared statement, McCullagh admitted he had recorded the stream on the night of December 14th and into the early hours of the 15th then put it out on YouTube on Sunday 18th.
He claimed that on the evening of Sunday 18th he had consumed Buckfast, Guinness and Bailey’s and that Ms McNally would be disappointed in him as he promised he wouldn’t drink until their baby was born.
In his statement, McCullagh also said, ‘I was asleep for most of the evening following the consumption of alcohol.’
When asked about the taxi arriving at his house on the Sunday evening, in his statement McCullagh said: ‘It seems that the suspect did take a taxi to my house. I have no idea who this person was but I think it is obvious that the true killer of Natalie has left a clear circumstantial trail to link me to the murder.’
Turning to a possible motive, Mr MacCreanor said that after Ms McNally’s phone was examined by police, messages were located between her and some other males – some of which were “friendly”, some “flirty” and some “of a sexual nature.”
Revealing McCullagh had the passcode to Ms McNally’s phone, Mr MacCreanor suggested that if the accused had seen them he may have felt “deceived, hurt, angry, enraged.”
The trial continues.
