![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0023f177-614.jpg\"\/)
\nStephen McCullagh’s phone was seized by police<\/p>\n
The jury in the trial of a man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend has heard details of WhatsApp messages exchanged between them on the day she died.<\/p>\n
36-year-old Stephen McCullagh, with an address at Woodlawn Gardens in Lisburn, has denied murdering Natalie McNally.<\/p>\n
The prosecution believes that Ms McNally was killed at her home in Silverwood Green in Lurgan between 8.50pm and 9.30pm on Sunday 18 December 2022.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old was 15 weeks pregnant at the time.<\/p>\n
The trial has previously heard that Mr McCullagh made a 999 call from her home at 9.59pm the following day, on the 19 December.<\/p>\n
Today, a transcript of a series of Whatsapp messages exchanged between Mr McCullagh and Ms McNally on the 18 December 2022 was read to the jury.<\/p>\n
The messages discussed the World Cup final between France and Argentina that was being played at the time.<\/p>\n
Mr McCullagh sent a message to Ms McNally at 5.57pm to say “Right, I’m off to stream the night away. Wish me luck”.<\/p>\n
At 5.59pm, Ms McNally replied, “Good luck. I might have a peek at your live stream later”.<\/p>\n
The jury were told that earlier that day, Mr McCullagh had purchased an 8-pack of Guinness and a bottle of Buckfast at 3.10pm, before posting an ad to his X and Instagram accounts, advertising a live stream event at 4pm.<\/p>\n
The ad read: “Surprise, join us in 2 hours for some festive streaming goodness, live!!!”.<\/p>\n
\nStephen McCullagh’s phone was seized by police<\/p>\n
The defendant’s phone was seized by police on the 19 December and two reports were compiled following an examination.<\/p>\n
The jury was told that on 13 December 2022, Mr McCullagh used the phone to search the CEX website, which sells pre-owned videogames.<\/p>\n
The next day, on the 14 December, he used the phone to search for guidance on streaming setups and connecting a PS3 to computer speakers.<\/p>\n
The court heard he also purchased two videogames from CEX in Lisburn that day, Grand Theft Auto Vice City and Star Wars Battlefront 2.<\/p>\n
On the same day, Mr McCullagh and Ms McNally exchanged WhatsApp messages discussing decorating for Christmas, with the pair agreeing to watch a “cheesy Disney movie” the following night.<\/p>\n
Three exhibits were also admitted into evidence today.<\/p>\n
The jury was shown a knife, a sheet of paper that was found beside Ms McNally’s body, and a metal bowl.<\/p>\n
Portions of a six-hour videogame stream are being played to the jury this afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The jury in the trial of a man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend has heard details of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-316627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}