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YouTuber Convicted After Faking a Livestream as He Killed His Pregnant Partner | Crime House 24/7
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- [00:02]
Vanessa Richardson
Hi listeners, it's Vanessa Richardson. Real quick, before today's episode, I want to tell you about another show from Crime House that I know you'll love. America's Most Infamous Crimes. Hosted by Katie Ring. Each week Katie takes on one of the most notorious criminal cases in American history. Serial killers who terrorized cities, unsolved mysteries that keep detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice. Listen to and follow America's Most infamous crimes Tuesday through Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. Good morning everyone. We have multiple breaking true crime cases this morning that you need to know about. And we're starting with the biggest one. For more than three years, Steven McCullough insisted he was at home playing video games the night his pregnant partner was stabbed, beaten and strangled to death. But this morning, A jury of 12 people decided they did not believe a word of it. This is crime house 24 7, your non stop source for the biggest crime cases developing right now. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Vanessa Richardson and we have quite a lineup for you today. Here's what you need to know.
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Vanessa Richardson
On March 23, a jury in Belfast, Northern Ireland delivered a unanimous guilty verdict against 36 year old Stephen McCullough for the murder of his pregnant partner, 32 year old Natal McNally. It's a verdict we've been following closely since we first covered this case back in February and this morning it finally arrived. It took the jury of six men and six women just over two hours to reach their decision. When the verdict was read, McNally's family and friends, who had packed the public gallery, erupted in cheers as well as broke down in tears. McCullough stood expressionless in the dock. He was sentenced to life in prison with the minimum tariff to be set at a later hearing in May. The Case Case begins On the evening of December 18, 2022, Natalie McNally was 15 weeks pregnant with McCullough's child, a baby boy. That night she had spent time at McCullough's home in Woodland Gardens in Lisburn before heading to her parents house to watch the World cup final between Argentina and France. She then returned to her own home in Silverwood Green in Lurgan, County Armagh. It was the last time anyone would see her alive. McCullough, meanwhile, had been laying the groundwork for what prosecutors would later call calculated and premeditated alibi. Days before the murder, on December 14th and 15th, he pre recorded a six hour gaming session of himself playing Grand Theft Auto Vice City while telling friends he would be broadcasting it live on the evening of December 18th. At 4pm that day he posted an advertisement for the upcoming live stream. At 5:57pm he messaged Natalie saying he was off to stream the night away. She replied that she might tune in later. At 6pm the pre recorded video began playing on his channel and his phone went dark. What the prosecution argued and what the jury ultimately accepted, was that while the world watched a fake live stream, McCullough traveled 17 miles from Lisbon to Lurgan. CCTV footage reviewed by investigators captured a man carrying a backpack entering Silverwood Green at 8:52pm and leaving at 9:30pm Prosecutors said that window aligned precisely with the estimated time of Natalie McNally's death. At around 10pm the following evening, December 19, McCullough arrived at Natalie's home and called police. In the call recording, he can be heard saying he needed help urgently, that she was pregnant and that she was cold and not breathing. When police and paramedics arrived, they found McNally lying in a pool of blood. With McCullough performing CPR. A post mortem examination revealed the full extent of what had been done to her. McNally had three stab wounds to the neck, lacerations to the top of her head and fractures to her facial bones and the bones in her neck. Prosecutors said she'd also been strangled. Prosecuting barrister Charles MacRiner KC told the jury she had suffered a horrendous beating and described the attack as calculated, premeditated, and that McCullough had put on an act to cover his tracks. McCullough was initially questioned by police after the murder, but was ruled out as a suspect because of the live stream alibi. It wasn't until investigators scrutinized the digital evidence more closely that the deception began to unravel. A forensic analyst testified at trial that evidence confirmed the stream had been recorded four days before the night of the murder, not live as McCullough had claimed. When confronted with this, McCullough eventually admitted the stream was pre recorded, though he maintained his innocence through the five week trial and declined to testify in his own defense. His defense team attempted to cast doubt on the circumstantial case, pointing to another man, an ex boyfriend of McNally's who testified as a prosecution witness and describing him as the real suspect. Justin Patrick Kinney addressed this directly in his charge to the jury, reminding them that the ex boyfriend was not the defendant and that their sole task was to determine whether Steven McCullough was guilty. They returned their unanimous verdict this morning. More than three years after Natalie McNally and her unborn son were killed, McCullough will serve life in prison. The minimum tariff will be set at a hearing in May and from a verdict delivering justice across the Atlantic to breaking news here at home, where a man known for competing at the highest levels of his sport is now behind bars accused of murder. On March 23, 27 year old Dayton James Weber of Maryland was arrested in Charlottesville, Virginia in connection with the shooting death of 27 year old Bradrick Michael Wells. Weber is a quadruple amputee who was a champion level competitor in the American Cornhole League, which has been featured on ESPN since 2016. According to reports, he underwent quadruple amputation as a baby following a blood infection, a detail that makes the circumstances of his arrest all the more jarring for those familiar with his athletic career. Just before 10:30pm On March 22, two people flagged down officers with the La Plata Police Department near the intersection of La Plata Road and Radio Station Road. The two individuals told police they had been riding in the backseat of a car Weber was driving when an argument broke out between Weber and Wells, who was sitting in the front seat. According to investigators, Weber shot Wells during that argument, killing him. At this point, no motive has been publicly released and investigators have not confirmed what the two men were arguing about when the shooting occurred. After the shooting, police say Weber pulled the car over near Radio Station Road and Lano Drive and turned to the two people in the back seat, asking them to help him pull Wells body out of the vehicle. They refused. They got out of the car and took off on foot. And that's when they flagged down the officers who initiated the investigation. Weber, meanwhile, drove away with Wells still inside. Nearly two hours passed. Then a resident in the 10,000 block of Newport Church Road in Charlotte hall made a grim and unexpected discovery. A body was in their front yard. Broderick Michael Wells body How Wells ended up there and exactly what Weber did in the nearly two hours between the shooting and the discovery remains part of this investigation. After the shooting, officers tracked Weber's vehicle to Charlottesville, Virginia, roughly 150 miles from where the night had started. He was located at a hospital in the area where he was being treated for an undisclosed medical issue. Upon his release from the hospital, officers with the Albemarle County Police Department arrested Weber and charged him as a fugitive from justice. Weber is now being held in Virginia awaiting extradition back to Charles County, Maryland. Once extradited, he'll face charges of first degree murder, second degree murder, and other related charges. The Charles County Sheriff's Office is continuing to investigate and the case remains active and developing. What led to the argument that night remains unknown. And for a man who spent years defying the odds, the charges he now faces are staggering. And while this case is just getting started, we move now to another case we've been following closely, where the man who admitted to pulling the trigger is now standing in court saying he didn't do it.
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Vanessa Richardson
specialoffer on March 23, 65 year old Henry Tennant appeared in a Duval county courtroom for the first time since withdrawing his guilty plea last month and entering a formal plea of not guilty in the murder of 33 year old Jared Bride. Again, this is a case we've been closely following and today marks a significant new development in one of the most complicated murder for H cases we have covered. On February 16, 2022, Jared Bright, again a Microsoft executive and father of four, was shot and killed in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Investigators say he had pulled over on his way home after spotting a tire in the middle of the road and stopped to move it. Then he was ambushed. His youngest daughter, a toddler, was in the back seat when he was shot. A bullet narrowly missed her. Prosecutors have called it a murder for hire plot, alleging that Breitegan's ex wife, 32 year old Shawna Gardner, and her then husband, 37 year old Mario Fernandez Saldana, who were also Tenen's landlords, paid Tenen approximately $10,000 to carry out the killing. Gardner and Fernandez have both pleaded not guilty. Their trial is currently scheduled to begin August 10, 2026. Notably, prosecutors announced in November 2025 that they would no longer be seeking the death pe against the couple. On March 16, 2023, Tenon pleaded guilty to second degree murder under a deal requiring him to testify against Gardner and Fernandez in exchange for dropped charges and a sentencing range starting at 15 years. The arrangement seemed to be moving forward until January 2025 when Tenon appeared at a hearing and announced that his sworn testimony against the other defendants had been false and requested new council. At a hearing on February 17, 2026, Tenant told Judge London Kite directly, quote I want a trial, end quote. The judge granted his motion. Prosecutors did not oppose it. Tenon has since been reindicted on first degree murder, child abuse and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, charges that carry far greater exposure than what he'd originally pleaded to. Tennant's defense has also filed a motion seeking to suppress statements he made to prosecutors during the original plea negotiat. The motion argues that Florida law unequivocally provides that statements made during plea negotiations are inadmissible in any criminal proceeding and that admitting them at trial would undermine the purpose of open plea negotiations. Whether the judge agrees will be pivotal as the case moves forward. At his March 23 appearance, Tenant entered his not guilty plea. No trial date has been set for him. His case is being handled separately from Gardner and Fernandez Saldana, who remain on track for their August trial. And though what Tennant's reversal ultimately means for that prosecution is still an open question. And we close today with a story out of North Texas that is something else entirely, where a man stole human remains from cemeteries, threw a bucket of bones over the fence of an FBI field office, and then posted the whole thing to YouTube. On March 23, police in Bartonville, Texas responded to a call from the mother of 41 year old Michael Chadwick Fry after he showed up at her home asking for money to rent a U Haul, telling her he had a body that needed to be moved. She said he became irate when she questioned him and he left. It was that call that set off a chain of events revealing one of the stranger cases we've come across. Shortly after his mother's call, Fry's sister contacted police separately and pointed them to a video he had posted online titled, quote, we send Elizabeth over the FBI fence to summon them by force. End quote. The video showed Fry approaching the FBI Dallas field office, speaking briefly with a gate agent about a complaint he said had gone unanswered, then driving a short distance away and throwing a closed white bucket over the perimeter fence and into the secure parking lot. FBI agents confirmed the bucket contained human human bones. Fry said he was throwing the remains to compel the FBI to investigate what he described as wrongdoing by Denton county officials from a past arrest. Investigators later determined that Fry had stolen an ear of remains from a cemetery in Oklahoma City, a theft Oklahoma City police had already been investigating since February and had removed a coffin from a mausoleum at the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery in Denton. Additional videos on his YouTube channel showed him at his Bartonvill home with a human skull that still had dirt and hair attached. His mother also found a new shovel at the property and GPS searches on her vehicle for three cemeteries, one in Arlington, Texas, and two in Oklahoma City. DNA testing on the recovered remains is currently underway. Fry was ultimately arrested and charged with two counts of abuse of a corpse and one count of tampering with evidence. However, this is not his first encounter with law enforcement. On September 5, 2018, he intentionally crashed a rented pickup truck into the Fox 4 News building in downtown Dallas, got out and threw stacks of papers onto the sidewalk, also leaving behind a suspicious bag that brought out a bomb squad. Police determined at the time that Fry was upset about a 2012 Denton County Police shooting that killed a friend of his. Denton county jail records show he's been booked more than 30 times since 2003. He's currently held on a $30,000 bond and the investigation remains active. It is the most disturbing entry yet in a long history of run ins with the law. For Fry and for the families connected to those cemeteries, the question of who was taken from them is still unanswered. I have created the most advanced AI soldier.
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Vanessa Richardson
Hi listeners, it's Vanessa Richardson. I wanted to take a brief moment to tell you about another show from Crime House that I know you'll love, America's Most Infamous Crimes, hosted by Katie Ring. Each week, Katie takes on a notorious crime, whether unfolding now or etched into American history, revealing not just what happened, but how it forever changed our society. Serial killers who terrorized cities, unsolved mysteries that keep detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes, released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. These are the stories behind the headlines. Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes Tuesday through Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Before you go, let me tell you what else is happening at Crime House today on Crimes of We're looking at a theft that sounds almost fictional, a crime built not around gold or cash, but around something so specific and unexpected that it managed to exist in plain sight for far longer than it should have. It's the kind of story that forces you to rethink what counts as a target and what doesn't. Because the most effective heists aren't always the most violent or high tech. Sometimes they succeed because they exploit something simpler the assumption that no one would ever try it. Throughout history, some criminals have built entire plans around that idea. They didn't just steal valuable things. They stole things no one thought needed protecting or used methods no one expected to work. And when those plans plans succeed. The result is a kind of crime that sounds less like reality and more like a story someone made up after the fact. Here are some heists that sound too bizarre to be real, but are THE Antwerp Diamond Heist in 2003, thieves targeted the Antwerp diamond center in Belgium, a facility considered one of the most secure vault systems in the world. The security wasn't just physical. It was layered, redundant, and designed specifically to prevent exactly the kind of theft that occurred. Infrared heat sensors, seismic detectors, magnetic locks, and surveillance systems all worked together to make unauthorized access nearly impossible. What makes the heist remarkable isn't just that it succeeded, but that it succeeded without triggering those systems in any meaningful way. The thieves didn't rely on brute force. Instead, they studied the vault's design for months, learning how each layer of security functioned and where the vulnerabilities were. They used simple techniques to neutralize sensors and g gain entry, then systematically opened dozens of safe deposit boxes. When the theft was discovered, investigators initially struggled to understand how it had even happened. The system hadn't failed in an obvious way. It had been quietly navigated. The heist didn't look like a break in it looked like the vault had simply been understood too well. The Banco Central burglary in 2005 in Fortaleza, Brazil, a group of criminals carried out one of the most ambitious bank heists in modern not by storming a building, but by digging their way into it from below. The group rented a property near a bank and posed as a landscaping business. Over the course of several months, they removed tons of soil while maintaining the appearance of legitimate work beneath the surface. They were constructing a tunnel that stretched more than 250ft and led directly to the bank's vault. The level of planning involved was closer to an engineering project than a robbery. The tunnel was reinforced, carefully measured, and designed to avoid detection. By the time the thieves broke through and accessed the vault, the operation had already been underway for months without raising suspicion. When the theft was discovered, the scale of what had happened became clear only gradually. It wasn't just that money was missing. It was that an entire parallel construction project had existed beneath the city, unnoticed until the moment it succeeded. The Hatton garden burglary in 2015, a group of men in their 60s and 70s carried out a burglary in London's Hatton Garden district, an area known for jewelry and high value storage. The image alone sounds improbable. Elderly criminals executing a technically demanding heist over a holiday weekend. But what makes the case stand out is not just who did it, but how methodically they approached it. It the group used industrial drilling equipment to cut through a thick concrete wall and access a vault containing dozens of safe deposit boxes. The process took hours, spread across multiple days and required coordination, patience and physical endurance. There was nothing fast about the crime. It wasn't a rush. It was deliberate, almost routine, carried out while the surrounding area was largely empty due to the holiday. By the time the vault was inspected and the full extent of the theft became perpetrators were already gone. The idea that such a crime could be carried out not by a high tech crew, but by a group of aging career criminals gave the entire operation a strange, almost surreal quality. The McDonald's monopoly fraud for years, McDonald's monopoly promotion gave customers the impression that anyone could win. The game was built on randomness. Collect the right pieces and you could walk away with a life changing prize. But behind the scenes, the system had been compromised. A man responsible for distributing the winning game pieces found a way to divert them, passing them along to a network of associates. Instead of chance, the biggest prizes were quietly controlled. What makes this scheme so unusual is how long it went unnoticed. Millions of people participated. Winners were announced publicly. The system appeared transparent, but because it was trusted, no one questioned it. It wasn't a traditional heist involving a vault or physical intrusion. It was a manipulation of a. A way of extracting value from a system that was never designed to defend against that kind of attack. By the time the fraud was discovered, it had been running for years, hidden not by complexity, but by the assumption that the game was fair. The Baker street bank burglary in 1971, a group of criminals in London rented a storefront and began digging a tunnel toward a nearby bank. Over time, they worked their way beneath the city, eventually reaching the vault and stealing the contents of multiple safe deposit boxes. What gives the story its strange edge is how close it came to being stopped and how that opportunity slipped away. A radio enthusiast intercepted the thieves walkie talkie communications and alerted the police. For a brief moment, authorities were aware that something was happening, but they couldn't pinpoint the Exact location in time. By the time they identified the source of the transmissions, the thieves had already completed the job and disappeared. The heist exists in that narrow space between detection and prevention, a moment where the crime was almost understood, but not quite quickly enough to stop it. The securities depot heist. In 2006, a group of criminals in the United Kingdom targeted a cash depot operated by Securitas. The plan didn't rely on stealth or invisibility. Instead, it relied on control. The thieves kidnapped the depot manager and his family, forcing him to grant them access to the facility. Once inside, they calmly loaded millions of pounds in cash into waiting vehicles. What makes the heist feel surreal is how open it was. There was no need to bypass security systems or sneak past guards. The criminals effectively turned the system against itself, using legitimate access to carry out the theft for a period of time. Nothing appeared wrong. The operation unfolded with the structure of normal procedures. It wasn't until later that the scale of the theft became clear. It's a reminder that sometimes the most effective way into a secure system isn't to break it, but to make it work for you. The Dunbar armored heist. In 1997, a group of criminals pulled off what was, at the time one of the largest cash robberies in U.S. history at a Dunbar Armored facility in Los Angele. The key to the heist wasn't force or technology. It was familiarity. One of the participants was a former employee who knew the facility's layout routines and blind spots. Using that knowledge, the group entered the building after hours, restrained employees, and accessed the vault. What makes the crime stand out is how ordinary it appears from the outside. There was no dramatic breach, no visible damage, just a group of people moving through a system they understood well enough to exploit. The theft was eventually uncovered, and the perpetrators were caught. But the heist itself highlighted something uncomfortable. That the greatest vulnerability in a secure system is often the people who already know how it works. What connects these cases isn't just their success. It's their logic. Each one is built around an idea that sounds wrong at first. Dig a tunnel, rig a game, drill through a wall over a holiday weekend. Use the system instead of breaking it. But that's exactly why they work. Security systems are designed to stop expected threats. When a plan falls outside those expectations, when it looks too strange, too slow, or too unlikely, it can move forward without triggering alarm. The result is a kind of crime that feels fictional even after the facts are known. Not because it didn't happen, but because it forces you to rethink what's possible. The theft we explore in today's episode may sound unusual, but it follows the same pattern as these cases. It succeeds not just because of planning, but because of perception. Because no one was looking for it in the right way. For the full story behind one of the most unexpected large scale thefts ever uncovered, listen to today's episode of Crimes of Because sometimes the most successful heists aren't the ones that break the rules, they're the ones that rewrite them. You've been listening to crime house 247 bringing you breaking crime news. I'm Vanessa Richardson. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more developing stories. Stay safe and thanks for listening.
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Vanessa Richardson
Hey Bob, can you work overtime tonight
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Vanessa Richardson
I did it. I passed my exam.
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Vanessa Richardson
Thanks for listening to today's episode. Not sure what to listen to next? Check out America's Most Infamous Crimes, hosted by Kate Katie Ring. From serial killers to unsolved mysteries and game changing investigations, each week Katie takes on a notorious criminal case in American history. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous crimes now. Wherever you listen to podcasts,
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