GTA: Vice City Stream Used As An Alibi For Murder

On December 18, 2022, Stephen McCullagh, better known as Votesaxon07, launched a six-hour Christmas stream in which he played GTA: Vice City. One of the missions he completed during the stream was the side quest Waste the Wife, in which the main character tracks down the employer’s spouse and kills her, staging it as an accident. While chasing the target, the blogger was humming that he “need to kill this b**ch”, occasionally casting eerie glances into the camera.

That same evening, 30 kilometers from his home in Lisburn (Northern Ireland), in the neighboring town of Lurgan, his 32-year-old pregnant (15 weeks) girlfriend, Natalie McNally, was stabbed to death. In cases like this, suspicion usually falls first on the victim’s partner. However, in this instance, the man appeared to have an alibi in the form of a live broadcast.

Nevertheless, on February 2, 2023, McCullagh was arrested. Evidence found on his seized computer revealed that the “stream” had been pre-recorded — approximately four days before the tragedy. A concerning detail was that viewers were unable to interact with the host, who attributed this to technical issues. While the video played, creating the illusion of his presence, he went to his girlfriend and killed her. His presence near the crime scene was captured by surveillance cameras.

On March 23, 2026, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. The judge sentenced the defendant to the maximum penalty — mandatory life sentence.