‘It could only have been one person’: top former detective says system failed the murdered journalist Lyra McKee

When Lyra McKee was shot and killed on the night of 18 April 2019, approximately 150 people were in her vicinity. The 29-year-old journalist had watched in a crowd as rioting broke out in Derry, Northern Ireland. Police footage captured the grainy outline of a man firing a handgun.

This July, more than seven years after McKee was killed, a Belfast judge delivered a verdict after a 25-month trial. Three men were found not guilty of her murder among a series of mostly failed prosecutions. The judgment criticised the prosecution’s case, in particular the lack of evidence identifying the defendants as those depicted, often masked, in video footage.

None of the many onlookers on the street that night came forward as a witness to the murder. Jason Murphy was head of major investigations for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) when McKee was killed. The former detective superintendent oversaw homicide investigations across Northern Ireland’s six counties while running his own caseload, including McKee’s murder.

Next week Channel 4 will air a three-part documentary on his investigation. Murphy is confident that he successfully identified the shooter, who he believes “could only have been one person”. But while the suspect was arrested, they were not charged.

The prosecuting barrister felt that based on the evidence they could present in court, a guilty verdict was not likely. No eyewitness would confirm their identity. Within days of the killing, the New IRA offered its “full and sincere apologies” to McKee’s family, but no individual was held responsible.

Murphy believes that a culture of silence within this tight-knit community – partly owing to a severe mistrust of the police, and partly out of fear of violent repercussions from allies of those implicated – is denying the McKee family justice for Lyra. McKee, who was from a Catholic background, was shot on the Creggan estate, one of Northern Ireland’s last IRA hotbeds. During the Troubles, the mostly Catholic area was a violent battleground, and it remains hostile territory for the PSNI.