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

Jason Murphy believes he knows who killed McKee in Derry, but culture of silence and mistrust of police is denying her family justice

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.

“Someone’s fucking shot,” a bystander could be heard crying in mobile phone footage shown as evidence in court. “There’s a fucking kid shot in the head.”