Everyone believed his sister-in-law took her own life — until her family uncovered the dark secret behind “perfect jockey” Johnny
In some ways Paula Mullan wants the inquest into her niece’s death to be over because she’s worried about the impact that the horrific details of Katie Simpson’s murder will have on Katie’s mother.
‘You’re going to have to listen to it all again,’ she says. ‘I worry about my sister Noeleen having to go through all that and my parents.’
As the oldest of her siblings, Paula is the one who speaks for the family as much as she can. But since showjumper Katie’s death in August 2020, life has never been the same for the Mullan family.
The initial trauma that this beautiful 21-year-old with everything to live for had taken her own life soon spiralled into a nightmare, during which the family tried in vain to get the Police Service of Northern Ireland to listen to their fears that she had in fact been murdered.
Had it not been for the courageous actions of a journalist, a police detective from a different jurisdiction and the concerns of a family friend, horse trainer Jonathan Creswell – the partner of Katie’s eldest sister Christina – would have got away with murder.
Creswell battered, raped and strangled Katie, then pretended she had hanged herself from the bannisters of the home she shared with Creswell and her sister, their children and another woman from the horsey set, Rose de Montmorency Wright. The women were all working with Creswell in a business along with his former girlfriend Jill Robinson.
He was a known abuser, having been convicted and jailed for serious assaults on his ex-girlfriend Abigail Lyle, but Paula says she knew nothing of Creswell’s past crimes when he was with her niece.
During his trial for Katie’s murder, the 36-year-old could see that the odds were stacked against him and while he was out on bail, he took his own life.
Later three women, who had also at some point been in sexual relationships with Creswell, were given suspended sentences for withholding information from police about the circumstances of Katie’s death.
Now Paula says she hopes the upcoming inquest will bring some kind of peace for the family, when it finally happens.
She is frustrated that it is taking this long.
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Jonathan Creswell battered, raped and strangled 21-year-old Katie Simpson, then pretended she had hanged herself from the bannisters of her home
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The young showjumper succumbed to her injuries six days after the attack in August 2020
‘The system needs to be looked at, because you feel as if you’ve moved on a wee bit and then, bang, you’re back to square one again,’ she says.
She was angry, she says, when Creswell took his own life, as the family never got to see him stand in the dock and be punished for what he did to Katie.
‘We were sort of waiting for that,’ she says. ‘But now you sort of feel, well, it’s the best outcome because he’ll never be near them children, he will never hurt any other girl.’
It’s something of a cold comfort, given what the family has been through in the last five years.
The Mullans are a Catholic family from Middletown in Co. Armagh, close to the border with Monaghan. Noeleen married Jason Simpson, a Protestant from nearby Tynan, and they had four children – Christina, Rebecca, Katie and John – before the marriage broke up.
Katie was brought up in Tynan, in the thick of an equestrian community where horses were everything. She was a keen rider and sought work within the industry that was her passion, which was the reason she moved to Greysteel in Co Derry with Christina, Jonathan and Rose who, along with Jill, also worked in the business.
Paula lived close by but says she rarely saw her nieces, who called to see her occasionally, but only when Creswell was away.
She never really warmed to the ruddy-cheeked, blue-eyed horseman but couldn’t put her finger on what it was she didn’t like about him. She kept her counsel, though, as most would do in a family situation.
When she was called to Altnagelvin Hospital on that terrible day in August 2020, Katie was her priority and she didn’t think of anything else, apart from the fact that her niece had seemed like such a happy girl.
As she lived nearby, she got to the hospital before her sister, who was faced with a drive of almost two hours. The police were in the family room, speaking to Creswell at the time, Paula remembers.
Shortly after that, they left, before Noeleen and Jason had arrived.
‘Katie was being treated, the doctors and nurses were trying to save her life,’ says Paula. ‘I was trying to keep my parents updated and keep in contact with my sister.
‘The police left before my sister got there. I just thought that was very strange. Why would you not meet the parents and explain to them what they had found, that this had happened to their daughter, you know what I mean?’
There was no case number, no one to ask questions to. The PSNI had decided it was a suicide attempt at that stage, despite nurses expressing concerns about the bruising on Katie’s body and about the fact that she was experiencing vaginal bleeding.
Katie didn’t recover from her injuries and died six days after she was admitted to hospital. While suicide is a devastating blow to any family, worse was to unfold.
A friend of Katie’s named Paul Lusby, who has since died, came to Paula’s house, and spoke to her partner James.
‘We knew him very well and he said to James that he had real doubts [about the death],’ she says.
Paul had offered to help Creswell and Christina move house from the one they shared with Katie in Co. Derry. But he told James that he had seen blood spatters at the top of the stairs and bloody fingerprints in the house at Greysteel, and he was worried that Katie had come to harm at the hands of Creswell.
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Former Armagh detective James Brannigan stands with Katie’s aunts Paula Mullan (left) and Colleen McConville
It was something Paula couldn’t let lie so she went to Strand Road Police Station in Derry herself.
‘I wanted to say to them, I don’t think this is suicide, and I went to the station but they just said: ‘We’ll pass that on,’ she recalls. ‘I had never been in a police station in my life so I didn’t know I should have asked to make a full statement.’
Others approached the PSNI in Derry too but it wasn’t until local journalist Tanya Fowles contacted James Brannigan, a detective from Armagh, over suspicions she had about Creswell that anything happened. Brannigan contacted the family.
‘This policeman on the phone says: ‘How are you? How are you all doing?’ recalls Paula. ‘Well, my God, it just hit me like a tonne of bricks because nobody had asked that.
‘Up until this point, this was suicide as far as the police were concerned, so we had no liaison officers, nobody visiting, nothing. There was the wake, the funeral and then you were just left to it.’
Paula says she told Brannigan everything about how she had been to Strand Road and what her concerns were. That was the beginning of the family’s contact with Brannigan, who fought to get the case investigated and pushed to get it into court.
He has since left the police force and, with the blessing of Paula and her sister Colleen, has set up The Katie Trust, a charity to help families like theirs, who might find themselves in a similar, horrific situation.
The Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland found that the PSNI investigation was ‘flawed’ and while the then assistant chief constable Davy Beck apologised to the family following the ombudsman’s report, there is still to be a full independent review into how Katie’s case was handled.
‘We’re very supportive of James and what he is doing,’ Paula says of The Katie Trust.
‘We just think it’s a great thing for people to have somebody to listen to them because when you’re going through that, it’s just like a nightmare, like an explosion going off.
‘So to have someone to guide you, to help you even with what to say or what to ask…’
But it wasn’t only the PSNI who let the Mullan family down. After being charged with Katie’s murder, Creswell was allowed out on bail, which had been posted by members of the equestrian community. Paula was afraid of what Creswell might do to her own family.
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Ex-assistant chief constable of the Northern Ireland Police Service Davy Beck has since apologised to Katie’s family members after the force originally deemed her case a suicide
‘When he got out on bail, I had the fear he was coming here to the house because it does happen, if you stir the pot, people like that don’t like it,’ Paula says.
‘It felt like everything was going against us.’
It meant she was also faced with having to see him in the area, and for Paula that happened when she was grocery shopping.
‘There was always that fear of bumping into him, which I did once in the supermarket, which was very traumatic,’ she says.
‘He came round the corner and just bumped into my trolley and he was like: ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ I don’t think he recognised me,’ she says. ‘I recognised him right away and I said: ‘You will be sorry for what you did.’
‘He answered me and he was so calm and his body language was almost as if he was asking me for a ten-minute chat to explain it all away.
‘I just said: ‘Oh my God, get out of my way.’ It took him a while to move and then he went on over towards the fridges and he was roaring and shouting because I said to him: ‘You will be sorry.’ He was shouting: ‘You’ll see all the whole truth has come out,’ and ‘just wait and see’. That was a hard day.’
The family are also still angry that three women who either were or had in the past had sexual relations with Creswell, received only suspended sentences when they were brought to court in 2024 for withholding evidence surrounding Katie’s death.
Hayley Robb, then aged 30, admitted to withholding information and to perverting the course of justice by washing Creswell’s clothes and by cleaning blood in his home. She was sentenced to serve two years in prison, suspended for two years.
Jill Robinson, then 42, admitted to perverting the course of justice by washing Creswell’s clothes, and was sentenced to 16 months in prison, suspended for two years. Rose de Montmorency Wright, then 23, admitted to withholding information while knowing of Creswell’s alleged assault on Katie, and was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for two years.
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Horse trainer, 36, accused of raping and murdering female showjumper, 21, is found dead at his home while out on bail on the second day of his trial
Although no one has been jailed for Katie’s murder, Paula can only hope that by telling Katie’s story, it could help other families and it could help other women in coercive and abusive situations see that they aren’t alone, that there is help out there.
‘You are always thinking, I should have done this or I should have done that,’ Paula says. ‘But he was smart, in that part of coercive control is isolating people.
‘When my niece was moving up here, I never was in their house because he isolated them away. The only time that they visited here was when he was away somewhere at a show or something. We thought they were busy working.’
But the work itself was part of the abuse, Paula explains.
‘He was abusing her,’ she says. ‘That’s different. A relationship is where you go on a date and you take them out for dinner in the cinema and you’re happy to tell your family and all that.
‘That was not a relationship, that was an abuse. He was raping her whenever he wanted. He felt he could do whatever he wanted.
‘He had that confidence around him,’ she says, insisting that Creswell would have made her niece feel that if she went against him, no one else in the industry would take her on.
Katie’s death has affected the family in different ways. Paula says it has aged her parents, Katie’s grandparents, with what she describes as the heartbreak of it all. As the eldest, Paula is the one with the broadest shoulders but each family member carries the others through their good days and bad days.
‘It’s brought us closer in a way,’ she says.
Paula is passionate about speaking up on the subject of coercive control and instilling in the younger generation what this looks like.
‘There are times when you feel so stupid that you didn’t see things,’ she says. ‘That’s why speaking out about it is good because it gives people a wee bit more knowledge. We are just an ordinary family and if this can happen to our family, it can happen to any family.’
Share or comment on this article: Jockey raped and killed his sister-in-law and claimed it was suicide. In a final act of cowardice, he killed himself before her family ever found out why. Now, they exclusively reveal the dark and sinister truth about ‘kind and charming Johnny’
May 21, 2026 🚨 BREAKING: Trump Summons JD Vance, Rubio & Hegseth to Emergency White House Meeting — Washington on EdgeS
🚨 BREAKING: Trump Summons JD Vance, Rubio & Hegseth to Emergency White House Meeting — Washington on Edge
BREAKING: President Donald Trump has called an urgent high-level meeting inside the White House tonight, bringing together Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in what insiders are describing as one of the most critical strategy sessions of the year.
According to multiple sources familiar with the situation, the closed-door meeting began shortly after heightened activity was spotted around the West Wing earlier this evening. Senior staff, security personnel, and top national security aides were reportedly seen entering the White House complex as speculation exploded across Washington.
The extraordinary gathering immediately triggered intense political reactions because all four men represent the core power structure of Trump’s administration heading into a period of growing international instability and mounting domestic political pressure.
President Trump, who has recently vowed to restore “peace through strength,” is said to be personally leading discussions surrounding America’s next move on several rapidly developing global situations. While officials have not publicly confirmed the full agenda, insiders suggest the talks involve escalating tensions overseas, military readiness, border security concerns, and the administration’s broader foreign policy strategy moving forward.
Vice President JD Vance reportedly arrived early and has emerged as one of Trump’s closest political confidants during major policy negotiations. Sources inside the administration claim Vance has been heavily involved in shaping the White House response to international conflicts and growing concerns about America’s global posture.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who now oversees U.S. diplomatic operations abroad, was also seen entering the West Wing under heavy security. Rubio has recently taken a much more aggressive stance regarding America’s adversaries, warning that the United States must project strength and avoid what he described as “dangerous weakness on the world stage.”
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s presence has fueled even more speculation online. Political observers note that whenever the Pentagon’s top leadership joins emergency White House talks alongside the president and vice president, it often signals discussions involving military preparedness or national security contingencies.
Sources close to the administration describe the atmosphere inside the White House tonight as “extremely serious” and “laser-focused.” One insider reportedly stated that Trump wants his inner circle fully aligned before making any major public decisions in the coming days.
Outside the White House, reporters and camera crews gathered as rumors quickly spread across social media platforms. Supporters of the president praised the administration for acting decisively during a moment of uncertainty, while critics questioned whether a major policy shift could be imminent.
Political analysts are already calling this one of the most closely watched White House meetings since Trump returned to office. Some believe the administration may soon announce new actions related to foreign policy, defense strategy, or executive authority.
At this hour, no official statement has been released by the White House press office — but Washington is watching closely.One thing is undeniable tonight: when Donald Trump, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth gather behind closed doors at the White House, the political world stops and pays attention.More developments are expected soonBREAKING NEWS: Bret Baier cuts into live broadcast with urgent update on Trump
BREAKING NEW: Bret Baier cuts into live broadcast with urgent update on Trump
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a dramatic and unexpected moment that immediately captured national attention, Fox News interrupted its regular live programming to deliver an urgent announcement concerning former President Donald Trump.
The sudden break-in left viewers across the country momentarily stunned and sparked widespread discussion across social media and political circles.
A Sudden Interruption
The interruption occurred during a routine live segment when the network abruptly cut away from its scheduled broadcast. Veteran anchor Bret Baier appeared on screen, signaling the significance of the moment with a composed yet serious tone. Baier informed viewers that the network had just received important information related to Trump, emphasizing the urgency and relevance of the development.
While the initial announcement was brief, the gravity of the interruption suggested that the update carried substantial political or legal implications. Such unscheduled cut-ins are rare in modern broadcasting and are typically reserved for events of major national importance.
Immediate Public Reaction
Within minutes, the news spread rapidly across social media platforms, with hashtags related to Trump and Fox News trending nationwide. Supporters of the former president expressed anticipation and optimism, while critics called for additional context and verification. The interruption underscored Trump’s enduring influence on the American political landscape, even outside of formal office.
Media analysts noted that the swift public response highlighted the continued polarization of U.S. politics. Any major update involving Trump tends to generate intense interest, reflecting his central role in shaping contemporary political discourse.
Potential Implications
Although the precise details of the announcement were still emerging at the time of the broadcast, experts suggested several possible areas the update could involve, including:
Legal Developments: Ongoing court proceedings or judicial decisions.Political Strategy: Announcements related to campaign activities or endorsements.
Policy Statements: New positions on domestic or international issues.
Organizational Changes: Shifts within political or media alliances.
Regardless of the specific nature of the news, the decision by Fox News to interrupt its programming indicated that the development was considered highly significant.
Trump’s Continued Political Influence
Since leaving the White House, Donald Trump has remained a dominant figure in American politics. His statements and actions continue to shape the direction of the Republican Party and influence national conversations. Political strategists argue that moments like this demonstrate his ability to command media attention and mobilize public engagement.
The relationship between Trump and Fox News has also been closely observed over the years. While generally aligned in reaching conservative audiences, the dynamic has experienced periods of both cooperation and tension, making any major announcement involving the two particularly noteworthy.
Media Practices and the Significance of Breaking News
Breaking into live programming is a longstanding journalistic practice used to inform the public about urgent and consequential events. Such interruptions signal to viewers that the information being delivered is both timely and significant. In this case, the network’s decision reinforced the perceived importance of the announcement and its potential national impact.
Media experts emphasize that while immediate reporting is essential, audiences should also look for follow-up coverage and official confirmations to fully understand the context and implications of the news.
Looking Ahead
As additional details continue to emerge, political observers anticipate further analysis regarding how the announcement may influence upcoming political developments. Whether the update pertains to legal matters, campaign strategy, or policy initiatives, it is likely to have ripple effects across the political spectrum.
For now, the interruption serves as a reminder of the powerful intersection between media and politics in the United States. Moments like these not only inform the public but also shape the broader national conversation.
Conclusion
The sudden decision by Fox News to cut into its live broadcast underscores the enduring significance of Donald Trump in American public life. While the full scope of the announcement continues to unfold, the event highlights the speed at which major political developments can capture national attention and ignite widespread debate.
As the story develops, viewers and analysts alike will be watching closely to assess its broader implications for the political landscape in the months ahead.
At 48, Vanessa Trump Discloses That She Has Been Diagnosed With a Serious Health Condition
At 48, Vanessa Trump Discloses That She Has Been Diagnosed With a Serious Health Condition
In a revelation that has stunned many supporters and followers, Vanessa Trump has reportedly opened up about a deeply personal health battle at the age of 48. The former model and public figure, widely recognized for her years in the spotlight and her connection to the Trump family, is said to be facing a serious medical condition that has dramatically impacted her life behind closed doors.
Sources close to Vanessa claim that she decided to speak publicly after months of speculation surrounding her recent appearances and sudden absence from several public events. According to insiders, the diagnosis came after a series of medical examinations that began earlier this year when she reportedly experienced persistent fatigue, unexplained pain, and concerning health complications.
Although Vanessa has chosen to keep some details private, reports suggest that the condition requires ongoing medical supervision and major lifestyle adjustments. Friends close to the family say the diagnosis initially came as a devastating shock, especially considering Vanessa had always maintained a healthy and active image in public.
“She has been trying to stay strong for her children and family,” one insider reportedly shared. “The last few months have been emotionally overwhelming, but Vanessa is determined to fight through this challenge with courage.”
The emotional announcement has quickly sparked reactions online, with supporters flooding social media with messages of encouragement and prayers. Many fans praised Vanessa for her bravery in discussing such a sensitive issue publicly, noting that her openness could inspire others facing similar health struggles.
Medical experts who commented on the situation emphasized the importance of early detection and regular health screenings, especially for individuals over the age of 40. While no official medical records have been released, the discussion surrounding Vanessa’s condition has reignited conversations about women’s health awareness and the hidden pressures faced by public figures.
In addition to dealing with health concerns, Vanessa has reportedly been focusing more on her personal well-being and family life. Those close to her say she has reduced public appearances significantly in order to prioritize treatment, recovery, and emotional healing.Despite the uncertainty surrounding her diagnosis, Vanessa is said to remain optimistic. Sources indicate she has been surrounded by close friends and loved ones who continue to support her through every stage of the journey.
As the news continues to spread, many are watching closely for further updates regarding Vanessa Trump’s condition. For now, supporters across the country are sending hope, strength, and encouragement as she navigates one of the most difficult chapters of her life.
