Lyra McKee’s partner hopes killer is haunted by journalist’s death

Sara Canning, the former partner of murdered journalist Lyra McKee, says she hopes the gunman who shot her dead lives every day with the weight of what he did. Speaking ahead of the sixth anniversary of McKee’s killing, Canning described the unidentified shooter as “pathetic” and said she holds little hope that justice will ever come.

A night that changed everything

McKee, 29, was shot on April 18, 2019, during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry. She had been standing near police lines, observing the unrest, when a dissident republican gunman opened fire. A bullet struck her in the head. She was taken to Altnagelvin Area Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. She had been just weeks away from moving into a new home with Canning.

The New IRA claimed responsibility for the killing. No one has ever been charged.

‘I want him to be haunted’

Canning hasn’t softened her words in the years since. “I want him to wake up every single morning and feel the weight of what he did,” she said in a recent interview. “He took something irreplaceable. And for what? Nothing. He’s pathetic.”

She said she has largely accepted that a conviction is unlikely. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has appealed multiple times for information, and a £10,000 reward was offered for details leading to an arrest. Still, the case remains unsolved. Canning said the lack of accountability is painful, but it won’t define her grief.

She doesn’t spend her days waiting for a knock on a courtroom door that may never come.

McKee’s legacy continues

In the years since her death, McKee’s name has become synonymous with both the promise of a new generation of Northern Irish journalism and the fragility of peace. She had been working on a book about the disappeared children of the Troubles — young people whose lives were swallowed by the conflict. Her notes and research have since been preserved by her family and friends.

The Lyra McKee Bursary, established in her memory, has supported several emerging journalists from Northern Ireland. More than 200 people applied for the award in its first two years alone.

A Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesperson said the investigation into McKee’s murder remains active. “We continue to appeal to anyone with information to come forward,” the spokesperson said. “Lyra’s family and loved ones deserve answers.”

Six years on, an open wound

For Canning, anniversaries bring no closure. They bring memory — of McKee’s laugh, her relentless curiosity, the way she approached every story like it personally mattered to her. Because it did.

And so Canning speaks. She keeps saying the name. She keeps describing the man who pulled the trigger as small, cowardly, and ultimately irrelevant to who Lyra was. The hope isn’t for a trial anymore. It’s that somewhere, in whatever life he’s living, the gunman can’t escape what he did on that street in April 2019.