Belfast jury hears prosecution case in trial over murder of 21-year-old woman

Opening day in Belfast

Jurors at Belfast Crown Court heard the opening case on Wednesday, 4 November 2026, in a murder trial linked to the disappearance of a 21-year-old woman in Ballymena in June 2023. The accused, Brandon Rainey, is 30 and formerly of James Street in the town. He faces a charge of murder and a second charge of attempting to stop the lawful burial of her remains, and he denies both. Rainey had entered not guilty pleas at an earlier hearing in 2024. Relatives and friends of the woman filled the public gallery, and Rainey appeared in court in a grey hoodie and grey cargo trousers.

What prosecutors say happened

Prosecution barrister David Russell KC told the jury that the woman was last seen alive on the evening of 2 June 2023, when she and two female friends visited Rainey's ground floor flat on James Street and drank with him for a short time. Prosecutors say she was killed in the early hours of 3 June 2023 inside that flat, and that Rainey then dismembered her body and placed the parts in several plastic bags inside two residential bins nearby. Jurors were shown CCTV that the prosecution says captures three short journeys by Rainey while he disposed of the body. Police located the remains eight days later, and decomposition was so advanced that identification relied on dental records and a tattoo.

Russell described the killing in strong terms and told the jury what he said the evidence would show.

“It was a cruel and brutal death at his hands and we say given the nature of the attack he clearly intended to kill her.”

Evidence and the friends' accounts

Russell said the case rests on a body of evidence pointing clearly to Rainey, including what he called a very substantial forensic connection between the defendant, his flat and blood from the victim. He described the relationship between the two as on-off and said the woman had significant addiction issues. The prosecution read out the recollections of the two friends who were with her before she was last seen. One recalled Rainey becoming aggressive toward her at his home and refusing to let her leave. The other described him grabbing her by the hair and throwing her against the shutter of a shop with enough force that she fell. One friend told police that, after the group had smoked cannabis and drunk alcohol, Rainey made a remark about cutting someone up and dissolving them in the bath. Prosecutors also said that Rainey had a fascination with Jack the Ripper, had searched online for the figure, and had tried to buy 'amputation knives' online from surgical companies. Russell added that Rainey gave police what the prosecution called a catalogue of lies.

Cause of death and the trial's first day

The court heard that a postmortem examination carried out by Northern Ireland's State Pathologist, James Lyness, found the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head and stab wounds to the chest, with possible gagging also recorded. Prosecutors told the jury the woman suffered a sustained assault with weapons while alive, and that her body was mutilated after death. Wednesday was the first day of the trial, and it consisted of the prosecution's opening. The jury is made up of six men and six women, and the defence has not yet been heard in the trial.