GUILTY Ireland - Ashling Murphy, 23, school teacher, beaten to death, Tullamore, County Offaly, 12 Jan 2022 *arrest*

 

Mr Puska is to go on trial at the Central Criminal Court on 6 June this year in a case expected to last up to four weeks, RTÉ reports.

On Friday at the Central Criminal Court, Mr Justice Paul McDermott said the trial date would remain in place and adjourned the case to 31 March for an update on case progression.
 

Judge Cody was told the DPP had directed that all five be tried by indictment in the Central Criminal Court and he remanded them on bail to appear in court again for service of books of evidence on September 27th.
 
The trial has started!

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"A Dublin court hears a man
accused of murdering schoolteacher Ashling Murphy confessed to his involvement.

The prosecution began outlining its case on Tuesday morning.

The court heard from the prosecution that Ms Murphy was stabbed 11 times in the neck by Mr Puska, with whom she had no previous connection, Irish broadcaster RTÉ reports.

A prosecuting barrister told the jurors it would be understandable if they reacted to the killing of a young woman such as Ms Murphy with visceral revulsion.

However, she added that they were being asked to deal with the case from a cold, clinical, dispassionate perspective."

 
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"Jozef Puska
'admitted to murder'
when gardaí investigating the death of Ashling Murphy spoke to him two days after the 23-year-old school teacher was found dead beside the Grand Canal in Tullamore, a barrister has told the trial.

Anne-Marie Lawlor SC opened the case on Tuesday morning for the prosecution before a jury of three women and nine men at the Central Criminal Court.

She said the evidence will show that Ms Murphy suffered 11 stab wounds to the right side of her neck while she was out for a run after work on January 12th last year.

Ms Lawlor said a scientist from the Forensic Science Laboratories will give evidence that Mr Puska's DNA was found under Ms Murphy's fingernails.

She said the prosecution will also rely on CCTV which she said shows Mr Puska in Tullamore in the hours before Ms Murphy died, cycling slowly close to two other women.

She said Mr Puska's 'distinctive' bicycle was found at the scene where Ms Murphy's body was found.

There will also be evidence, she said, that Mr Puska had cuts and scratches on
'every exposed part of his body'
which she said are consistent with him leaving the scene of the killing through the thick briars that surround the canal.

That was
'the only way to leave without being apprehended by people on the canal who had come across Ashling's body',
Ms Lawlor said.

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So...
Defence for the man accused of murdering Ashling Murphy suggests he was 'trying to assist' her o_O

Hmm...
 
Does anyone know what his motive might have been?

My initial assumption was a mugging gone wrong.

Guys on bikes snatching phones off women is a common enough crime in Dublin particularly ( I know this happened in Offaly).

The accused's ethnic group is known for pickpocketing. I know that's a racist stereotype.

Ashling Murphy played hurling from a very young age so would've been much stronger than expected.
So I was thinking her grip was strong and she fought back and it escalated and the accused panicked.
The initial reports were that she was strangled.

Now I'm not sure as he had a knife and he was stalking two other women.

We may never know as he's denying everything and pleading not guilty.
 
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I think it was an attempted rape. The way the witness described his bike dumped in the hedge and they could see a man crouched down holding someone down.
If he wanted to just take her phone I’m not sure that would be the way to do it.
 
"Two Gardaí alternated applying chest compressions until Ambulance personnel arrived.

This morning, Garda Tom Dunne from Tullamore Garda Station said he received a call at around 3:35pm on the afternoon of January 12th from a man described as sounding very distressed.

He and his colleague Garda Shane Hunter made their way to the scene, where he said he found the body of Ashling Murphy in a ditch along the Grand Canal.

Garda Dunne said she was wearing a jacket, which he unzipped so he could apply CPR and chest compressions.

He said the two Gardaí alternated applying chest compressions for about 10 minutes until Ambulance personnel arrived.

The court heard Ms Murphy was found with a phone in her pocket, along with keys to a SEAT car and a necklace around her neck which said ‘Ashling’.

Garda Hunter, in his evidence, said he noticed thin lacerations on Ms Murphy’s neck, and that he recovered her phone from an open pocket."


"Both gardai got into a car and went straight out to the canal, where they first met three “distressed” women at Digby Bridge, who he said pointed them in the direction of where the woman’s body was.

There, they met two cyclists- Enda Molloy and Janusz Wilko, who pointed out the body inside a ditch. Detective Garda Dunne told the court that he could 'see straight away there was a body in the ditch'.

He said the scene appeared to be overgrown and thick, and a couple of feet in appeared to be a female, “lying with her head towards Tullamore and her feet towards Digby Bridge.
'It appeared she was face up', the Detective Garda said.

He told the court how he put on his disposable gloves and unzipped a jacket Ms Murphy was wearing before he began performing CPR and chest compressions.

He said he felt for a pulse, but could not find one - later adding that 'if there was one it was very faint.'
He and Garda Hunter alternated between them, he said in doing chest compressions and CPR for approximately 10 to 15 minutes.

Describing what he could see at the time the Detective Garda told the court:
'Her face, there was a lot of blood. Her hair was matted, kind of caught in the briars. You couldn't see her face. There was an awful lot of blood. It was impossible to tell where it was coming from at the time.'

After that he said paramedics and an ambulance arrived - and along with his colleague they lifted Ms Murphy out to the path and a defibrillator was applied
'I was present when they said no signs of life. And they stopped working on the body',
he told the court.

Det Gda Dunne also told the court that he could then see more 'holes, puncture wounds under her neck'.
He said he could see about four or five wounds - but that there was 'so much blood, it was impossible to see'.

Asked by defence counsel if he could feel a pulse, the Detective Garda said that he said in his statement that he had 'looked for one and couldn’t find one. If there was one it was very faint, very weak' he said.

His colleague Garda Shane Hunter told Prosecuting Counsel Anne-Marie Lawlor that he was alerted by Det Gda Dunne in the detective's office at around 3:35pm on January 12.

He told the court that he could see a fitness app on the screen of the phone with a time of 15:16 and activity on it from running for a period of one hour 24 minutes and 20 seconds - and a distance of 3.2 kilometres."

 
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Live from Court

Dr Sallyanne Collis, a state pathologist, is now going to give evidence.

She agrees Ashling Murphy's cause of death was stab wounds to the neck and there were no other contributory factors.

Before her post-mortem examination, she was told CPR was attempted but resuscitation was unsuccessful and Ms Murphy's death was formally pronounced at 5.51pm on 12 January 2022.

Dr Collis is describing to the court each of the stab wounds to the right side of Ashling Murphy's neck.

 
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"Dr Collis says there were 12 wounds inflicted by a knife.

Eleven of them were stab wounds, and one was an incised wound - where it is longer rather than deeper.

One wound which went through Ashling Murphy's voice box, along with the other injuries, would have meant that she probably could not speak.

Some wounds were in keeping with having been caused by a serrated blade.

Some injuries on her hands may have been defensive injuries where she may have held up her hands to try to protect herself.

The stab wounds were predominantly to the right side of Ashling Murphy's neck, the court hears.

Asked by Mr Puska's barrister if a right-handed person would normally stab the left side of a person, Dr Collis says yes, if they are both facing each other.

But under re-examination from the prosecution, Dr Collis says a situation like this would be very dynamic and people would have been moving around.

Dr Collis is now finished her evidence."

 

"Woman tells murder trial man on bike followed her on day Ashling Murphy's body found.


A woman has described being followed by a man on a bicycle in Tullamore, Co Offaly, as she was out on a walk on 12 January 2022, less than two hours before the body of school teacher Ashling Murphy was discovered in a ditch beside the Grand Canal.

Ann Marie Kelly was giving evidence at the trial of 33-year-old Jozef Puska, who has denied the murder of Ms Murphy on 12 January last year."

 

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