A hat, a camogie top... and tears
Murphy family’s heartbreaking week as evidence bag reveals reminders of Ashling and witnesses recall their futile attempts to resuscitate her lifeless body
IN a harrowing week for Ashling Murphy’s family, some things appeared almost too hard to bear.
Not least on Friday morning when a pale pink woollen hat with a brown fur bobble on it was pulled from an evidence bag and shown to the jury.
Ashling’s mum Kathleen, seated in the main body of the court, let out a sob. Moments later her husband Raymond, seated beside his wife, hung his head and wept as Ashling’s green and navy GAA camogie top from her local KilcormacKilloughey club, as well as a heavily blood-stained white T-shirt, were taken out of evidence bags and shown to the jury.
Other items taken from clear plastic bags in rapid succession included her blood-soaked scarf, which she was wearing when she was found lying in a ditch by the Grand Canal in Tullamore, Co. Offaly, a gold-coloured ring she was wearing on her right middle finger, and a necklace with ‘Ashling’ inscribed on it.
Later in the afternoon, the jury was shown Ashling in the same pink bobble hat for her final walk along the Grand Canal shortly after 2.50pm on January 12 last year.
The prosecution contends that she was killed by Jozef Puska at 3.30pm that day, but he has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The jury was also shown footage of Mr Puska, 33, from Lynally Grove, Mucklagh in Co. Offaly, separately riding his bicycle behind two different women in Tullamore in hours immediately preceding Ashling’s death.
On Wednesday, the court heard evidence from an eyewitness who came across what the defence has now admitted was Mr Puska in the ditch with Ashling Murphy.
The packed courtroom fell silent as Jenna Stack, a young mother and primary school teacher, gave her evidence in a strong, clear voice.
Ms Stack said she lived in Killeigh, about seven kilometres from Tullamore. She taught in the primary school in Mucklagh, the same village where Mr Puska lived.
She arranged to meet a friend for a run on Monday afternoon.
They met at 3.10pm in a car park near the canal. Ms Stack said she left her keys in the vehicle, explaining her daughter would be getting out of a nearby secondary school and would wait for her in the car.
At 3.15pm she set her Garmin timer and they started their run along the canal bank. About 15 minutes later, they noticed a bright green bike pushed into the bushes.
‘It was upright like someone had deliberately put it there. It wasn’t thrown on its side,’ she recalled.
They stopped momentarily when they saw the bike.
‘We heard an awful lot of noise. It wasn’t just an animal. It was quite distinct. It was loud.
‘I remember thinking at the time, “God, it’s a nice bike in a kind of strange place for a bike to be. It must be stolen or someone has fallen off.”
‘We had only gone a couple of feet when we heard a rustling in the hedgerow… It wasn’t an animal. It was quite distinctive. It was like someone was struggling, to be honest,’ she said.
At first, she thought someone had fallen off their bike into the ditch.
As the noise got louder, her friend said: ‘Jenna – did you hear that?’
The witness recalled: ‘I stepped closer to the hedge and shouted, “Are you okay? Do you need help?”… We were starting to get frightened at that point.
‘I could see the back of a jacket, a navy bomber jacket. I might have shouted to him, “Are you okay?” or “What are you doing?”, something like that. ‘When he turned I could see his face clearly. I could not see his hands because he was holding
‘It was like someone struggling, to be honest’
‘She was kicking so hard, like a scissors kick’
the person down. I thought it was a girl at the time.
‘He said, “Get away” and his teeth were gritted. His expression was terrifying. It was a foreign accent.’ She said he saw the man clearly. ‘He had a receding hairline, a shaved head, sallow skin, distinctive dark eyebrows with dark stubble or a beard on his face.
‘His teeth were kind of grinding… He said something else at the time, but I did not know what it was.
‘I saw a girl underneath him. I saw her thighs – I could see from her thighs down to her runners. The girl was kicking and he was leaned over her. He was crouched over holding her down.
‘She was kicking so hard, like a scissors kick. She was moving whatever part of her body she could to get help. She was raising her legs really high… She was really using her core to kick her legs. He was still holding her down. I thought the guy was going to rape her.
‘The girl was still kicking and he was leaned over her,’ she told the court. ‘He turned to his right. I could not see his hands, but he was definitely still crouched and he was holding her down.
‘I took a step back, and I said: “I have a phone and I’m calling the guards. Get off her,”’ she recalled.
Ms Stack told the court she did not have a phone, but put her hand to her pocket to make it look as if she did.
‘I said that hoping it would deter him and he would leave her alone. He lunged towards us as if to frighten us… I thought he was coming after us at that point.’
The witness said the whole incident had lasted only around 30 seconds.
Ms Stack and her friend ran away towards the nearby Digby Bridge to get help.
‘My heart was absolutely pounding,’ she recalled.
After running for around half a kilometre they stopped and tried to get two men in high-vis jackets to call the gardaí. They also stopped two men on bicycles, one of whom they knew, and sent them back towards where the girl was.
She said she was going to run back, to show them where it happened, but her friend warned her not to go.
‘She said: “Jenna, he could be out there. He knows we saw him. He could be coming after us.”’
Later, under cross-examination, defence counsel Michael Bowman told Ms Stack: ‘You gave a very good description of what I suggest is Mr Puska in the hedge.
‘Can I suggest to you that what actually happened is that Mr Puska was trying to assist Ms Murphy?
‘It’s Mr Puska’s recollection that there was an engagement, but he could not make out what you were saying to him.’
Defence counsel insisted his client did not intend to be in any way aggressive, claiming Mr Puska was trying to speak to Ms Stack, but had caught his leg on a briar and called out in pain.
Ms Stack replied that this was not the impression she got.
The court also heard from Garda Tom Dunne, who was on duty in Tullamore Garda Station on January 12. He took a call from a male who sounded very distressed.
‘He wasn’t making a whole lot of sense, but he said there was a body in the ditch,’ Garda Dunne recalled. ‘I spent most of the time trying to
get the exact details of how to get to him. He just kept saying there was a body in the ditch and mentioned Boland’s Lock and Digby Bridge.’
Garda Dunne and a colleague, Garda Shane Hunter, immediately went to the scene in a marked patrol car. At the scene they met three women, including Jenna Stack, her friend Aoife Marron and another woman, Emma Doyle.
They slowed down and the women, who were very distressed, directed them to an area. They went on a bit further and saw two males, who flagged them down.
When he got out of the car, Garda Dunne said he could see there was a body in the ditch – around ‘five to six feet’ in from the path and the same distance down.
He said there was a lot of undergrowth
in the ditch. From where he was standing, he thought the body was female. She was wearing a navy jacket zipped up to her neck, dark leggings and blue runners. There was a pink woolly hat lying close by. He noticed that she had a necklace with the word ‘Ashling’ on it. There was also a mobile phone and car keys for a Seat car.
Garda Dunne also recalled seeing a bicycle with bright green forks lying close to her. He put on disposable gloves, went down into the ditch, unzipped the woman’s jacket and began doing chest compressions. The garda said he had felt for a pulse, but didn’t think there
was one. Garda Hunter came behind him and, between them, they alternated doing compressions for about 10 minutes or more.
In evidence, Garda Hunter told the court he could see around 10 lacerations on the women’s neck.
When paramedics arrived, they lifted the young woman’s body out of the ditch and continued working on her on the walkway.
Garda Dunne said, when she was laid on the pathway, he could see holes or puncture wounds under her neck.
Her head went ‘kind of back’, he said: ‘I could see a lot clearer. I could see holes, puncture wounds under her neck. I could see four or five. There was so much blood… it was impossible to see anything else.’
Detective Sergeant David Scahill arrived moments after his colleagues. He recalled looking down into the ditch, which he said was about six feet deep.
He said the undergrowth was very thick, but it was a bright day. ‘I could see blonde hair,’ he told the court. ‘The lads continued to do CPR; they were doing the best they could do.
‘When we were bringing Ashling up… there was an awful lot of blood. I suppose the thing I remember most, her mouth was wide open.’ At this point of the hearing, the strain began to visibly take its toll on Ashling’s mother and father. They put their heads down and cried while Ashling’s sister Amy put her arms around her mother and continued to rub her back for several minutes. Continuing his evidence, Detective Scahill said when paramedics moved Ashling from the ditch onto the tarmac, he could see a large wound to her neck – ‘a slice’.
‘We’re not doctors, but we did our best’
He added: ‘There were loads of different colours of blood. Brambles in her hair and a lot of blood in her hair.’
Under cross-examination, he added: ‘We’re not doctors… but we did our best at the scene. As light as Ashling was, it took four of us to bring her up [out of the ditch].’
Appearing on Thursday afternoon, State Pathologist Dr SallyAnne Collis confirmed that Ashling died of 12 sharp force injuries, which consisted of 11 deep stab wounds and one 9.2cm long ‘incisor cut’ across her neck.
Dr Collis said that Ashling’s body exhibited extensive abrasions and bruises from her head to her feet, with skin flaps on her fingertips suggesting a defensive gesture against a knife attack.
The cuts on her neck, including the area around her voice box and jugular vein, would have caused nerve damage, rendering her unable to speak or produce normal sounds, and indicating the use of a single-edged, serrated blade.
Hearing this, Ashling’s father became emotional, wiping his tears with a handkerchief.
The trial, in front of a jury of nine men and three women, continues at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin tomorrow.