Emotional court scenes as details of Ashling Murphy’s final moments in the Jozef Puska murder trial

There was a gasp in the stands as the exhibition director unfolded the jersey and Ashling Murphy’s mother and father cried loudly.

They, along with the nine men and three women who make up the jury, watched as a blood-stained white T-shirt was also produced, as well as a pair of blue Nike running shoes, a gold necklace and a Claddagh ring.

Evidence bag after evidence bag, her daughter’s personal belongings – now clues in the investigation into what happened in her final moments.

It was the last day of a grueling first week of evidence in the trial against Jozef Puska.

After opening the trial on Tuesday, the prosecution took the jury on a journey in more or less chronological order, reconstructing the events of January 12 last year as they unfolded on that terrible day on the Grand Canal in Tullamore.

It was a journey that began with local woman Jenna Stack. When Ms Stack appeared in court on Wednesday, she told the court that she and her friend Aoife had arranged to go for a run. The women, both teachers, had planned to walk 3.5km along the canal before turning around and walking back the same distance.

During the run, the court heard she saw a bike in the ditch and heard loud rustling and “a lot of noise” coming from the hedge.

“To be honest, it was like someone was in trouble,” Ms. Stack said, adding that she initially thought someone had fallen off their bike.

She told the court she then moved closer and could see the back of a person wearing what looked like a “navy blue bomber jacket” with an emblem.

She said she saw someone who appeared to be squatting over someone and “holding” her down.

She asked the man, “What are you doing?”

He turned to her and said through gritted teeth, “Go away.”

Ms Stack became emotional as she told the court the girl could only move her legs.

“She kicked so hard,” she said.

In evidence of this, Ms Stack said she believed the man was going to rape the woman. She told him she had a phone and would call the guards.

She said this even though neither woman had their phone on them.

The man jumped at them and the two women fled in fright to get help.

The defense suggested what actually happened was that Ms Stack came across Mr Puska, who was “trying to understand what had happened and trying to help Ms Murphy”.

Ms Stack replied: “No, he could have asked us for help.”

When Garda Tom Dunne arrived at the scene, not much could be done to save the life of the woman he saw lying in the ditch.

He told the court that Gda Dunne and Garda Shane Hunter together spent up to 15 minutes trying to save Ms Murphy’s life, taking turns carrying out CPR to give her “the best possible chance”.

There was blood everywhere, Gda Dunne noticed. So much blood that he couldn’t tell where it came from.

The place where they stood was a ditch covered with thick brambles and thick undergrowth, lying beneath a slope that branched off from the footpath along the canal.

Gda Dunne told the court that some of the thorns were caught in the woman’s hair and the rest of her hair was stuck to her head with blood.

From this ditch along the Grand Canal in Tullamore, County Offaly, the two garda, with the help of paramedics, lifted Ms Murphy’s limp body onto the tarmac. As the woman’s head went back, Garda Dunne noticed the necklace. Then, he told the court, “the name Ashling.” He could see “holes or puncture wounds” under her neck.

Yesterday morning paramedic Paul McCabe told the court that with the help of a colleague, Gda Dunne and Gda Hunter, he helped lift Ms Murphy from the ditch onto the footpath.

The paramedic cut open her upper body and attached the electrodes of a defibrillator to her.

Her heart had stopped, he said, there were no signs of life and there was “no point in using the defibrillator” because she was in a non-shockable state.

“Ashling was dead at this point,” he said. “Her pupils were fixed and dilated, her skin was pale and cold, there were no signs of life.” A blanket was then placed over her body.

In the early afternoon, someone brutally ended the 23-year-old teacher’s life.

Her attacker used a knife or similar device to cause twelve sharp injuries that resulted in death, state pathologist Sally Anne Collis said in court on Thursday afternoon.

Her attacker had injured her right and left carotid arteries and her right carotid artery.

Eleven of the neck wounds were stab wounds where the depth was greater than the width and one was a laceration where the wound was longer than it was deep.

While struggling to breathe, Ashling Murphy swallowed her own blood, Dr. Collis.

On two occasions the prosecution questioned the witness about the damage caused to the larynx, which Dr. This led Collis to explain that in her opinion the injury to this area, along with other injuries to the neck, would have been more or less the cause of the damage, leaving the victim speechless.

Dr. Collis said she did not believe Ms Murphy would have been able to “speak or at least make an intelligible sound”.

This harrowing image of his daughter lying in a ditch, fighting for her life and unable to scream, showed Raymond Murphy, Ashling’s father, collapsing. He pulled out a blue handkerchief and buried his head in his hands.

Throughout the week, there were emotional scenes in the public gallery where the Murphy family and other relatives sat as descriptions of Ashling’s murder were linked to the court.

In between there were the little details – the wool hat with the pom-pom found at the crime scene, the pink-painted toenails noted by the state pathologist, the open fitness app that showed a distance of 3.2 km.

The trial of Jozef Puska is taking place in Courtroom 13 on the fourth floor of the Central Criminal Court in Dublin and has attracted great public interest.

On two occasions this week, an overflow courtroom was opened to accommodate increasing numbers in attendance.

Mr Puska, who denies murdering Ashling Murphy, sits in the dock every day alongside an interpreter.

His family, including his brother, sit in the back of the courtroom.

Yesterday, as the week’s evidence came to a close, jurors were shown CCTV showing the movements of Jozef Puska on a bicycle from just before 12.30pm on the afternoon of January 12 last year until just after 2pm of the same Showed in the afternoon.

In a separate area of ​​CCTV, footage of Ms Murphy appearing on monitors around the courtroom showed her leaving Durrow National School, where she taught, and getting into her red Seat car on the day of her murder.

Further footage taken from a camera near the canal at 2.55pm showed Ms Murphy walking along the towpath. After the footage played, there was silence in the court as a still of the image appeared on the screen.

It clearly showed Ms Murphy wearing dark clothing and wearing white-soled trainers.

The picture showed her highlighted hair, long and swept away from her face, peeking out from under a pink bobble hat.