A woman who witnessed the murder of Ashling Murphy has told the Central Criminal Court that the 23-year-old schoolteacher was "kicking so hard" and using whatever body part she could to get help.
Jenna Stack was giving evidence in the trial of Jozef Puska, 33, who denies murdering Ashling Murphy, and said she met a friend for a run along the Grand Canal in Tullamore shortly after 3 p.m. on January 12, 2022.
She said they came across a bicycle in a hedgerow, which stood out as one of its bars was luminous green. She added that she thought it was a strange place for a bicycle to be.
The pair kept running until Stack heard a noise in the ditch, describing it as "rustling in the hedgerow".
Stack's friend told her that she thought someone was in the hedgerow and Stack told the court that she took a closer look and saw the back of a man who was crouched down.
Stack said she shouted, "Are you OK?" and "What are you doing?" but said the man turned around and told her to "get away".
She told the court that she could see underneath the man and said he was "leaning over her" and covering her body so that she could only see her legs. She added that she could not see the man's hands.
Stack said the girl was "kicking so hard" and "crying out for help". She said the girl was strong and using whatever part of her body that she could.
She said she threatened to call the police even though neither of the women had their phones with them.
Stack said the man lunged at them as if to threaten them and told the court that they ran away to get help.
She described the man as having a foreign accent and said he had a receding hairline, sallow skin, dark eyebrows, stubble on his face, and a shaved head.
Defense Counsel Michael Bowman suggested in cross-examination that Stack and her friend had seen Puska attempting to help Ashling Murphy, adding that he was "trying to stop the bleeding in her neck".
Stack rejected the suggestion, stating that Puska "could have asked for help".
Bowman stated that Puska did not hear what Stack and her friend were saying to him, adding that his client did not intend to be aggressive and that he was crying out in pain because he had got his leg caught in the briars.
Under further cross-examination, Stack said she had been asked to attend a Garda station and identify the attacker from a line-up.
She said she picked a man, number 6, because of his eyes and said she was 100% sure that the person she picked was the person she saw crouching over the girl.
She agreed that the man she picked out was not Puska but said the two men were "very similar".
She said she had not made a mistake in any other evidence she had given.
Aoife Marron, Stack's friend, told the court that she could see a man with his head down in the ditch and said she initially thought that he had fallen off his bike.
She said the man started moving up the slope from the ditch toward them and added that she sprinted away from the scene with Stack. She additionally told the court that she was terrified and thought the man was coming after them.
As the two women ran away from the scene, Stack told Marron that there was a girl there and that she believed she was being raped or about to be raped.
The two women met two workers from Waterways Ireland and began screaming at them to call the police. However, they said the men were not really responding.
Enda Molloy, a friend of Marron's, then cycled by the women and cycled toward the ditch when they told him what had happened.
Molloy gave evidence that he saw the women taking to two men in high-visibility vests and said they were both in distress.
He said he cycled toward the scene and looked into the ditch, eventually spotting a woman lying there.
He told the court that he shouted out but that she gave no response and that he then called the police. He said the woman was lying face up but said her hair was covering her face.
Comments