Jozef Puska was found guilty of murdering Ashling Murphy by a jury of nine men and three women last week (Picture: PA)
The mother of murdered Irish schoolteacher Ashling Murphy has revealed the heartbreaking last words her daughter spoke to her as she left home.
Her ‘evil’ killer Jozef Puska, 33, was jailed for life on Friday at Dublin’s Central Criminal Court.
During his trial, jurors heard how Puska dragged Ashling off a canal path in Tullamore, Co Offaly, while she was exercising after work on January 12 last year and stabbed her 12 times.
In a victim impact statement read in court by a detective garda, Mrs Murphy said her ‘heart broke the moment I heard the bad news Ashling was murdered’.
‘There is such a void in our home,’ she said.
She said Puska’s actions ‘must have consequences’ and said ‘he should never see the light of day again’.
Mrs Murphy revealed that before her daughter left the house, she had begged her not to go along the canal, to which Ms Murphy replied: ‘Ah mum, I’m 23 years old.’
She gave her ‘a big hug and said “I love you, you’re the best mum in the world” and walked out the door’, Mrs Murphy said.
Jozef Puska (second left), being led in to Tullamore District Court, charged with the murder of Irish teacher Ashling Murphy (Picture: PA)
Ashling Murphy was a primary school teacher in Tullamore (Picture: PA)
Ashling’s partner Ryan Casey, who sat through the trial alongside her parents, sobbed as he described her in a victim impact statement as ‘my closest friend, my best friend’.
‘Ashling was simply everything to me and I simply lost everything,’ he said.
Turning to face Puska in the dock, he went on: ‘You have no idea and will you never have any idea of the level of connection and love Ashling and I shared.
‘You have no idea the love we had for each other. Because of you I have lost my Ashling, because of you, I will never get to marry my soulmate, because of you I will never see her smile again, because of you I have to somehow carry on without her.
‘You smirked, you smiled and you showed no remorse which sums you up the kind of person you are, the epitome of pure evil.’
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