EXCLUSIVE | 

Jozef Puska put on suicide watch after self-harming before he was due to take stand

The Sunday World understands the convicted murderer – now known as prisoner 117923 – has remained on ‘close obs’

Today at 19:05

Ashling Murphy’s killer has been kept on suicide watch in prison for the past week – after he self-harmed the night before he was initially due to testify in his own defence.

Staff on the D2 landing in Cloverhill Prison discovered Puska and successfully intervened to prevent him causing serious injury to himself on the evening of October 31st.

The incident led to the proceedings in his trial being suspended for a day before Puska was cleared to testify on his own behalf on Thursday of last week.

The Sunday World understands the convicted murderer – now known as prisoner 117923 – has remained on ‘close obs’ or suicide watch ever since.

Sources say Puska has been returned to Cloverhill Prison tonight and will return to his cell in the remand prison until he is sentenced on Friday week.

After sentencing, he will then be taken to Mountjoy Prison where he will be evaluated and a decision made on which prison to send him to.

“He will have to be carefully assessed,” a source said.

“Because of the incident last week, there are obviously concerns for his welfare.

“Whether that was a ruse to derail the trial or a serious attempt at self-harm is something only he really knows but any incident of this nature is taken extremely serious within the prison system.”

Puska is facing into a life sentence for murdering Ms Murphy at the Grand Canal in Tullamore, Co Offaly on January 12, 2022.

A jury took just over two hours to find him guilty by unanimous verdict.

Ashling’s parents, Ray and Kathleen, her brother Cathal and sister Amy, as well as her boyfriend Ryan sat in the public gallery and there were subdued gasps of relief when they heard the verdict.

After the verdict, the judge said that to lose a child was unnatural.

He said the case was difficult for the Murphy family because there had been such a focus on it.

“We have evil in this room”, he said.

Judge Hunt also told the jury that he was glad they did not “waste any more of your valuable time with Puska’s nonsense”.

During the four-week trial, the jury heard evidence that Puska stabbed Ms Murphy on the right side of the neck 11 times with a knife.

The stab wounds damaged her right and left jugular vein, as well as her voice box and right carotid artery, the postmortem found, and it’s unlikely she would have been able to speak or make intelligible sounds.

A fingerprint mark and a DNA sample belonging to Puska was taken from a bicycle found near Ashling’s body, the court heard.

Male DNA found under Ashling’s fingernails also matched two samples taken from Puska.

On January 14, 2022 – two days after her death – Puska admitted killing Ashling, the jury heard.

From his bed in St James’ Hospital in Dublin Puska told detectives: “I did it. I murdered. I am the murderer.”

In his evidence, Puska claimed that he was pushed off his bike, and that he was stabbed three times in the stomach by a man in a face mask, who then assaulted and killed Ms Murphy.