LAST UPDATE | 24 Oct 2023

A WITNESS WAS afraid to come forward with information about the man accused of murdering Ashling Murphy because of the “ugly atmosphere” in Tullamore following her death, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

The trial also heard today that Ashling Murphy’s final moments were recorded on a Fitbit watch which showed “erratic” or “violent” movements before her heart rate began to decrease and stop at the point along the Grand Canal in Tullamore where she died.

She had been exercising on the canal towpath from 2.41pm until 3.21pm when the gps showed that her location did not change, the court heard.

Rostislav Pokuta today told prosecution counsel Anne-Marie Lawlor SC that the accused man, Josef Puska, called to his home at around 9pm on the night after Ms Murphy died. He said Mr Puska was wet and “kind of really frightened”.

His face was not his usual colour and was covered in scratches.

He was “talking like a different person”, the witness said, and when asked what happened, Mr Puska told him that he had been “in a fight or something in town” but didn’t say who he had fought with.

“He didn’t really want to talk,” Mr Pokuta said.

Mr Puska asked the witness for a lift to his home in Mucklagh and Mr Pokuta, who knew the accused as they are both Slovakian and Mr Pokuta is a school bus driver, agreed.

He drove Mr Puska to Mucklagh in his son’s grey Volkswagen Golf and identified Mr Puska on CCTV arriving at his home at 9.10pm before they both left in the Volkswagen.

Mr Pokuta agreed with prosecution counsel Anne-Marie Lawlor SC that when he first spoke to gardai on 21 January last year, he did not tell them about this meeting with Mr Puska.

He said he was “worried about my family” because “there was a lot going on, people just going crazy and stuff like this.”

He said he didn’t want to say anything because he wanted to “keep my family as safe as I can.” He returned to gardai three days later and told them about Mr Puska coming to his home.

Under cross-examination Mr Pokuta told defence counsel Michael Bowman SC that people were “seriously crazy” at that time and that the “atmosphere was ugly in Tullamore”. He agreed that he was afraid people would come to his house and harm his family.

There was “a lot of stuff going around on social media, pictures and comments,” he said.

He said he was worried for his family and his job which, as a school bus driver, involves people “putting their children in my hands”.
He said people know he is Slovakian but having been in Ireland for many years, he said “I am probably half Irish”.

However he agreed that “would not count for much” in Tullamore at that time.

Mr Pokuta also agreed that Mr Puska “didn’t look himself” when he called to his door, that his face was “almost blue” and he was wet and shaking. He appeared to be in pain and he may have been holding his head or his stomach.

The judge, Mr Justice Tony Hunt, interjected by asking whether Mr Bowman was suggesting that Mr Puska had suffered stab wounds to his stomach before calling to Mr Pokuta’s house. Mr Bowman said he is “absolutely” suggesting that based on instructions from his client.

Jozef Puska (33), with an address at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Murphy at Cappincur, Tullamore, Co Offaly on January 12th, 2022.

Det Gda Ciaran Byrne told Kevin White BL, for the prosecution, that he downloaded information from an application on Ashling Murphy’s phone that drew data from her Fitbit watch.

He said the data showed that she began exercising at 2.51pm at the Daingean Rd carpark and continued across a footbridge over the canal, to Digby Bridge and then back in the same direction. For most of that period her heart rate and pace were consistent, at about one kilometre every nine to ten minutes.

The GPS data showed that she stopped moving at 3.21pm at a location between Digby Bridge and the car park where a monument in her memory has since been erected.

At that point the heart monitor showed her heart rate began to decrease and by 3.31pm it was not recording any heartbeat.
Also at 3.21pm, he said, the “bearing” indicator on the phone recorded “erratic” or “violent” movements.

Under cross-examination Det Gda Byrne agreed that for the Fitbit watch to track the user’s heartbeat, it must make full contact with the skin.

Det Sgt Paul McDonnell told Ms Lawlor that he was working in the detective unit at Blanchardstown garda station on January 13 last year when he became aware that two people had been stabbed near the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre the previous evening.

He was sent to St James’s Hospital to speak with a man he now knows to be Mr Puska who had alleged that he was the victim of a stabbing in Blanchardstown the previous evening. Det Gda McDonnell arrived at St James’s Hospital at 2.35pm and saw Mr Puska lying on a bed with monitors and tags attached to him.

A large portion of his stomach was covered in a dressing and his hands and forehead had a large number of cuts. Gardai spoke to Mr Puska with the aid of a translator on the phone.

Mr Puska told them that he had received a lift to Heuston Station in Dublin from Tullamore the previous evening and then got a taxi to Blanchardstown.

He said he was going to meet a woman but he couldn’t tell the garda the woman’s identity. He said that when he arrived in Blanchardstown, immediately after getting out of the taxi he was assaulted by two men.

He described one as having dark skin and a Dublin accent.

He was about one metre 70 centimetres in height and wore tracksuit bottoms. He could not describe the second man.

He could not identify where the attack took place and the only description he could give was that there was an apartment block and a field nearby and it was about one kilometre from Main St.

He said he went into shock after the assault and couldn’t remember how he got from Blanchardstown to his parents’ home in Crumlin, south Dublin where he was attended to by an ambulance crew earlier that afternoon.

As they spoke, Mr Puska’s discomfort increased and his monitor began to ring so the garda called for a nurse and ended contact with him.

Det Sgt McDonnell said he reported back to his senior officer, Det Sgt James McCartan, who contacted a colleague in Tullamore having “discerned a connection with the well-publicised death of Ashling Murphy”.

The trial continues in front of Mr Justice Tony Hunt and a jury of nine men and three women.