The man accused of the murder of schoolteacher Ashling Murphy confessed his involvement to gardaí two days later, the Central Criminal Court has been told.
Jozef Puska, 33, from Lynally Grove, Mucklagh in Co Offaly, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Murphy at the Grand Canal in Tullamore on 12 January 2022, while she was out for a run.
The court was told by the prosecution that she was stabbed 11 times in the neck by Mr Puska, with whom she had no previous connection.
Prosecuting Barrister Anne-Marie Lawlor told the jurors it would be understandable if they reacted to the murder of a young woman such as Ashling Murphy with visceral revulsion.
But they were being asked to deal with the case from a cold, clinical, dispassionate perspective.
She said Ms Murphy was stabbed 11 times to the right side of her neck. There was no other conceivable inference but that the person who did it intended to kill her or cause serious injury.
She said Mr Puska was a Slovak national who had been living in Ireland since around 2012. There was no prior connection between Ms Murphy and Mr Puska, she said. They were not known to one another and there was no connection directly or indirectly of any kind between them.
Ms Lawlor said the jurors would hear from two witnesses who came upon the attack. They would describe the assailant, she said, and the jurors would hear how they could see Ms Murphy's legs kicking.
Ms Lawlor said the evidence would be that Mr Puska left his bicycle beside Ms Murphy's body and escaped from the scene through undergrowth.
DNA matching his was underneath Ms Murphy’s fingernails, she said.
The jurors were told that gardaí had harvested 25,000 hours of CCTV and they would see some of it.
She said the CCTV would show Mr Puska aimlessly meandering through Tullamore on his bicycle on the morning of 12 January 2022. It would also show him cycling slowly and in close proximity to two women. One of the women would describe him staring at her and moving slowly behind her.
CCTV would also show Mr Puska arriving at his father's apartment in Crumlin in Dublin, in the early hours of 13 January.
The prosecution says he had fled Tullamore at that point. He walked normally into the apartment, the court heard. But the next morning he was taken out by paramedics into an ambulance. He was now clean shaven, Ms Lawlor said, and appeared to have suffered an injury.
At St James's Hospital, Mr Puska made it known he had been stabbed in Blanchardstown in what Ms Lawlor described as a pack of lies. She said there had been a stabbing in Blanchardstown and gardaí came to investigate but they called Tullamore gardaí after learning that he had travelled from Tullamore on 12 January.
On the evening of 14 January, through an interpreter, after Tullamore gardaí told him they were investigating Ashling Murphy’s murder, Mr Puska said: "I did it. I murdered. I am the murderer."
He said he did not do it intentionally. He felt guilty and he was sorry.
He later told another garda that when she passed [him], he "cut her." "I cut her neck," he said, "she panic, I panic."
He also pointed to his abdomen and said "I do this."
Ms Lawlor said the exact circumstances of Ms Murphy’s death were not known publicly at this time.
When he was interviewed by gardaí after his release from hospital, and shown a picture of Ms Murphy, Mr Puska said he had never seen her before.
Ms Lawlor said the evidence the jury would hear would allow them to be satisfied they could find Mr Puska guilty of murder.
The trial heard evidence this afternoon from its first witnesses, mapper Liam Farrell and photographer, Detective Garda Caroline Hughes.
Mr Farrell gave evidence of preparing various maps of different locations in Tullamore and Dublin.
He also mapped the location of various items on an aerial photograph of the scene. He described how a bicycle found at the scene appeared to be "kind of thrown on top of briars".
Other items found included sunglasses, a hat and runners.
Detective Garda Hughes gave evidence that she had photographed a pink, wooly hat with a bobble on it as well as a pair of blue runners. She had also photographed a blood stained stick and brambles within the same area in heavy undergrowth.
The trial will resume tomorrow morning.
