Just after 3.30pm on Thursday afternoon, Senior Counsel Michael Bowman called his first witness for the defence. "Jozef Puska, please," he said and the accused man left his seat at the side of the courtroom to walk the short distance to the witness box.
The jury had heard some details about Jozef Puska's life already in the answers he gave to gardaí while being questioned about Ashling Murphy's murder in January last year.
Mr Puska is 33 years old. He's from Poprad in Slovakia and came to Ireland in 2013.
He is a father of five young children and told gardaí his relationship with them was "beautiful".
On Thursday afternoon, sitting in the witness box, with his dark, chin-length hair brushed back, wearing a grey jacket, a grey/white shirt and tan-coloured trousers, he was ready to speak directly to the jurors.
"You know we are interested in the events surrounding the tragic murder of Ashling Murphy?" Mr Bowman asked Mr Puska.
Speaking through an interpreter, Mr Puska indicated that he knew. Mr Bowman asked him to explain to the jury his recollection of events on the day of the murder and told him: "This is your story to tell - not mine."
Mr Puska said he understood.
He told the jury he had left his house in Mucklagh - around 8km from Tullamore - on his bicycle at around 11.30am on the morning of 12 January last year and travelled towards Tullamore town.
He said he was trying to find his brother who had gone to the dentist with his wife. He was looking for him at the hospital and "anywhere there was a big car park" as he thought he might find his car. He said that was why he was in some locations twice.
He said he was riding on his bike because it was very nice weather and he wanted some exercise. He hadn't been working because of a slipped disc in his back but he said his intention for the year was to go back to work and he was preparing himself.
Other women
He was asked about witness Anne Marie Kelly, who had told the court that Mr Puska followed her on his bicycle for some time while she was walking her dog. He said while he was behind her, he was not following her.
He was riding the same way he, told the jury, but there was no bad intention whatsoever.
When his questioning resumed the following morning, he said he had not noticed another woman, Beata Barowska, slightly earlier in the afternoon.
CCTV footage showed him cycling slowly behind her, but he said he had no intention whatsoever to follow her.
He said he was going towards Tesco because he was looking for his brother.
The attack
Mr Puska described cycling past Digby Bridge on the Grand Canal before turning back towards Tullamore.
As he travelled between the bridge and the N52 flyover, he told the court "that was the time I was attacked by a male".
He described the man as around 1.8 metres in height. He was wearing a black hat, dark clothing and was also wearing a surgical face mask. He said he did not know him.
Mr Puska said the man started shouting at him, but he didn't understand him.
Then the man kicked his bike, pushed him on the floor and set on him with a knife. Mr Puska said the man stabbed him in the stomach twice while shouting something he didn't understand.
At this stage, he claimed a woman he didn't know appeared and said something to the attacker.
The man stabbed him again and then went towards the woman before they disappeared in the bushes.
Mr Puska said he saw the man attack the woman before running away. Mr Puska said he went over to the woman who was on the ground, injured. He said he was scared the man could come back and he said he fell backwards into the bushes.
He described trying to help the woman by using her scarf to cover her injuries. A woman appeared in front of him on the pavement, he said.
He said the woman said something that he didn't understand.
He wanted to stand up, but he pulled his leg hard and shouted.
The woman and another lady began running, he said, and he did not see them again.
Mr Puska said he "really got scared" and was in shock. He said he stayed "a little bit" with the injured woman, then got really stressed and left, jumping from the bushes to a field.
He ended up in a ditch, he said, and felt really unwell, losing consciousness and staying there for some time.
He said that when he woke up, it was dark and he saw lights.
He went away from the lights, he told Mr Bowman.
Asked by Mr Justice Tony Hunt why he had done that, he said he was "scared and I was stressed".
He called to his friend, Rostislav, told him he had been attacked and asked him to give him a lift home to Mucklagh.
That night, Mr Puska said he travelled to Dublin and stayed with his parents.
They were trying to ask him what had happened to him. But he said he didn't want to tell them.
The following day
The next morning, he began vomiting blood. He realised he was more seriously injured than he had thought and an ambulance was called to take him to hospital.
He told Mr Bowman he had problems in hospital and was in pain.
He was asked if he had heard evidence from gardaí and from a Slovak interpreter that while in hospital he had accepted that he had killed Ms Murphy.
Mr Puska said he heard that, but he could not agreed with that.
"I don't remember that day at all," he said.
He said he did not harm Ms Murphy and he added that "this is the truth".
Cross examination
Prosecuting counsel, Anne-Marie Lawlor stood up immediately. She said she had been trying desperately to listen to Mr Puska's words through the interpreter, as she had been hearing this account for the first time.
"You’ve had 18 months to come up with this story," she told Mr Puska.
Ms Lawlor put it to Mr Puska that he had lied repeatedly since the murder investigation began.
Mr Puska agreed he had lied about "some things" and was a person who lied "in some parts".
He had lied to gardaí about being stabbed in Blanchardstown, because he didn't want to tell his family he'd been attacked in Tullamore he said.
He denied he had fled to Dublin or that he had changed his appearance deliberately despite shaving off his beard.
He denied he was in the habit of following women around Tullamore.
"I have a wife at home - I've no reason to follow any other women," he said.
He admitted he had asked people at home to burn the clothes he was wearing that day.
Ms Lawlor suggested he had concocted a set of lies for the jury. He told her he said what he remembered.
"You're lying," Ms Lawlor told him.
"Everybody has an opinion about this," Mr Puska said.
"I said what I remember."
Ms Lawlor quizzed Mr Puska about his confessions to gardaí in hospital.
"Are you lying about your memory of events in hospital?" she asked.
Mr Puska said he was telling the truth and it was not his fault that he couldn't remember.
He said he had problems remembering certain things. "It happens quite often – it's not a lie," he told her.
As her cross examination drew to a close, Ms Lawlor returned to the events at the heart of this trial.
She asked Mr Puska if Ashling Murphy was still moving and alive when he was with her. Mr Puska said she was, but agreed that he could tell she was dying.
"Did you just stay there and watch Ashling Murphy die?" Ms Lawlor asked.
Mr Puska said he left after a few moments because he saw he couldn't help her.
"You weren't trying to help her," Ms Lawlor said.
"I was in the place, trying to help her," Mr Puska replied.
Ms Lawlor put it to him that there was no other man and that he was the person who had stabbed Ms Murphy 11 times and sliced her neck with the 12th wound, while she desperately tried to save herself.
"No, it wasn't me," Mr Puska told the court.
"You've lied consistently in this investigation," Ms Lawlor said, "and you're lying today".
Mr Puska said he was saying to her what he remembered.
Garda interviews
Earlier in the week, the court heard details of Mr Puska’s interviews with gardaí after his arrest on 18 January last year.
Shown a photograph and CCTV footage of Ashling Murphy, he said he had never seen her, didn't recognise her and had never had contact with her.
He said he would not comment on the presence of his DNA at the scene and the marks on his face and hands.
He told interviewing gardai that he didn't remember admitting to the murder in hospital as he was "after surgery and many tablets".
Pharmacology evidence
Internationally renowned pharmacology expert Professor Michael Ryan was asked on Tuesday about the drugs in Mr Puska's system at the time he made the admissions.
By the time Mr Puska spoke to gardaí on the evening of 14 January 2022, there would have been just over 8mg of the pain relief drug oxycodone in his system, Prof Ryan told the court.
He said studies showed dosages below 10mg had no effect on memory and no effect on mood.
His conclusion was that there was no evidence to support any suggestion that the admissions to gardaí were related to the effects of oxycodone or any other drug.
Ms Lawlor asked him if it had ever been recorded, anywhere that a person's consciousness or ability to communicate would have been affected by doses of oxycodone below 10mg or if he had heard of anyone confessing to murder or anything like that on such a dose.
He said it had not and he'd never heard of anything like that.
Closing stages
Mr Justice Tony Hunt told the jurors there was only one further defence witness left and the evidence in the case would conclude on Monday at some stage.
After that, he said the prosecution and defence barristers would make their closing speeches to the jury.
He told the nine men and three women, that the speeches would be of "valuable assistance" but they could accept or reject anything the barristers said.
The judge said that by the middle of the week, they should be deliberating.
