A 42-year-old man has been jailed for life for the murder of a man at a hostel in Dublin two years ago.
Robert Murphy, with an address at Harrington Street Hostel in Dublin stabbed Jamie Kavanagh to death in the early hours of 19 April 2023.
He admitted manslaughter but was convicted of murder by a jury last November.
Jamie Kavanagh's mother said in a victim impact statement today that it was "unnatural" for her to bury her child and the wound was still "wide open".
Carrie Benn had been living at the hostel with Jamie Kavanagh and Robert Murphy in April 2023 when she heard Mr Kavanagh call for help. He had been stabbed seven times and was later pronounced dead in St James’s Hospital.
When Robert Murphy was arrested and cautioned he told gardaí "I done that. I'll tell youse what happened".
He said he went for Mr Kavanagh’s neck and "wanted to kill him stone dead".
He also suggested he acted in self-defence, as there had been a row between them.
However CCTV footage showed Murphy in a laneway to the rear of the premises, wearing a balaclava. He climbed over the rear wall and got in the rear door, before he spent two minutes at the door of Mr Kavanagh’s bedsit trying to gain entry.
When he was searched by gardaí, he was found with a bag containing blood-stained clothing, a balaclava and knives. He also had €750 in cash.
Kavanagh’s partner Amber Smith testified that she and her partner Jamie Kavanagh had planned to move to Spain together and he had secured a loan of "probably over €900" from family members to begin their new life.
In her victim impact statement, Jamie’s mother Niamh McGuinness said her son was her "hero", whose death had left the family "absolutely devastated". Murphy she said had compounded the trauma by pleading not guilty, but the guilty verdict did not bring her son back.
"Burying your child is unnatural," she said, "it changes everything about you, and a violent end adds a whole other level of despair".
"Looking at him in a coffin that I had to pick out was unbearable, so unbearable that I blacked out twice. It looked like him, but then again it didn’t. It was all wrong," she said.
Detective Sergeant Tim O’Sullivan told the court today that Murphy had 66 previous convictions, including eight for the possession of knives and other articles, as well as convictions for the possession of firearms and ammunition, and arson intending to endanger the life of another.
His defence counsel Brendan Grehan said he was "sorry for the young lad, his family and friends" but "things got out of control".
Ms Justice Melanie Greally expressed the court’s regret that the trial was "such a harrowing and brutal experience for the family" and sentenced Robert Murphy to the mandatory term of life in prison.
