By Eoin Reynolds, Ireland International News Agency Ltd
At about 3.20pm on 12 January 2022, Ashling Murphy came to the banks of the Grand Canal in Tullamore, to exercise after finishing her day's work at Durrow National School.
By a deep ditch next to the towpath, Jozef Puska would drag the 23-year-old teacher into the briars and thorns, where he stabbed her 11 times in the neck and slashed her once with the edge of a blade.
Pathology evidence showed that Ms Murphy fought back; she had cuts to her fingers that could have been suffered when she tried to protect herself and was caught by the blade of the knife.
The wounds to her neck had destroyed her voice box, so she could not call out, but she scratched at Puska's skin, gouging out genetic material that would later be used to identify and help to convict her murderer.
Eyewitnesses told the Central Criminal Court that Ms Murphy "kicked out hard" as she struggled with her murderer, who seemed angry he had been interrupted.
Puska is currently serving a life sentence for that murder, having been found guilty by the unanimous verdict of a Central Criminal Court jury in November 2023.
Last month, his brothers Marek Puska, 36, and Lubomir Puska Jr, 38, went on trial at the Central Criminal Court, charged with withholding evidence, including that Puska returned home on the night of the murder with visible injuries and admitted to killing or seriously injuring a woman with a knife.
Their wives Puskaina Grundzova, 32, and Viera Gaziova, 40, were charged with impeding Puska's apprehension or prosecution by burning his clothes.
In his opening speech to the jury, Sean Gillane SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said that gardaí could not find the crucial clothes that Puska was wearing when he murdered Ms Murphy because his sisters-in-law had burned them.
"The oxygen in any investigation of this type is information. Information which is relevant, material and significant," Mr Gillane told the jury.
In democratic societies governed by the rule of law, counsel said, cooperation is required.
The trial heard that Puska and his wife Lucia Istokova, 36, lived with his brothers, their wives and 14 children in a four-bedroom house at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly.
On 14 January 2022, two days after Puska murdered Ms Murphy, Marek Puska gave a voluntary statement at Tullamore Garda Station.
Jozef Puska was already the main suspect for the murder but was in St James's Hospital in Dublin, being treated for three stab wounds to his abdomen.
Marek described the previous months in Mucklagh as "golden times, the best of times".
"The kids are at the top of everything and get everything," he added.
He and Jozef Puska, he said, were on disability allowance due to back problems.
On the day of the murder, he said he got up about 12.30pm, "the same as every day" and Lucia Istokova told him that Jozef Puska had left the house 30 minutes earlier without his phone.
Marek Puska said he wanted to be with his brother, so he went to Tullamore to find him.
Lubomir Jr later joined the search but some time after 5pm, they reported him missing at Tullamore Garda Station.
By then, gardaí in Tullamore were focused on the murder of Ms Murphy.
Two joggers had stumbled upon the assault at Cappincur, where Puska had dragged Ms Murphy into the briars.
Gardaí arrived within minutes of the alarm being raised but Puska was already gone and Ms Murphy could not be saved.
She had suffered multiple, non-survivable stab wounds to the neck.
In his first garda statement, two days after the murder, Marek did not mention meeting Jozef Puska on the night of the murder.
But four days later, he told gardaí he had more to say and was brought to Mullingar Garda Station to give a second statement.
He revealed that he and Lubomir Jr were still searching for Jozef Puska when they received a call around 9pm saying their brother was home and in a "poor state".
The brothers returned home and met him as he came out of the shower.
He had injuries to his face and Marek said he had three stab wounds to his abdomen.
Marek claimed that Jozef Puska told him he had been trying to kill himself by stabbing himself in the stomach when a girl appeared and tried to grab his hand to stop him.
Eight days later, Marek was arrested and questioned on suspicion of having assisted Jozef Puska in the aftermath of the murder.
He told detectives various accounts of what Jozef Puska had said.
In one, he said Jozef Puska told him he was sitting on a bench, stabbing himself when a woman started screaming and shouting, "Don't do that, stop harming yourself".
He said the woman tried to grab his arm and he, Puska, "might have had a knife in his hand, then he hit somebody".
Marek recalled his brother saying that he "might have hurt that person" or that he "could have cut her".
When asked if Jozef Puska confessed to him, he said: "Yes, something had happened. He had tried to hurt himself and this woman came and he cut her."
He said Puska told him that he "struck out and cut her" and that it was "probably bad".
Marek added: "He said something about a dead woman but I didn't ask if dead or alive. You don't ask in a situation like this."
Marek said he told his wife, Jozefina Grundzova, that Puska had "murdered that girl" but he said Puska had not been specific about what happened.
"He told me a situation from which I logically inferred," he said.
Karl Finnegan SC, for Marek Puska, told the trial jury that his client initially did not tell gardaí what he knew because he feared he would be charged with helping his brother flee or over knowing about a plan to burn his clothes.
Mr Finnegan said this fear formed a "reasonable excuse" for not disclosing information to gardaí.
He reminded the jury that while legislation requiring people to provide information about serious crimes was introduced after the Omagh bombing, it does not override the constitutional right to silence if self-incrimination is at stake.
Marek, he argued, was trying to distance himself from culpability.
In his first statement to garda, Lubomir Jr also failed to reveal that he had seen Jozef Puska on the night of the murder with visible injuries and that Puska admitted to killing or stabbing a girl.
Lubomir Jr told officers on 14 January that he first saw his brother close to the early afternoon of the 12 June.
Jozef Puska seemed "a bit sad, not in a good mood," the defendant said.
He added: "He seemed to me like a person who doesn't want anyone to know what is biting him inside. Some kind of problem he didn't want to share with anyone."
Lubomir Jr claimed he left the house and that he didn't see his brother again.
However, two days after that first statement, Lubomir Jr returned to Tullamore Garda Station and apologised for lying.
He gave a second statement, where he said that when Jozef Puska arrived home on the night of the 12 January, it looked like he had been struck on the forehead.
When Puska complained of a pain in the stomach, Lubomir Jr said he looked and saw three lacerations on his brother's abdomen.
Puska insisted that nothing had happened, Lubomir Jr said, and didn't say where he had been.
He said their parents arrived a short time later and took Jozef Puska to their home in Dublin.
When gardaí asked why he had not told the truth in his previous statement, he said: "It felt strange to tell on my brother. I never had to do it before."
He said he came back to tell the truth, adding: "I feel better now that I told the truth. I feel better now."
Lubomir Jr would later deny to gardaí that he told someone to dispose of the knife used to murder Ms Murphy, which has never been found.
Prosecution Counsel Anne Marie Lawlor SC described Lubomir Jr's revelations over several statements and interviews as a "drip drip" of information.
However, defence counsel Kathleen Leader SC argued that Lubomir Jr's statements show the progression of a man "coming to terms with something awful".
She reminded the jury that Lubomir Jr had described the close and loving bond among the family as he grappled with what his brother had done.
She added: "He is working his way to a place where he is able to leave the bonds of family and brotherhood and love and all that entails, to where he discharges his other obligation to society as a whole, which is what he did."
She told the jury that six days after the murder, Lubomir Jr told gardaí: "If you find out it was him, well let him. He is going to pay for what he did."
The trial heard that Viera Gaziova told gardaí that on the night of the murder, Lubomir Jr and Marek spoke to Jozef Puska in his bedroom and afterwards, Lubomir Jr told her that Puska had "confessed that he killed a girl".
"I said, this is not like Jozef. I did not believe Jozef could do such a thing," Gaziova told gardaí.
She said that the people who knew what Puska had done were herself, Lubomir Jr, Marek and Jozefina.
She said Lubomir Jr called her on 12 or 13 January using Facebook Messenger to say that Jozef Puska had asked him to "make sure that those clothes are burnt".
She said Jozef Puska had left his clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor after showering and she had taken them to the kitchen and placed them beside a bin.
The following morning, after the children had gone to school, she lit a fire using paper and briquettes and let it burn for about one hour, until it was "very strong".
'We were afraid of the guards'
She took the clothes out of the bag, starting with a tracksuit top and t-shirt, which were stuck together as though Jozef Puska had taken them off in one go.
Grundzova admitted to helping Gaziova after she said Gaziova received a phone call telling her to burn certain clothes.
She said that these were "maybe Jozef's clothes" and that she herself took socks out of the bag and threw them into the fire.
She said she did not know why these clothes were burned, but she noticed there was "blood around the lower half of the t-shirt".
When gardaí asked Gaziova why she had "misled the investigation" by failing to mention that she destroyed evidence in a previous statement, she said: "We were afraid of the guards when they came."
"Nothing like this ever happened before. I was afraid I would end up on the street with my children. I was shaking. I didn't want to say because I was afraid the whole family would go against me."
Damien Colgan SC, representing Gaziova, said his client did not believe Jozef Puska had killed anyone.
He said she thought he had been attacked, and when he spoke of harming someone, she didn’t believe him.
Mr Colgan said Gaziova acted on her husband’s request to burn the clothes, not knowing the gravity of what had happened.
Paul Murray SC, for Grundzova, said his client could not have known that Puska had murdered Ms Murphy when she helped destroy clothes.
Mr Murray said her knowledge was based only on second-hand accounts of Jozef Puska’s "nonsense" comments.
He said the family did not believe Puska was capable of such violence, and reminded the jury that when Viera and Jozefina burned the clothes, gardaí were questioning the wrong man.
However, in her speech, Ms Lawlor told the jury that all the accused knew what Jozef Puska had done by 9.30pm on the night of the murder.
The evidence in relation to each accused was that Jozef Puska admitted it to his brothers, who then told their wives.
In the case of the two brothers, Ms Lawlor said it was "patently obvious" that the information they had was vital and their only reason for not telling gardaí was to shield Jozef Puska from prosecution.
Jozefina and Viera were guilty, she said, because they admitted to burning the clothes and the only logical explanation for doing so was that they wanted to impede Jozef Puska's arrest and prosecution.
