State given more time to respond to Jozef Puska’s appeal over conviction

Fiona Magennis

The State has been given more time to file its response to Jozef Puska’s extensive appeal against his conviction for murdering schoolteacher Aishling Murphy, after a court was told the killer’s legal team were over a month late filing their paperwork.

Puska killed Murphy (23) on January 12, 2022, by repeatedly stabbing her in the neck while she exercised along the canal towpath outside Tullamore, Co Offaly. He was later convicted of murder and is serving a life sentence.

Last December, Court of Appeal President Judge Caroline Costello set a hearing date of April 23 and 24 for Puska’s appeal against his conviction.

Puska’s lawyers told the court at the time that submissions were at “an advanced stage” and noted two judgments were awaited from the Court of Appeal that are relevant to his own appeal.

Puska, who told detectives that he stopped working in 2017 after slipping a disk in his back, has been granted legal aid for his appeal on the same basis as his representation during his trial at the Central Criminal Court - where he was allocated a solicitor, a senior counsel and two junior counsel.

At the Court of Appeal on Friday, Kevin White, representing the Director of Public Prosecutions, said Puska’s submissions were due to be filed by January 16 but were only received by the State in early March. He told the court he would need time to respond.

The barrister asked for a date “as close to the hearing date as possible” to file the DPP's responding submissions, noting the appellant’s submissions are “very long”.

A barrister standing in for Puska’s lawyers apologised for the delay in filing the papers, which he said had been due to a “mix up”. He also made an application for a Slovakian interpreter.

Judge Isobel Kennedy noted that the delay had created “difficulties” for the DPP. She extended the time for the State to file replying submissions to April 14, adding that the hearing date in April would be maintained.

The judge also granted the application for the Slovakian interpreter.

Prior to a jury being sworn to hear Puska's trial in 2023, his lawyers made a number of objections to the evidence the prosecution intended to call. The defence argued that the jury should not hear Puska's confession to gardaí two days after the stabbing.

They said that Puska was suffering the effects of abdominal surgery and was under the influence of the painkiller oxycodone, rendering his confession therefore involuntary.

They also objected to the prosecution showing CCTV footage of Puska stalking two women in Tullamore town centre before heading to the canal where he came upon Ashling Murphy, walking alone. The trial judge's decisions to allow those and other pieces of evidence to go before the jury are likely to form the basis for Puska's appeal.

Puska (35), with an address at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Murphy at Cappincur, Tullamore, on January 12th, 2022.

The jury found that Puska stabbed Murphy 11 times in the neck and slashed her once with the edge of a blade before leaving her to die in the thick thorns and brambles by the side of the canal towpath between Tullamore town and Digby Bridge. A monument now stands where she died.

Puska was placed at the scene by the presence of his distinctive green and black bicycle a few feet from Murphy's body. He had been captured on CCTV cycling the same bicycle around Tullamore earlier that afternoon, stalking two women before heading towards the canal.

Puska's DNA was found on the bike as was his fingerprint, while his DNA was under Murphy's fingernails. The prosecution argued that the DNA under her nails showed that Ashling had scratched her attacker as she fought to save her own life.

When gardaí spoke to Puska the day after the murder, his face and hands were covered in scratches that were consistent with him crawling through the thorns and briars by the side of the towpath where he murdered Murphy.

In his testimony to the trial, Puska claimed that he was cycling along the towpath when he was attacked and stabbed by a masked man. He claimed the same man then attacked and stabbed Murphy before running away.

In what prosecution counsel Anne-Marie Lawlor SC described as a "foul and contemptible fabrication", Puska claimed that he then tried to help Ashling by pulling her scarf up around the wound to her neck.

He said that he realised he couldn't help her and crawled through the briars to an adjoining field where he fell unconscious for about four hours.

The jury rejected his version of events. No motive has been offered for the killing and lawyers in the case and Murphy's family have stressed repeatedly that there was no connection between Puska and Murphy, despite internet rumours of such a link.

In June 2025, Puska’s two brothers were convicted of withholding crucial information from gardaí investigating Aishling’s murder, and their wives were found guilty of burning the killer’s clothes.

Puska’s brothers, Marek (36) and Lubomir (37), were each sentenced to 30 months in prison. Lubomir’s wife, Viera Gaziova (40), received a 24-month sentence, and Marek’s wife, Jozefina (32), was sentenced to 21 months.

Jozef Puska’s partner and the mother of his children, Lucia Istokova (36), was handed a 20-month prison term. She had pleaded guilty to withholding information in May last year, before the start of her relative’s trial.

All five were living with Jozef Puska and 14 children at the address at Lynally Grove in Mucklagh when the offences occurred in January 2022.