Jozef Puska was found guilty of murdering Ashling Murphy by a jury of nine men and three women last week (Picture: PA)
Killer Jozef Puska was branded ‘the epitome of pure evil’ by the heartbroken partner of Irish schoolteacher Ashling Murphy as he was jailed for life for her murder.
The 33-year-old, born in Slovakia but living in Mucklagh, Tullamore, was found guilty of murdering Ms Murphy, 23, by a jury of nine men and three women last week.
There is a mandatory life sentence for murder.
At Dublin’s Central Criminal Court, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said there was only one sentence available, and it was ‘deserved’.
He said Puska’s evidence had been ‘indescribable’ and the ‘one thing we don’t know about this case is the why’.
Ms Murphy’s partner Ryan Casey, who sat through the trial alongside her parents, sobbed as he described her in a victim impact statement as ‘my closest friend, my best friend’.
‘Ashling was simply everything to me and I simply lost everything,’ he said.
Turning to face Puska in the dock, he went on: ‘You have no idea and will you never have any idea of the level of connection and love Ashling and I shared.
‘You have no idea the love we had for each other. Because of you I have lost my Ashling, because of you, I will never get to marry my soulmate, because of you I will never see her smile again, because of you I have to somehow carry on without her.
‘You smirked, you smiled and you showed no remorse which sums you up the kind of person you are, the epitome of pure evil.’
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