Ashling Murphy's killer Jozef Puska has 'piled on the weight' and is learning English behind bars
Monster Jozef Puska has ‘piled on the weight’ and is learning how to speak English behind bars, the Irish Mirror can reveal.
Slovakian native Puska, 34, who brutally murdered innocent school teacher Ashling Murphy, 23, while she was out on a run near Tullamore Co Offaly three years ago this weekend, is now housed on the ‘E’ Division of the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise - where he is being taught how to speak English.
The Irish Mirror can today reveal details of the psychotic murderer’s pathetic life on a landing he shares with around 60 child abusers, rapists and just a handful of life sentence prisoners. It is understood Puska has been moved to the E Wing due to the sexual motive behind his crime - but also because of fears he would be attacked among the general prison population in other landings.
Sources say he has no one assigned job, but spends his days going to the school in the Midlands Prison - doing art classes, woodwork, and at times, cleaning duties. He is also learning how to speak English - and is being tutored by a professional teacher on how to do so, sources have revealed.
It comes after his murder trial in which the court heard he had been living in Ireland since 2013 - but that he had poor English and was in need of a translator throughout. Sources say the deluded killer, who took the witness stand in his high-profile murder trial, has also drastically changed in appearance - gaining weight behind bars.
A source said: “He’s piled on the weight. He keeps his hair long, quite greasy and slicked back. He mixes with the worst of the worst in there.”
Killer Jozef Puska was jailed for life
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, deluded Puska believes he’s going to be able to overturn his conviction in an appeal later this year. While the Midlands Prison is home to some high-profile killers such as Mark Nash, Graham Dwyer and Joe O’Reilly - none of them are housed anywhere near the E Wing - which sources say is made up predominantly of some of the worst sex offenders - many of whom cannot be named due to their victims wanting to remain anonymous.
School teacher Ashling Murphy was killed by Puska while out on a run
(Image: ENTERPRISE NEWS AND PICTURES)
In November 2023, Puska was convicted of the murder of Ashling Murphy - a crime which shocked the entire nation. Puska brutally stabbed Ms Murphy 12 times and sliced her neck in a random and shocking attack while she was out for a run at the canal in Tullamore on January 12, 2022.
His sentence came after harrowing and extremely powerful victim impact statements from Ms Murphy’s partner Ryan Casey, her mother Kathleen and sister Amy. Ashling’s partner Ryan became tearful and emotional throughout his powerful speech, in which he turned to the killer sitting in the dock and said: “I don’t care where you end up, or what happens to you after today.
"But you smirked, you smiled, and you showed zero remorse throughout this trial, which sums up who you really are, the epitome of pure evil, but one thing is for sure, you will never ever harm or touch another woman ever again and when your day of reckoning comes, may you be in hell a whole half hour, before God even knows you’re dead.”
Ryan Casey, boyfriend of Ashling Murphy, with Cathal Murphy, brother of the murdered victim, at a press statement outside the CCJ after a guilty verdict was announced
(Image: Mick O'Neill)
In her own victim impact statement, which was read out by family liaison officer Sergeant Lucy McLoughlin, Ashling’s mother Kathleen told of a heart-breaking final conversation she had with her daughter on the day she was killed - warning her not to go and run by the canal.
“Before she left that morning, Ashling told me she was going to be home from school a little bit later that afternoon. She was going for a jog on the canal line after work. I begged her not to go there as it has always made me feel ill at ease and asked her to go jogging out near home. She responded, ‘Ah mum, I am 23 years old’.
"She gave me a big hug as she said, ‘I love you, you’re the best mum in the world’ and walked out the door,” she said. "As a parent you want your child to go out into this world and live a full and meaningful life yet being acutely aware of how fragile their safety is, wanting to protect them. I couldn’t protect my darling Ashling and now she’s gone forever.”
Ashling Murphy's mother Kathleen, sister Amy and father Raymond outside The Criminal Courts of Justice
Ashling’s sister Amy, meanwhile, said she is haunted by the thought that no one was able to save her sister - and how she fought for her life. Speaking directly to Puska, who refused to look at her, she said: “I agonise over whether you had already inflicted your first blow before she was hurled off the canal pavement. Had you time to place your bike down into the ditch as you knew she had already sustained a fatal injury and the rest was yet to come.
"Ashling's last ten minutes on this earth must have felt like the longest ten minutes of her existence as she fought for her life. You stole her life, you took her voice, you robbed us of our family of five.”
Following the incredible statements, Judge Tony Hunt said there was nothing further that he could add. He told the court that Puska’s sentence was “richly deserved” before saying that the one question that remains unanswered is “the why”. He said that "unless that becomes known, the question of your safe return to society must be an open one."
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