DNA profile from under Ashling Murphy's fingernails matched Jozef Puska, scientist tells trial

by Eoin Reynolds

A DNA profile taken from underneath Ashling Murphy's fingernails matched that of Jozef Puska, the man accused of her murder, a scientist has told the Central Criminal Court.

Dr Lorna Flanagan today told prosecution counsel Anne-Marie Lawlor SC that she received swabs that had been taken from under the nails of each of Ms Murphy's hands during a post mortem carried out by State Pathologist Dr Dr SallyAnne Collis. Dr Flanagan isolated the male DNA present in the swabs by focusing only on the y-chromosome to eliminate Ms Murphy's DNA from her results.

She compared the DNA to a blood sample belonging to Mr Puska and from swabs that were taken from Mr Puska when he was in custody in Tullamore Garda Station on January 18 last year. She found that the Y-STR profile generated from the nail swabs matched the Y-STR profile from Mr Puska's blood sample and swabs.

Dr Flanagan said that she estimated the chances of finding the same male-specific DNA profile from someone unrelated to Mr Puska is approximately one in 14,000.

She explained that those statistics are calculated from a database of western European ethnic groups that includes people from Ireland and as far east as Latvia, Ukraine and Romania.

Jozef Puska (33), with an address at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Murphy at Cappincur, Tullamore, on January 12th, 2022.

Det Insp Brian Farrell told defence counsel Michael Bowman SC that he was the joint Senior Investigating Officer coordinating the garda investigation into Ms Murphy's death. He agreed with Mr Bowman that following Ms Murphy's death on January 12 last year they were "dealing with a horrendous fatality, a murder" and they were "acting as quickly as possible" to find the person responsible.

He agreed that a man was arrested shortly after 4pm that day but that person was eliminated as an active suspect some time after 9pm by DNA evidence. A further "significant development" came when the decision was taken to send Det Sgt Brian Jennings and Det Gda Fergus Hogan from Tullamore to St James's Hospital in Dublin to speak to Mr Puska.

The inspector agreed that in his notes made during that period he repeatedly referred to Mr Puska as a "suspected offender". He said he does not believe he told the members who had been sent to Dublin that the first suspect had been released. "It wouldn't be something I would usually do because it's not relevant to their task," he said.

At that time, he said the investigation was "fast moving, very dynamic" and they were taking in a lot of information.

Part of the task for the two gardai who were sent to meet Mr Puska, he said, was to talk to him and to "have a look at him" but he couldn't remember if he "specifically asked" gardai to look at Mr Puska or to compare him to a person captured on CCTV images that gardai had gathered in their investigation.

The inspector said that the notes he has from the time show that he wanted gardai to get an account from Mr Puska of his movements on the 12th and to ask if he owns a bicycle. He also had a note that Mr Puska had three stab wounds, one of which was close to his liver and that he would be in hospital for about one week. He said it "would make sense" that Det Gda Hogan gave him the information about Mr Puska's condition.

He further agreed that he directed the detectives to remain in the area of St James's Hospital and over the following days he made enquiries about when Mr Puska was to be released from hospital.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Tony Hunt and a jury of nine men and three women.