For Ashling's family, life is now an absence, the light of joy exterminated

FOR the family of Ashling Murphy, their hearts emaciated by sorrow beyond measure, there is nothing unusual about the clocks going back.

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Since their daughter was stolen by evil, their internal timepiece has rewound every waking hour to January 12, 2022, their world distilled down to a few depraved moments by a Tullamore canal bank.

No matter how they adjust their wristwatches, it is forever a wintertime of the soul.

The words of Ashling's poor, heartsick father Ray detonated like a landmine of despair in the Central Criminal Court on Wednesday: "She is the first thought that comes into my mind each morning and my last thought before I close my eyes at night."

Because Ray was submerged in a crater of unimaginable paternal suffering, his victim impact statement was read into the record by Garda Alan Burke.

Some 1,382 days have passed since Jozef Puska annihilated a family's hope, extinguishing the golden light of a vibrant Offaly woman's life, a 23-year-old denied all her tomorrows by an act of satanic malevolence.

This week transported us back to an afternoon when a school teacher went for a post-work jog by the waterside, and when a daughter, a sister, a girlfriend never came home.

Peace of mind and reason drifted away like an unmoored boat into the distant ocean 45 months ago, the crown jewel of their priceless contentment forever taken from the Murphy family and Ashling's boyfriend Ryan Casey.

"My parents have lost a part of themselves," Ashling's sister Amy told the hushed courtroom.

As she spoke her voice faltered, while, hand clasped in hand, Ray and his wife Kathleen submitted to tears they could no longer dam.

The soundtrack of parents who are stalked by grief every moment of their brutally diminished lives, any kind of barring order against the anguish that chases them into their nightmares, unattainable.

SILENCE

There is no calculator that can total the sum of all that hurt. Your child erased by a beast disguised as a member of the human race.