Niece of Offaly's Lorna Woodnutt found out she was dead after ...

A niece of Lorna Woodnutt who was murdered in Co Offaly last year has told the sentencing hearing of the boy who admits killing her that she learned of her aunt's death after receiving the video of the scene to her phone.

20-year-old Jessica Woodnutt delivered the powerful victim impact statement on Monday where she described the video as "something a terrorist would create."

The Central Criminal Court heard that a teenage boy used a sledgehammer and a lump hammer to bludgeon 51-year-old Lorna Woodnutt to death before posting a video on Snapchat and sending a blood-splattered selfie with the victim's faceless body.

The boy told detectives he recorded and shared the video on Snapchat with "everyone in his contacts, which the court heard was "a three figure number", so that officers "would come". Those individuals had access to the video for thirty minutes but the teenager took it down when gardai arrived, the court was told.

In an emotional victim impact statement read to the court, the deceased's niece Jessica Woodnutt said she discovered that her auntie had been brutally murdered when she received a video "with content that I can only describe as something a terrorist would create".

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The now 20-year-old added: "My legs turned to jelly. I was home alone.... I could not watch the entire video and only clicked into it to find out it was actually Lorna who had been murdered, hoping that it was some sort of mix up. Her head was destroyed and her beautiful face was no longer there. Instead, at her shoulders was a pool of blood. I was immediately distraught and entered a state of denial".

"I phoned the local garda station and asked that they check on my auntie... I feared this video was being mindlessly shared on social media as my auntie lay lifelessly at her home without help. The guards could not tell me much over the phone but just said that they were looking into something at this time but could not reveal details. This was enough to confirm to me that I was in fact living in what could only be described as my worst nightmare".

The court also heard during Monday's sentence hearing that the now 17-year-old defendant, who cannot be identified because he is a minor, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at 18 months old and there had been an increase in his aggressive and oppositional behavioural issues towards staff and students in his school in the weeks leading up to the killing.

Laboratory technician Ms Woodnutt had suffered fatal blunt force injuries to the head, face and chest in the attack when she was sitting at a kitchen table working on her computer.

A postmortem report revealed that Ms Woodnutt's facial features were absent, with a defect in the face exposing the skull "without any extracranial content present". There was a loss of the anterior facial skin and soft tissue from the forehead to below the chin.

The boy appeared at the court on Monday for his sentence hearing having pleaded guilty earlier this month to murdering Lorna Woodnutt, 51, at a property in a rural area outside Tullamore, Co Offaly on September 29, 2023.

In his interviews, the teenager told gardai that he got angry and had "lost the head" when he had an argument with Ms Woodnutt. "Now I regret it as I'm stuck here, I just whacked her, I don't know what got into me, it just built up over the years," he added.

The defendant also told officers: "I hit her as hard as I could, 20 to 30 times, I normally wouldn't do this kind of thing, it isn't me". The boy said he "came at" Ms Woodnutt with a hammer and had "overpowered" her. He said he could see she was still breathing on the ground so "kept going until she stopped". He also said he had put the video on Snapchat as he knew gardai wouldn't want "me to do that".

An analysis of the boy's phone revealed Google searches about hammer attacks such as "what if your hit on the back of the head with a hammer", the garda’s ability to track phones, "how long is life imprisonment in prison" and searches about the behaviour of psychopaths such as "why does sociopaths bite their lips", the court was told.

The boy's phone was examined and there was evidence that the TOR internet browser had been used. TOR is designed to facilitate anonymous access to the internet

VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS

At the defendant's sentencing hearing, five victim impact statements were read to the court written by members of the victim's family.

Ms Woodnutt's brother, Derek Woodnutt, said his sister had her life "snatched" from her long before she was due to go to her place of rest "by such a cold-hearted killing". He said he had walked into a garda station that day unknown to him that his "beautiful, joyful little sister's faceless body had been viewed on social media by hundreds of people".

He said when people stop him he wonders did they see "my sister's faceless body. What do they know? What can I talk about.... my sister's beautiful face is supposed to be remembered as she was. Peaceful and loving....not as he left her".

In another victim impact statement read to the Central Criminal Court today, Ms Woodnutt's sister Roberta O'Brien said her "gruesome murder hosted on social media has left us broken beyond words. You never wanted to die in such an evil way, faceless. Our biggest fears would be his video to reappear on social media in the future. This would lead to more suffering, a constant reminder of how our despicable nightmare began".

A statement on behalf of the Woodnutt family said that they had walked into a garda station on September 29 "oblivious to our sister's public execution, which was hosted on social media by her murderer". "Evil entered the sanctity of our family that day...it is unbearable and we cannot see beyond it".

The statement continued: "Lorna loved life, she loved people and was loved by people. Let Lorna not be defined by the grotesque way she was murdered. Our last wish was to kiss our beautiful sister Lorna goodbye...our enduring memory to the day we die is her mutilated body. Faceless".

The victim's niece, Jessica Woodnutt, said her family had kissed the top of the fabric that covered Lorna's face before the coffin was closed for the final time. "I shed tears as I knew the full extent of what lay beneath the cloth.

"I now hate the mere mention of the word hammer. I can't stand the sight of them. Even a wooden mallet used to put up a sign post at an event one day turned my stomach.

SENTENCE HEARING

At today's sentencing hearing Detective Inspector Diarmaad Lawlor, of Portlaoise Garda Station, detailed the background to the case. He told prosecution counsel Michael Delaney SC that the boy was in fifth year at the time of the offence and presented with challenging behaviour both at home and in school in the time leading up to the offence.

Outlining the events that led up to the incident on September 29, Det Insp Lawlor said Ms Woodnutt was employed as a laboratory technician with a pharmaceutical company based in Co Carlow.

Det Insp Lawlor said the circumstances of the killing suggest that Ms Woodnutt was seated at a kitchen table working on her computer at the time of the attack.

The court heard that in his statement to gardai, another boy had described opening the Snapchat video, which was posted by the defendant at lunchtime that day. The court was told that this boy saw a body in the video with "feet up on a couch and a face with a big hole".

This boy immediately phoned his father, who then rang a local garda who was off duty that day. The garda went to a house where she met the defendant. When the garda asked the defendant who else was with him, he nodded in the direction of the kitchen saying: "Her, I did it'. The boy told the garda's husband that he had hit the victim with two hammers.

The garda found the victim's body in the living area and called the local station. A lump hammer, a sledgehammer and a kitchen knife were recovered from the scene. A fingerprint analysis of the sledgehammer was a positive match to a set of prints obtained from the defendant.

A post mortem was carried out by State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers, who said that Ms Woodnutt was found fully clothed and lying in a pool of blood on the living room floor. Blood and brain matter were over the couch as well as blood splatter on the walls and ceiling.

The heavily bloodied sledgehammer, which measured 18.5cm, was standing upright nearby and the heavily bloodied lump hammer, which was 26cm in length, was lying next to the victim.

Dr Okkers said the victim's left eyebrow, eyes, nose and anterior cheeks were all missing from the face and there were multiple facial fractures. The skull cavity was exposed.

The pathologist found there was a complete separation of the anterior facial skin and soft tissue from the underlying facial bones. There were defensive injuries to the back of the hands and forearms.

In his interviews, the boy told gardai he got the hammer from a shed before he started "whacking" her with it. He said Ms Woodnutt had got down on the couch and held up a chair to protect herself. The boy said he put the video on Snapchat as he knew gardai wouldn't want him to do that.

The defendant said he hit her with the small hammer first, around 15 to 20 times on the head. "I used the bigger hammer when she was on the ground," he added. He told gardai that he had tried to use the knife to stab her in the chest but it was too blunt. He said he tried to stab her three times but gave up when it wouldn't work. The boy said he had to finish what he was doing and didn't feel he could stop.

Mr Delaney said a garda who examined the selfie type picture taken by the accused said there was blood splatter on the boy's face. Over his left shoulder, the court heard, was a person lying on a tiled floor with their legs raised on the couch. He said the victim was lying in a pool of blood with facial injuries.

The video posted on Snapchat was 17 seconds long and the camera focused on a sledgehammer standing upright on the bloodied tiled floor. The court heard the camera pans to the left and there is a body in a pool of blood with severe facial injuries. "The camera lowered over the face of the victim, whose front skull was shattered; a large hole in the skull," said counsel. The camera then panned to the right of the body where brain material and blood can be seen on the floor. A clock on the wall behind showed the time as 12.36pm.

The camera then pans in closer to the hole on the face and then zooms in on the brain matter on the floor. It then pans back to the left and over the body and upwards before moving over Ms Woodnutt's head injury.

The barrister said the video was uploaded to Snapchat at 12.45pm that day. The Inspector agreed with counsel that messages sent and received were recovered on Snapchat and some users had screenshot material "in the chat".

The court heard the boy was heavily involved in bodybuilding, general strength and the consumption of protein as part of a person's diet.

The juvenile's defence counsel James Dwyer SC submitted to the court that his client has high functioning autism with poor social skills. He said his client had attacked the victim with the "most extraordinary ferocity".

Mr Justice Paul McDermott said it was essential to have a probation report available to him before he could complete the sentencing process. He adjourned the case until October 3 and directed that the boy be detained at Oberstown Children Detention Centre until then.