A 19-year-old man was jailed for life yesterday at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin for a fatal attack on a Longford woman.
David Brozovsky, with an address at Grian Ard, Ardnacassa, Longford, pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of 37-year old mother-of-two Sharon Coughlan in Longford last September.
Mr Justice Liam McKechnie said he "could not think of two more gruesome crimes", calling it a "mindless, senseless, savage attack".
"It beggars my understanding of human nature that an individual could do these things to another."
Prosecuting counsel Louise Kennedy SC told the court that Ms Coughlan was last seen leaving Tesco in Longford at 4.37pm on September 15th last.
At around 7pm that evening, her 10-year-old daughter returned from the local swimming pool to find their house at 40 Great Water Street locked.
She contacted her two aunts, who went looking for their sister before noticing Garda activity outside the premises of 47 Great Water Street.
The landlord of the premises had discovered a body in the bathroom of the house and had alerted gardaí.
It emerged that Ms Coughlan had been strangled.
Brozovsky was arrested after gardaí traced activity on the dead woman's mobile phone, which he had stolen and given to someone he owed money to.
Ms Kennedy then read transcripts of the interviews that gardaí conducted with Brozovsky after his arrest on September 20th.
Brozovsky told gardaí he had been taking drugs on his own at the house at 47 Great Water Street.
The premises were vacant, and had been rented to the accused until the summer of 2007.
The court heard that Brozovsky saw Ms Coughlan pass the house as she was on her way to Tesco. He waited for her to come back before dragging her into the house and throwing her on the floor of the livingroom. He told gardaí it was his intention to steal her handbag.
The court heard that he began to strangle Ms Coughlan, and that she cried and screamed and said she would not identify him to gardaí.
The court heard that she fainted and that Brozovsky raped her while she was unconscious.
When she woke up, she screamed, he told gardaí. He began to strangle her again, and said that it took a minute to kill her.
He then dragged Ms Coughlan's body to the bathroom and covered it with a curtain and an unfitted bath.
He told gardaí he stole Ms Coughlan's mobile phone, €100 and two packets of cigarettes, and that after the attack he went home, had a shower and fell asleep.
Brozovsky, originally from the Czech Republic, has 25 previous convictions in his home country for theft, extortion and battery, as well as two previous convictions in Belgium for theft and aggravated theft.
He arrived in Ireland in July 2006 with members of his family. His girlfriend and child, who also accompanied him, had left before the crime.
Ms Coughlan's family was in court yesterday. A sister, Brenda Coughlan, read a victim impact statement prepared by the family.
She said: "On the fifteenth of September, 2007, our lives changed forever... Sharon was the life and soul of every party, always smiling, hard-working... She was the friend you wished you had.
"Saturday began as a normal day for Sharon. She kissed her children goodbye, not knowing it would be the last time she would see them."
Ms Coughlan's sisters had to identify her body, and they said in court yesterday that the "look of terror on her face will haunt us forever".
"We knew she had a horrible death," they said.
"The hardest thing to deal with was having to tell Sharon's daughter aged 10 and her son aged four that their mammy was never coming back...They still believe their mammy will be back and will bring them home.
"Although we can give them a home, we can never give them their one true wish mammy."
Mr Justice McKechnie sentenced Brozovsky to life for the murder of Ms Coughlan and to a concurrent sentence of 15 years, with the final two suspended, for the rape.