A 17-year-old has been jailed for life for the murder of Rebecca Kinsella (19) last year.
The youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty yesterday to murdering Ms Kinsella at her home in Grattan Court, Celbridge, on January 24th, 2006.
Mr Justice Paul Carney imposed the mandatory life sentence and backdated it to January 26th, 2006. He ordered that he stay in St Patrick's Institution until he reaches 21 years, when he would be transferred to Mountjoy Prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.
Flanked by his parents, the youth kept his head down and cried as details of the horrific event were read out.
Det Sgt Ashley O'Sullivan told Patrick McCarthy SC, prosecuting, that in interviews with gardaí, the youth said he "didn't mean to kill her". He told gardaí he picked up the baseball bat "and couldn't stop". He said he did not know how many times he stabbed her.
Later, he said he was sorry for what he had done and that he was "sad". Det Sgt O'Sullivan said Ms Kinsella was beaten to death "in a very serious and vicious manner" with a baseball bat and two kitchen knives.
He said blood was found on the landing, hall and livingroom.
Postmortem results showed she was stabbed 51 times and suffered multiple blunt force trauma to the head, trunk and limbs.
He said that according to the report of State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy, Ms Kinsella died from multiple stab wounds to the back of her neck, which severed her spinal cord.
The alarm was raised by her mother who returned home that evening to find her daughter's body lying in a pool of blood.
The first-year fine arts student at DIT was pronounced dead at the scene.