A teenage boy who killed 51-year-old Lorna Woodnutt in Co Offaly, before posting a video on Snapchat, has been sentenced to life in detention with a review after 15 years.
The Central Criminal Court heard at the child's sentencing hearing last July the boy, who is under 18 and cannot be named under the Children's Act, had sent a selfie with the victim's faceless body.
Passing sentence today, Mr. Justice Paul McDermott said Ms Woodnutt had suffered a sustained assault, which the teen had carried out with an "extraordinary level of brutality and viciousness".
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.
The court also heard the now 17-year-old defendant, 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.
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.
The boy appeared at the court last July for his sentence hearing having pleaded guilty to murdering Lorna Woodnutt, aged 51, at a property in a rural area outside Tullamore, Co Offaly on September 29, 2023.
Reporting Kamron Clarke
