Teen who bludgeoned woman to death sentenced to life in detention with review after 15 years

by Alison O'Riordan

A teenage boy who used a sledgehammer and a lump hammer to bludgeon 51-year-old Lorna Woodnutt to death 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 that the boy, who is under 18 and cannot be named under the Children's Act, had sent a blood-splattered selfie with the victim's faceless body.

Passing sentence on Thursday 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”.

He said the attacker had used weapons and had the intention and determination to inflict appalling injury.

The victim's niece previously told the court how she discovered her aunt had been brutally murdered when she received content that she described "as something a terrorist would create".

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 during the 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.

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.