Murdered mum Jennie Poole was living in terror and stashed knives around her home to protect herself, her heartbroken family has revealed.
The 24-year-old care worker was stabbed seven times by her monster ex Gavin Murphy at her apartment in Finglas, Dublin, while her young son waited for her outside. Her brother Jason told of his shock and sadness as the family pieced together the details of Jennie’s last months after her brutal killing on April 17, 2021.
He said: “We had to clear out her apartment for the landlord. We quickly realised the type of life that Jennifer was living, there was a lot of knives hidden around the house.
Read more: Body discovered in 'unexplained circumstances' in Co Meath
“There were knives hidden at the side of the bed – even when she was lying in her bed at night she didn’t know that she was safe. You go, ‘What kind of life did he give her, what kind of abuse did she have to suffer and why didn’t she ask for help?’
“She done nothing wrong, but that was the kind of hold he had on Jennifer. She couldn’t tell her family and friends because she didn’t know what would happen next if she did.
“To think that’s the type of life she led, but she put on such a brave face and put on a smile and put on a front that you would never have known what was going on.”
Jason and Jennie’s grieving sister Clare feature on a Virgin Media documentary about domestic violence and femicide, Until Death, which airs tomorrow night. Clare tells how evil Murphy, 31, threatened to shoot Jennie’s family if she told anyone about the abuse.
The programme explores how abusers manipulate and isolate their victims and pass themselves off as normal members of society. Figures released on Friday reveal more than 49,257 reports of domestic abuse received by gardai to date in 2022 – a 9% increase on the same period in 2021.
Since 2020, incidents of coercive control have risen steadily with a total of 481 recorded.
Read more: Brother of murdered Jennifer Poole hits out at killer who threatened prison officers
Murphy, who attacked a prison officer in Mountjoy just months into his life sentence for murder, told Jennie he had returned from Spain but in fact he had just been released from prison. Unbeknown to the young mum-of-two, the violent brute had 17 previous convictions including assault on a former girlfriend and her mother.
Jason said: “You’d see Jennifer with a mark or a bruise and you’d question her...
“There was always an explanation, same way there was always an explanation if something happened to her home or the television was broken.
“That went on and on and on.”
He recalled how Murphy persuaded Jennie to let him take a hot shower at her apartment – then brutally attacked her.
Jason said: “She left Zack in the car and said, ‘I’ll be back to you now’.
“He was still there, he was clearly waiting for her return. The child was outside the apartment and heard his mammy crying for help, calling for help, crying for help.
“That is what he remembers. To hear that she was crying for help – she knew at that point this was it, I’m not going to survive this.”
Reliving the moment he saw his sister dead on a hospital bed he said: “She had seven major stab wounds and 14 defensive wounds, a lot of them quite deep. She had a dislocated finger. A lot of bruising, they’re pictures you never forget. She had 88 old wounds that were still visible but weren’t consistent with the date of her death.”
Jason is now campaigning for a domestic violence register so gardai will have to inform victims if they are in danger from a convicted offender.
He said: “They should say if a person has a history of this, particularly where there’s children involved because they have a duty of care.”
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