Triple murderer Andy Cash, who inflicted hundreds of stab and slash wounds on his siblings before throwing the body of his eight-year-old brother out of the first floor window of their Dublin home, has been given three separate life sentences.
Gardai who responded to the multiple homicide told the court that the scene they encountered was one of “carnage”.
“Our three innocent children were viciously taken from us and that was the day the world stopped turning. What is left is our broken family and every day since has been unbearable”, the victims mother Margaret McDonagh, along with other family members, wrote in a victim impact statement that was read to the court.
“We miss everything about them, hearing their voices, their laughs, the conversations we would have, the games we would play as a family, the hugs and kisses that we won’t ever get from them again,” they wrote.
They said there are not enough words to describe the pain and hurt that is in the hearts of their family and the pain that they have to live “with every second of every day since”.
Cash (26) pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court on Tuesday to the murders of 18-year-old Lisa Cash and her eight-year-old twin brother and sister, Christy and Chelsea Cawley, at their family home in Rossfield Avenue, Tallaght, Dublin 24, in the early hours of September 4, 2022.
The testimony was heard as part of an emotional and powerful victim impact statement, before Cash was sentenced to three mandatory terms of life imprisonment for murdering his three siblings. The sentences were backdated to September 4 2022, when he went into custody.
Detective Garda Robert Whitty told the court that three victims had suffered “catastrophic” injuries having been stabbed multiple times. A post mortem revealed 71 slash and stab injuries to Lisa’s face, neck, chest and limbs. There were also signs that she had tried to defend herself from the attack.
Christy suffered 107 sharp force injuries before being thrown out a first floor window of the house while his sister Chelsea was stabbed and slashed 65 times.
Mr Brendan Grehan SC, defending Cash, said his client, also of Rossfield Avenue in Tallaght, had asked him to say that he is sorry for his actions and sorry to all the people that he has hurt.