Louise O'Neill: Ashling Murphy should have been safe. She should have made it home

We say their names aloud. Sarah Everard. Sabina Nessa. Ashling Murphy. And we wonder which one of us will be next.

'Photos of Ashling have been shared online, beautiful in a red dress and lipstick, almost impossibly young.'

I was a teenager when Larry Murphy was arrested for the brutal rape and attempted murder of a woman in 2000, and I don’t remember being conscious of the story at the time. But recently I read a contemporaneous article about the case, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. 

“At about 8.15pm on Friday, February 11th, last year…” the Irish Times article began. “A Carlow woman left work in the town and walked to the nearby car-park where she had left her car. Larry Murphy was waiting. He had spotted her earlier in the town and began stalking her, waiting for an opportunity to attack.”