An Irish killer who beat his ex-girlfriend to death as their six-year-old daughter slept nearby has been attacked in prison.
Daniel Murtagh, 36, had his face cut open “from temple to chin” at Midlands Prison on Tuesday and could be scarred for life, according to reports.
Murtagh was jailed for life after beating 30-year-old Nadine Lott to death with her bare hands at her home in Arklow, County Wicklow, in December 2019.
She was beaten so badly that her face was barely recognizable, and the ambulance crew who arrived at the scene were said to be in deep shock at her injuries.
Daniel Murtagh, 36, had his face cut open “from temple to chin” at Midlands Prison on Tuesday and could be scarred for life, according to reports. Murtagh was jailed for life after beating Nadine Lott, 30, to death with her bare hands in her home in 2019
Pictured: Killer Daniel Murtagh is handcuffed and brought to justice in 2019. After being attacked in prison he was rushed to Portlaoise Hospital
Ms Lott died three days later from her ‘extreme and grotesque’ injuries at St Vincent’s Hospital. The trial heard she suffered ‘traumatic head, neck and chest injuries’.
Now Murtagh himself has been injured after being attacked in prison and had to be rushed to Portlaoise Hospital after losing a ‘serious’ amount of blood.
A source told Irish newspaper Sunday World that the killer has a tendency to get on the wrong side of other inmates, and it “eventually came back to him”.
‘The incident began on landing B1 around 5 p.m. [on Tuesday]’, a source at the prison told the newspaper. ‘Murtagh is an inmate who rubs people against evil [way] and it looks like it finally came back to him.
“The boy who attacked him cut him open from his temple to his chin. Murtagh was losing a lot of blood by the time staff reached him and he had to be rushed to Portlaoise Hospital.
“Despite the staff’s best efforts, he lost a lot of blood and is still out there under surveillance tonight,” the source added. “He will carry the scars of what happened today for the rest of his life.”
The newspaper’s source said the inmate who attacked Murtagh was immediately subdued by officers inside the prison and is now separated from other prisoners. The attack was also reported to the police, according to reports.
Mother Nadine Lott (pictured) was beaten so badly that her face was barely recognizable and the ambulance crew who arrived at the scene were said to have been left in serious shock
The inmate and another suspect who was also believed to have been involved in the attack are believed to be relatively low-level criminals with a reputation for violence inside the prison, the source added. It is believed that the assault was an attempt on their part to establish themselves at the top of the hierarchy inside the establishment.
The Sunday World also reported that the source said Kinahan Cartel shooter Gary Thompson was also beaten by the same couple several weeks ago.
Thompson is serving a 12½ year sentence for his role in a plot to kill Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch’s brother, Patrick ‘Patsy’ Hutch.
Gerry himself is currently on trial in Ireland for the 2016 mass murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel, which he denies.
Murtagh, from Clondalkin, received a number of death threats during his time behind bars at Wheatfield prison in Dublin.
According to The Sun, he was placed in a protective wing of the prison and separated from most of the prison population.
In July 2022 he was moved to Midlands High Security Prison “for his own safety”.
Pictured: Family and friends of Nadine Lott gather outside court in 2021 after Daniel Murtagh was found guilty of her murder
Murtagh was sentenced to life in October 2021. He initially pleaded guilty to manslaughter, before being found unanimously guilty of murder by a jury.
Nadine’s neighbor told the court how she found Murtagh “in a crouching position” over the victim, his hands around his neck and shoulders. She said he made a ‘growling noise’ and was ‘violent with rage’ when he attacked her.
One of the first responders said he found Nadine “reduced to a pulp”.
In July last year, less than a year into his sentence, the killer tried to have his conviction overturned. Ms Lott’s mother Claire told The Sun at the time that she accused the killer of trying to ‘re-traumatize’ her family.
At the killer’s sentencing hearing, Claire said her family was ‘haunted’ by thoughts of their daughter being attacked by Murtagh and her ‘terror, fear, panic and screaming’ during ‘the ‘protracted and evil attack’.
She described Murtagh as a ‘monster’, saying the injuries he inflicted on her daughter were so horrific that even staff at St Vincent’s Hospital were shocked.
“For people who testify a lot in their day-to-day roles, it was a testament to the monstrosity and the hurt that Nadine had endured in her final hours,” she said at the time.
