{"id":576823,"date":"2026-07-09T12:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/576823\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T12:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:14:13","slug":"dublin-man-who-murdered-american-nurse-is-jailed-for-14-years-in-hungary-the-irish-times-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/576823\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin man who murdered American nurse is jailed for 14 years in Hungary \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Hungarian<\/a> judge sentenced a Dublin<\/a> man to 14 years in prison for the murder of an American nurse and attempting to hide her body. <\/p>\n

The Dublin man, who cannot be named due to Hungarian legal restrictions, killed Mackenzie Michalski (31) in November 2024 during what he claimed was a one-night stand in Budapest and hid her body. <\/p>\n

The 38-year-old had insisted that her death arose as a result of an accident during consensual sex.<\/p>\n

However, the prosecutor in the case argued at the previous hearing that based on evidence presented during the trial, it is highly unlikely that the victim asked the Irish man to strangle her, as he claimed, as she was suffering from an old neck injury and had not shown any interest for violent sex previously.<\/p>\n

In reaching his verdict, the judge agreed with the prosecution\u2019s case. He said it was inconceivable that someone with chronic neck pain would ask a complete stranger to choke her. <\/p>\n

He said it was not believable that the victim asked for the sexual encounter to be violent, that she asked the man to tie her up with belts and that she was \u201cdominant\u201d during the encounter, as the convicted man claimed at trial.<\/p>\n

The man\u2019s defence team is expected to appeal the murder conviction. The court also expelled him from Hungary for 10 years after the completion of his prison sentence.<\/p>\n

The judge ordered the Irish man to pay \u20ac7,250 towards the court\u2019s expenses for the case.<\/p>\n

According to Hungarian law, accused and convicted people cannot be named or pictured unless they give their consent. <\/p>\n

The Dublin man did not consent to being named or his face being published. Only public figures or politicians can be named or pictured when standing trial or after conviction without consent.<\/p>\n

Following the verdict, Nicholas Michalski, the victim\u2019s brother, said they welcomed that the judge chose a harsher sentence than what the prosecution originally asked for. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe important thing is that the murderer is kept off the streets. That he can\u2019t do this to other people,\u201d Michalski told the Irish Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want other people to go through what Kenzie went through.\u201d <\/p>\n

The victim\u2019s family attended every hearing in the Dublin man\u2019s case, wearing teal ribbons, Mackenzie\u2019s favourite colour.<\/p>\n

Standing outside the courtroom the victim\u2019s mother, Jill Michalski, held up a white T-shirt with her daughter\u2019s photo on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustice for Kenzie! We love you to infinity and beyond,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"StandingStanding outside the courtroom the victim’s mother, Jill Michalski, held up a white T-shirt with her daughter’s photo, Kenzie, on it. Photo: B\u00e1lint D\u00f6m\u00f6t\u00f6r <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the victim\u2019s mother spoke of the \u201cimmense trauma\u201d the loss of Mackenzie caused, recalling how they were forced to see their daughter\u2019s unrecognisable face upon arriving to Hungary following the woman\u2019s disappearance.<\/p>\n

The \u201cheinous crime\u201d of Mackenzie Michalski\u2019s murder \u201cdeserves the harshest penalty allowed by law\u201d, the grieving mother told the court.<\/p>\n

Following the verdict, the Dublin man\u2019s lawyer, Dr Gy\u00f6rgy Magyar argued that his client should have been tried for manslaughter instead of murder and should have received a shorter prison sentence. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis verdict is a complete nonsense,\u201d the lawyer said.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the accused man addressed the Budapest court in his closing statement at the trial. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything I did, I did because Kenzie asked me,\u201d the Dubliner told the judge during a hearing in the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to take her life,\u201d he told the court.<\/p>\n

His last words to the judge were: \u201cI\u2019m so sorry, I didn\u2019t know, I\u2019m very sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DublinDublin man convicted of the murder of an American nurse in Budapest in 2024. Photo: B\u00e1lint D\u00f6m\u00f6t\u00f6r <\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the Irish man\u2019s defence team called for further evidence to be presented to the court, arguing that the trial has been biased towards the victim.<\/p>\n

Magyar argued that the sexual encounter was clearly consensual in his opinion and called claims that the defendant willingly killed the victim as \u201cabsurd\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court previously heard that Michalski, a nurse who came to Hungary as a tourist a few days before meeting the accused, suffocated after the man strangled her for at least two to three minutes.<\/p>\n

Dozens of further injuries were found during the autopsy, including signs of blunt-force trauma to the head.<\/p>\n

Clinical psychiatrists told the court at a hearing in April that the man told them he had kissed Michalski\u2019s dead body. They said he could have been in bed with the victim for up to four hours after her death but he had provided conflicting accounts about the length of time.<\/p>\n

The police found disturbing footage of the missing woman\u2019s naked, tied-up and lifeless body on the suspect\u2019s phone. <\/p>\n

The Irish man\u2019s computer and a \u201cspy pen\u201d seized by the police showed further evidence of the suspect\u2019s perversion, the court was told.<\/p>\n

At a previous hearing, the Dubliner told the court that he arrived in Hungary less than a week before the incident and met Michalski at a popular bar in Budapest frequented by tourists, on November 4th, 2024. <\/p>\n

The pair had drinks at the bar and in a nightclub before going to the man\u2019s apartment, where Michalski died in the early hours of November 5th.<\/p>\n

The police report showed that the Dublin man attempted to cover up his crime by cleaning the rented apartment and purchasing a suitcase to place his victim\u2019s body in.<\/p>\n

He then rented a car and drove to Lake Balaton, about 145km southwest of Budapest, where he dumped the body in a wooded area outside the town of Szigliget, hoping that wild boars would eat the remains. <\/p>\n

The man was detained in Budapest the day after and led police to the location where he had hidden the body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Hungarian judge sentenced a Dublin man to 14 years in prison for the murder of an American…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,52,13,14,6,25126,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-576823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-dublin","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-hungary","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116889968810454014","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}