‘I heard the arm break before I hit the ground': American tourist (81) robbed on visit to find ancestors' home
An American tourist who came to Ireland to see where her ancestors had emigrated from in the 1800s was robbed alongside
Killarney
National Park and suffered serious injuries, the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee was told.
Andrea Bartlett (81) from South Carolina gave her victim impact statement via live video link.
Tomas Starodubcevas (24), a native of Lithuania, of Tudor Lodge, Woodlawn Road Killarney, pleaded guilty to robbing the woman of €325.
In Killarney since the age of 18, Starodubcevas was working in hospitality, and had developed drug problems, the court heard.
READ MORE
He had followed Andrea Bartlett and her husband William (83) from the town where they had dined celebrating their 54th wedding anniversary, the court heard.
'He appears to have spotted them in town and spent 40 minutes following them as they made their way back to their accommodation in the Port Road,' Tom Rice prosecutor put it to Sergeant Nigel Shevlin, investigating garda.
Sgt Shelvin agreed and said the accused had approached Ms Bartlett from behind and grabbed her handbag.
She suffered serious injuries to her arm and her head when she fell out on to the road. She was still recovering and her medical injuries costs amounted to $12,529.
Starodubcevas was arrested shortly afterwards and he made full admissions.
Ms Bartlett told the court she was 'viciously attacked' that evening.
'He threw me to the ground. I heard the arm break before I hit the ground as it made a loud cracking sound like a three branch snapping off a tree.'
Thankfully she was not run over when she fell on to the road.
The couple who had initially planned the trip for their 50th anniversary, had intended visiting Sneem, Kenmare, and Tahilla from where her ancestors had emigrated.
'My recovery has been long and painful,' she said. Her husband William had to do everything for her and she also had to hire home help.
They also missed seeing the towns her ancestors emigrated from in the 1800s, she said.
'I used to think Ireland was a safe country,' she said.
Defence barrister Katie O'Connell, instructed by Brendan Ahern solicitor, said her client – he sat with his head bowed - was very ashamed and offered his sincere apologies.
Probation reports have been ordered and he has been remanded in custody to the second week of July 8th for sentence.
'I hope it hasn't put you off Ireland completely,' Judge Ronan Munro said.
The matter will be listed for the week of July 8th.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Who was Sunny Jacobs? A remarkable life from Florida's death row to Connemara
Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs was 76 when she died on Tuesday morning in a house fire in Connemara . Her tragic death made headlines far beyond Galway and Ireland because Jacobs had led a truly remarkable life. It included a death row sentence for the murder of two policemen in Florida in 1976. She spent 17 years in a US jail, five in solitary confinement, before a deal with prosecutors saw her released in 1995. Another person died in the fire in the remote cottage, her carer a young man called Kevin Kelly from Moycullen. READ MORE Her life – before and after that highway shooting – has been chronicled in books, a play and a film as Jacobs became a campaigner against the death penalty. In an extraordinary twist of fate, a coincidence that could barely have been imagined, she ended up married to a man whose experience mirrored hers. [ Death row survivor Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs found 'tranquility' in Connemara before death in house fire Opens in new window ] Peter Pringle had also been handed the death sentence over his part in the murder of two policemen: gardaí John Morley and Henry Byrne during a bank robbery in Co Roscommon in 1980. After serving 15 years in jail, Pringle was acquitted of the killings in 1995 when the Court of Appeal ruled the original verdict was unsafe and unsound. The two former prisoners met in Ireland at an Amnesty event – Jacobs was a tireless campaigner for the rest of her life – and married in 2011 before settling in Connemara. Irish Times reporter Ronan McGreevy has been in Connemara where Jacobs found peace and sanctuary and where she died. He tells In the News her story. Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey.
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
How was Tina Satchwell left in a makeshift grave under the stairs for more than six years?
Six-and-a-half years is an unconscionably long time for a body to lie in a makeshift grave, buried just under the stairs of her own home, awaiting discovery. One week ago, after more than four weeks of testimony and nine hours of deliberation, a Central Criminal Court jury found Richard Satchwell guilty of the murder of his wife, Tina Satchwell , or Tina Dingivan as her family know her . On Wednesday, he was sentenced to life in prison . The 58-year-old intends to appeal. Her sister, Lorraine Howard, said Satchwell secretly hid his murdered wife under the stairs of their home where he could have 'ultimate control' over her. For now, just one question remains: why did it take so long for gardaí to find Tina Satchwell's remains? In March 2017, Tina Satchwell, then aged 45, joined the ranks of Ireland's missing persons. Satchwell reported her disappearance to An Garda Síochána on March 24th. It was four days after he claimed to have last seen her, but he said he had no concerns for her welfare. READ MORE In May that year, after gardaí visited him at home, he filed a formal missing person report. He claimed that she had upped and left him without so much as a letter. Also left behind: her mobile phone, her keys, her two beloved dogs. Gardaí were reportedly 'perplexed' by her disappearance. She did not have a passport. There was no evidence that she had departed Co Cork by car, ferry, bus, or plane. She had no prior history of leaving. Still, they waited until June 7th to conduct a preliminary search of the Satchwell home. They discovered unfinished home improvement works under way. But when that search failed to turn up forensic evidence such as blood spatters or a body stuffed in a freezer, the investigation appears to have stalled. [ Tina Satchwell case: Questions raised by politicians over original Garda investigation ] Finally, after a change in the investigating team, gardaí conducted an invasive search that included a cadaver dog in October 2023. The dog solved the mystery of Tina's purported vanishing: she had never made it out of her home alive. I remember the earliest media accounts of Tina Satchwell's disappearance. I was living in Dublin on a research sabbatical at University College Dublin and studying Irish criminal justice policies. At the outset, this case tugged at me. I am a criminologist with research expertise in gender violence. At every stage of life, women and girls who are reported missing are at much greater risk of homicide than men and boys. A recent study of femicides in Ireland reveals that more than half were killed by a person they knew. In most cases, their murderers were their husbands, boyfriends or ex-partners. These are often the same people who call gardaí to report them missing. Satchwell's trial heard from Dr Niamh McCullagh, a specialist in the search and recovery of human remains concealed in a criminal context . She said that 'for all concealed homicide cases that have been studied in Ireland, victims are disposed of within one kilometre of their home address in the majority of cases'. Law enforcement delays and missteps are regrettably common in cases of missing women. Missing person cases are, in general, time-consuming, expensive and emotionally draining. In the year that Satchwell murdered Tina, An Garda Síochána investigated more than 9,500 missing persons reports. To their credit, they solved all but 36 within the year. Tina's disappearance should have been one of them. Research by Bernadette Manifold, a forensic scientist who studies femicide and long-term missing women in Ireland, found that many femicide cases were initially reported as missing persons to the police and that women who go missing have a greater risk of being a victim of homicide. Gender bias often manifests in cases involving intimate and domestic partner violence and sexual assault. In some instances, gender bias gives rise to victim-blaming and denialism. And so reports of violence and abuse in the home may be downgraded. Emergency calls concerning domestic abuse are cancelled and not recorded. In the context of missing persons, investigators may miss red flags and discount the odds of foul play. Gender bias renders men's explanations – even far-fetched explanations – credible. Tina Satchwell's disappearance was littered with red flags. Criminological research identifies several factors to help investigators determine the risk that a missing woman may be the victim of murder. Her case encompassed every single one of those factors. First, did an argument or fight precede the disappearance? Was there a history of violence in the relationship? Check and check. Second, was the last person to see the victim alive an intimate partner? Check. Third, were there delays in reporting the person missing? Check. Fourth, were there inconsistencies in accounts of the disappearance? Check. Fifth, did the missing person leave behind essential items such as a mobile phone and wallet? Check. Three red flags were present at the beginning. Satchwell was the last person to see Tina alive. He delayed contacting gardaí and her family. She left behind her phone and identification card. In the days and weeks that followed, additional flags emerged. Richard revealed that their marriage was on the rocks and that Tina left to 'clear her head'. Discrepancies crept into his statements to gardaí and the media. He suggested their relationship was punctuated by episodes of violence (in his telling, she was always the perpetrator). In his final rendering, he suggested that he killed Tina in self-defence after she charged at him with a chisel. Red flags don't make a person guilty of murder, but these do make it incumbent on investigators to treat a disappearance with utmost urgency. As An Garda Síochána's policy manual on missing persons states, 'it is easier to rein back from the early stages of a big investigation, than recover missed opportunities'. The missed opportunities in this case are glaringly obvious. The search of the Satchwell home in Youghal, Co Cork, should have been conducted in late March 2017, immediately following Satchwell's initial report of Tina's disappearance. That search should have included a cadaver dog. The home improvement works, as well as Richard's far-flung accounts of monkeys for sale, deceased parrots, undiagnosed psychiatric disorders and missing €26,000 should have immediately raised the eyebrows of gardaí. While a thorough and expedient investigation into her disappearance would not have saved Tina Satchwell, improved policing practices that incorporate what we know about gender-based violence, and are informed by criminological research, may spare other women and girls from a similar fate. Dr Jill McCorkel is professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Villanova University, Pennsylvania. She is founder and executive director of Philadelphia Justice Project for Women and Girls
Irish Times
10 hours ago
- Irish Times
Robert Pether released on bail after four years in Iraqi jail
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris has been informed that an Australian citizen who has been living in Ireland has been released on bail after spending four years in an Iraqi prison. Robert Pether and his wife Desree have been living in Elphin, Co Roscommon for a number of years. The engineer was helping to design the central bank in Baghdad and was set to work on three hospitals. However, there was a contract dispute between his employer and the Central Bank of Iraq, which led to him and his Egyptian work colleague Khalid Radwan being imprisoned. READ MORE The pair were sentenced to five years and fined $12 million by an Iraqi court. Mr Pether was detained in April 2021 and was found guilty of deception in a 'kangaroo court', according to his wife. Mr Pether has been in an Iraqi jail since then and his family have feared for his health. They have been lobbying the Government for help since his arrest. In a statement the Tánaiste said that he has been 'informed' of Mr Pether's release and whose 'imprisonment in Iraq has been a case of great concern'. The Tánaiste said he had spoken with Iraq's foreign minister Fuad Hussein last month to urge him to release the Australian. 'I was informed that Robert has been released on bail and for the moment he remains in Iraq, but I welcomed this as a first step to his being allowed to return to his family in Roscommon,' Mr Harris said. 'We remain concerned about Robert's health and outstanding charges, but I am hopeful now of a positive resolution in this case.' He also confirmed that he had spoken with Ms Pether about the 'positive development' in her husband's case and thanked the ongoing work of Irish officials living in the region on the issue.
