Tina Satchwell – the ‘lovely girl' whose life was marred by loss

Independent

4 days ago

Tina Satchwell was known for her love of clothes, her two pet dogs and the bargains she could seek out in car boot sales dotted around Co Cork.
Just 24 hours before she was murdered by her husband of 27 years, Tina spent the day browsing stalls at Carrigtwohill, a town east of Cork city centre.
She bought a black jacket and a dress and hung it up over a door in the living room in the home she shared with Richard Satchwell.
According to Satchwell, the items remained there for a long time after her death.
Mrs Satchwell (nee Dingivan) was from St Bernard's Place in Fermoy, Co Cork.
In the 1980s she moved to Coalville outside Leicester in England, to live with her grandmother.
It was while she in was Coalville that she met her future husband, when she was aged 17 and he was 21.
Satchwell admitted that he told his brother he would marry Tina the first time he saw her.
He proposed to Tina in October of 1989 at a place called Mount Pleasant.
The couple were married the following year on Tina's 20th birthday in Oldham.
There was no one from Satchwell's family at the wedding, as they did not approve of their relationship.
Satchwell, who had described himself as quiet and overweight, had married his 'trophy wife'.
The couple eventually moved back to Ireland, and lived in various properties in Co Cork and then Fermoy before buying a house in Youghal in 2016, some 40km from where she grew up.
They were not well known in Youghal, and socialising with locals did not exist in their tight-knit world where it was largely just the two of them.
Anyone who did know Tina, or met her, would often recognise her as a glamorous woman, who had a love of fashion and clothes.
The court heard she was petite, weighing around eight stone.
Angela Sheehan, who described herself as an acquaintance of Tina, said she was a woman who loved her fashion, high heels, hair, makeup and jewellery.
She told the trial that is what they would often talk about when they met, and she described her as a 'lovely girl' who was pleasant, bubbly and good for a laugh.
Tina was rarely seen without her beloved dogs, Heidi and Ruby.
While she had a great affection for animals generally, she loved her two dogs, particularly her chihuahua, Ruby, and had considered them her children.
Satchwell and Tina bought Ruby in 2014 after Tina had been struggling with the death of her brother Tom in 2012.
Satchwell said that Ruby brought something into Tina's life that she always wanted – a nice small dog to accompany her. Heidi, he said, was for him.
They also shared their home with their pet parrot, Valentine.
The court heard Tina's voice only once during the trial when a video was played during a media appeal with Prime Time Investigates in 2018, in which she speaks to their now dead parrot, Pearl.
'What have you got there, Pearl?' she is heard asking the bird in a soft Cork accent.
Satchwell told the reporter that the parrot died in the January before his wife disappeared.
Tina had spent most her life believing Mary Collins was her sister, until she discovered that she was her biological mother.
She made the discovery at the time of her confirmation when she was looking for her birth certificate.
Tina had been raised by her grandmother, Florence, who she thought was her mother and had referred to her as that for all of her life.
The two had a good relationship and were close, but Tina was in shock at the revelation of who her biological mother was, and felt she had been lied to for a period of her life.
Sarah Howard and Tina were half-sisters and shared the same mother, however, Tina spent most her primary school years believing that Sarah was her niece.
Tina and Sarah were very close growing up, but their relationship changed following the discovery, with Tina feeling resentment and hurt that she was not raised by her biological mother while Sarah was kept.
Sarah said that she and Tina had not spoken in the 15 years before she died as their relationship was up and down.
There could be a period of years where they were close and get on well but there were also years in which they would argue and not speak to each other.
Few people could give a good insight into Tina's marriage, however. When Sarah was asked how she would described the relationship, she said: 'Odd.'
She said that Satchwell used to call Tina his 'trophy wife' and 'trophy girlfriend'.
Ms Howard had told the court that Satchwell was obsessive about his wife, and she thought he was controlling of her.
Tina had once confided in her sister that she knew she could not get away from her husband, and that he would follow her to the ends of the earth.
Tina dealt with a number of tragedies in her life, including the death of her brother Tom in 2012.
The two were very close and Satchwell said his sudden death hit Tina hard, and that she had cried a lot for him.
Tina had adored him and he adored her, Sarah previously said.
She had been badly affected by his death and spent years struggling to deal with it.
After Tina's family got her remains back in 2023, they buried her in two graves – half of her ashes were put with their beloved grandmother, Florence, who raised Tina, and half were placed next to Tom.