Richard Satchwell convicted of murdering his wife Tina; sentencing to take place next week

Irish Independent

a day ago

LATEST: Richard Satchwell convicted of wife's murder and now faces life in prison
Richard Satchwell (58) has been found guilty by a Central Criminal Court jury of the murder of his wife Tina (45) whose body was discovered buried under the stairwell of their Youghal, Co Cork home.
The jury returned a unanimous verdict after nine hours and 28 minutes of deliberations following a five week trial.
Satchwell now faces mandatory life in prison.
The English truck driver kept his head bowed as the Central Criminal Court jury returned a guilty verdict on the 23rd day of the Central Criminal Court murder trial.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott was told that the jury of seven women and five men had reached a unanimous guilty verdict.
The jury had commenced their deliberations at 3.05pm on Tuesday and returned with their verdict on Friday afternoon.
He pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife at a time unknown on March 19/20, 2017, at his home at No 3 Grattan Street in Youghal, Co Cork, contrary to Common Law.
Satchwell has been in custody since he was first charged on October 14, 2023, with his wife Tina's murder.
However, sentencing will be adjourned to allow for the preparation of expert reports – and for the Fermoy woman's family to consider the delivery of victim-impact statements at the sentencing hearing.
For six-and-a-half years the truck driver had told 'lie upon lie upon lie' as he maintained his wife had gone missing from their Youghal home on March 20, 2017, with two suitcases and €26,000 in their life savings.
He informed gardaí in Fermoy four days later that she had disappeared from the family home – at the very time her body was in a chest freezer awaiting burial.
His insistence his wife had disappeared prompted a six-and-a-half-year missing-person investigation which included major offshore searches and a week-long trawl of an east Cork woodland in 2018.
The murder trial opened at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin on April 28.
It sat for five weeks and the jury heard from a total of 57 witnesses as well as watching multiple video and audio interviews Satchwell had conducted with gardaí and Irish media organisations including the Irish Independent.
The jury were told Satchwell had drawn in 'anyone who would listen to him' to promote his false narrative that his wife was missing, possibly running off with another man.
He conducted lengthy interviews with the Irish Independent, RTÉ, TV3/Virgin Media, Today FM, Red FM, 96FM and CRY FM.
Prosecutor Gerardine Small SC said his account was full of 'guile', clever lies and 'conniving' behaviour.
She described him to the jury as 'an arch-manipulator'.
Leicester-born truck driver Satchwell also spoke from March 2017 about how his wife had regularly beat him – telling a man at a car-boot sale six days after his wife's death that she was 'a street angel and a house devil'.
He also floated stories that she was depressed, had possible mental health issues and may have had an affair with a Polish man.
Satchwell gave multiple interviews to television and radio stations, but visibly disliked newspaper journalists – once commenting that they were 'mentally incapable of reporting what I say'.
Two members of Ms Satchwell's family gave evidence to the trial including her cousin, Sarah Howard, and her half-sibling, Lorraine Howard.
Sarah Howard sobbed during her evidence when asked about Satchwell offering her for free the chest freezer in which he had temporarily stored his wife's body before later burying her under the stairs.
Prosecutors said this offer was 'cynical' – while even Mr Satchwell's own counsel, Brendan Grehan SC, described his actions after his wife's death as 'reprehensible and disreputable'.
The trial heard that Satchwell later placed an advert on Done Deal for a chest freezer weeks after his wife's death which he said was free if collected and that it 'just needs a clean'.
Sarah Howard said she was very suspicious of the claim Ms Satchwell had left home with the €26,000 – insisting she would never go anywhere without her beloved dogs, Heidi and Ruby, who were left behind in the Youghal property.
Jurors also heard that the Satchwell's pets – including the dogs and a parrot – were like their children.
Ms Satchwell had wanted to adopt two marmoset monkeys, Terry and Thelma, but the trial heard her husband had sent a significant amount of money for the animals to an international monkey organisation which was probably a scam.
Lorraine Howard said she did not like the way Mr Satchwell referred to her half-sibling initially as his 'trophy girlfriend' and latterly as his 'trophy wife'.
She said Tina Satchwell also confided to her that she could not get away from her husband.
'She knew she could not get away from him. She would confide in me that he would follow her to the ends of the Earth – she could not get away from him,' she said.
'He [Satchwell] knew she was above his league – his words not mine. He would tell everyone that. He would never go off with anyone else. Even if she came back in the door after all she had put him through, he would take her back.'
The truck driver told gardaí his wife regularly assaulted him and that, just days before she went missing, had told him: 'I wasted 28 years of my life with you.'
He said he was 'besotted' with his wife and catered to her every need – including bathing her each evening and rubbing oil on her body while she lay naked on the bed.
Further, he claimed he was twice arrested for shoplifting clothing he thought his wife wanted.
Satchwell maintained his wife had gone missing for six-and-a-half years, but sobbed as he changed his story to gardaí on October 12, 2023, as an intensive search of his home finally revealed his wife's secret grave under the stairs.
That search was ordered by Garda Superintendent Ann Marie Twomey who assumed responsibility for the case in 2021.
With Detective Garda David Kelleher, she conducted a full review of the case file and consulted with forensic archaeologist Dr Niamh McCullagh who focused her doctoral studies on domestic homicides in Ireland and where bodies were stored in cases where the assailant tried to evade detection.
The trial heard Dr McCullagh recommended an invasive search of the three-storey Youghal property with particular attention being paid to an area under the stairwell.
Satchwell's house was previously searched on June 7, 2017, by a 10-strong team of gardaí.
One detective photographed the area under the stairs – including the shoddily built brick wall which Satchwell had erected to conceal his wife's burial site.
However, gardaí did not conduct an invasive search of the property and Ms Satchwell's body would not be found for a further six years.
Gardaí did seize a number of laptops and mobile phones at the property and these would prove crucial in the subsequent investigation.
Detectives learned Satchwell had conducted an internet search about quicklime on March 20, 2017, and later watched a YouTube video of the effects of combining quicklime with water.
He also sent emails – after his wife was already dead – claiming she was about to leave him over the failure to secure the two pet monkeys she wanted.
Gardaí also noted six key lies which Mr Satchwell had told about his relationship with his wife and the circumstances of her disappearance.
Supt Twomey's four-day search from October 10, 2023, involved contracted builders, ground-mapping radar, forensic archaeologists, the Garda Technical Bureau and, crucially, a Northern Ireland-trained cadaver dog, Fern.
The dog immediately focused on the area under the stairwell and, when gardaí broke through a concrete slab, discovered Tina Satchwell's skeletonised and mummified body which had been buried in an old blanket and heavy-grade plastic.
She had been buried face-down along with her purse, containing several identity cards.
When confronted with the discovery, Satchwell sobbed to gardaí that he had acted in self-defence after his wife attacked him with a chisel.
He claimed he fell to the ground and held his wife away from him with his outstretched hands – and she went limp after the belt of her dressing gown went up around her neck with the full weight of her body bearing down upon it.
However, he insisted to gardaí he could not remember details of how his wife died – and refused to re-enact the manner of her death to detectives.
He maintained he acted entirely in self-defence and was 'fearful' he would be stabbed in the head.
Mr Small SC dismissed the account as 'self-serving' and 'farcical' – and claimed Satchwell was once again lying to protect himself.
Assistant state pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster, who has performed over 30,000 post-mortem examinations, could not determine a cause of death for Ms Satchwell such was the skeletonised, badly decomposed and partly mummified condition of her remains.
Forensic anthropologist Dr Laureen Buckley confirmed that no fractures were detected on the remains – and no bones showed any sign of old fractures having healed.
Satchwell explained to detectives that, when he buried his wife with fresh tulips under the stairwell of their home, it was like 'a genuine funeral'.
'When I was burying Tina… it was the final goodbye… I wanted to make her comfortable,' he told gardaí.
'I spent the night [March 20] on the floor, with Tina laying across me. I spent the night sitting on the ground, holding Tina's dead body. I didn't have food, nothing. I just held Tina all night.
'I have a conscience… I still dream of Tina. I have not lost the desire to be with her.'
He maintained he had been subjected to a campaign of domestic violence by his wife over the course of their marriage and was left with cuts, bruises, swellings, scratches and even bite marks.
Satchwell claimed he had teeth broken from blows by his wife – and said she had knocked him unconscious on two occasions.
He replied to gardaí when first charged with the murder of his wife at Cobh garda station on October 13, 2023: 'Guilty or not guilty – guilty.'
Ms Small, in her closing argument, noted that Satchwell had given a more respectful funeral to their dog Heidi than he had to the wife he claimed he had loved from first sight.
Ralph Riegel