Richard Satchwell listened to himself tell lie after lie but still only he truly knows what happened to wife Tina
RICHARD Satchwell cut a sad, lonely figure throughout his five-week trial in the Central Criminal Court.
He rarely lifted his head
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Richard Satchwell had pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife
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Tina's remains were found at the couple's home in Youghal in 2023
Credit: Collect
It was clear something didn't add up then, but it wasn't until we heard the full prosecution
And it was harrowing stuff.
The 58-year-old could do nothing more than try to hide his shame throughout the proceedings - especially as he listened back to 14 interviews he gave to television stations, radio stations, both local and national, and newspapers in the months that followed Tina's disappearance.
Read more on Richard Satchwell
He had to listen to himself tell lie after lie, spout repeated nonsense theories as to where Tina might be and what must have been going through his head as he watched himself put on an
All the while
One of the saddest things about this case is that Richard Satchwell put himself front and centre of this story from the outset and while Tina might not necessarily have been forgotten about, who she was, certainly was.
Most read in The Irish Sun
But these were all elements Richard Satchwell introduced into the case as part of his account of the life the couple shared together in the coastal town in rural Cork.
Another account which came solely from the mouth of the murderer was the how and why Tina died.
UNABLE TO DETERMINE CAUSE OF DEATH
The long period from the day she died up to the moment
So there was nothing to corroborate what he had to say and only he will truly know what happened between March 19 and 20, 2017.
But it was years of public storytelling which probably sealed his fate because it was very hard to believe anything he had to say, even if his barrister Brendan Grehan tried to remind the jury that people lie for many reasons and he was not on trial for
ACCEPTED HIS FATE
Throughout the trial Satchwell looked like a man who had long since accepted his fate, knowing it would be very difficult to convince a jury of his version of events.
And the guilty verdict will ensure only one sentence, which will give him enough opportunities to contemplate how winning the Lotto the day he met Tina, in his words, went so violently and tragically wrong.
Hopefully before Mr Justice Paul McDermott gets around to imposing Satchwell's life sentence, we get to hear from her family and the person Tina was becomes a bit more central to this distressing case.
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Satchwell told cops on March 24, 2017, that Tina had left the marital home four days earlier
Credit: John Delea - The Sun Dublin
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Throughout the trial Satchwell looked like a man who had long since accepted his fate
Credit: John Delea - The Sun Dublin
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Sunday World
8 hours ago
- Sunday World
The body under the stairs: How Richard Satchwell almost got away with murder
In our latest Special Investigation, the Sunday World looks at the story behind Richard Satchwell's murder of his wife Tina. Richard Satchwell turned to his brother and told him that he was going to marry the Irish teenager when his first saw her. He never forgot the date, the 3rd March 1989, when he laid eyes on the 18-year-old from County Cork. Tina had just arrived to live in England with her grandmother Florence and her uncle Frank who she had grown up with as her brother. She was glamourous and outgoing in contrast to his quiet demeanour. While for him it was love at first sight it took Tina Dingivan a little longer before eventually falling for his personality and the couple became inseparable. But the trouble with this tragic romance story is that that most of it has been told through the words of Richard Satchwell. He is, to understate it, an unreliable narrator. Fast forward to March 2017, Tina who had turned 45 the previous November is dead and buried under the stairs in their home at Grattan Street in Youghal a town on Ireland's south coast. He tells a story of how Tina had left him taking their €26,000 saving, leaving behind her beloved chihuahua Ruby after threatening for years that she would do so. Not only that, but this 5'5' eight stone woman was capable of sudden and capricious violence that he endured in silence for years. He told this story to her family, to the gardaí and to the media during which he made tearful appeals for her to come home all the while known exactly where he had put his wife's now decomposing body For six-and-a-half years he told the same story. He almost got away with murder. The Satchwells earlier in their relationship THE EARLY YEARS Tina had grown up in Beechfield Estate, Fermoy with Florence, across the main road from her niece Lorraine Howard in St Bernard's Place who was three years her junior. They were close friends and spent a lot of time together, making the journey to school together, playing in each other's houses. They were best friends until the day they discovered they were in fact half-sisters. Mary Collins who was Lorriane's mother was also Tina's biological mum and the discovery came as a shock. Approaching her confirmation time, usually when children are 12 years of age in Ireland, Tina got her birth certificate and learned the truth. Lorriane would say in court that Tina was resentful that Lorriane got to be brought up in their mother's and their relationship changed as a result. They would from time to time have rows and even screaming matches. Tina saw it as her having been given away as a child which Lorriane said was not that way at all. When Tina moved to the UK it was part of pattern where Tina would be in her life and then not in her life at all. There were good years and bad years between them and the rows always came back to Tina's sense of being abandoned as a child. Lorraine was aware at some point that Tina had met an Englishman and first met Richard Satchwell with Tina at their mother's house in Fermoy when she would have been aged 15. During their early years together, Tina and Richard would have moved back and forth between England and Ireland, returning to the UK to get married in Oldham on Tina's 20th birthday. Tina Satchwell with her husband Richard from Youghal Co Cork Anyone who knew them and who were called to give evidence at the Central Criminal Court said they were always together. Wherever Tina was going, Richard would also certainly be in her company. Tina didn't drive and mostly didn't work, so she relied on husband to get to where she wanted to be. Lorraine would also say in court that Tina loved her clothes and was high-maintenance something that Richard obviously struggled to cope with, devoted as he was to fulfilling her every wish and that she was the one who wore the trousers. TROUBLE IN PARADISE It seemed their marriage may not have been the idyllic relationship Richard had hoped for. He would later say in a Garda interview that around 1994 he took an overdose of tablets in response to being attacked by Tina who had to call a doctor to their home. He also voluntarily told the gardaí that around 2002 he got into financial trouble and succumbed to the temptation to cash in some stolen cheques. He then went back to the UK where he worked for a while, sending money home to Tina to whom he spoke every night before she came to join him in the UK. He eventually decided to return to Ireland to face up to what he had done and spent a period of time in prison. According to local newspaper records it wasn't the only time he was imprisoned for criminal offences. The Corkman reported how Satchell, described as a self-employed window fitter, had been caught with a stolen and altered tax disc on his car in January 2001, fined €850 and given 10 days behind bars. It was hardly a crime a person would commit if the window fitting business was proving to be a lucrative earner. They moved again back to Fermoy and Glanworth and there was a stint in a city flat in Cork where Tina worked for a short time in a clothes shop. There was tragedy to come for Tina and her extended family who were also dealing with an incident which, according to Lorraine, divided the family straight down the middle. She had not spoken with Tina in the 15 years before her murder in 2017. Tina's brother Tom died by suicide in 2012 which Richard would say left her devastated and changed her moods and personality. From then, he said, their relationship was no longer a sexual one, her moods had become darker and the abrupt violence she would sometimes unleash became worse. The veracity of this description of Tina is known only to Richard, who said he tried to hide her secret and never admitted to being scraped, punched, bitten and cut in what he said were sudden and vicious outbursts. Those he told of the violence said he did so only after she had gone missing in March 2017, while both Lorraine and Sarah said they had never witnessed the behaviour he had described. The only hint was a conversation Sarah overheard as teenager when she walked into a conversation between Tina and her grandmother to hear Tina mention that she had slapped Richard. But she didn't hear the start of the exchange or how it ended and couldn't put those comments in context. Tina Satchwell There were more petty crimes committed by Richard who said he was caught shop-lifting in 2014 and 2016 in Clonmel and Cork city. Their finances were not in good shape and this would later be confirmed in a report by a forensic accountant from the Garda Economic Crime Bureau which detailed how they were overdrawn on both their bank account and their online account with retailer Littlewoods. There was also the strange evidence of €18,000 being collected and sent off again via wire transfer companies that left the couple €8,000 less well-off than what they had started out with. Emails later retrieved from Richard's laptop would later suggest this was a torturous attempt starting in 2015 at adopting two marmoset monkeys named Thelma and Terry from an organisation called International Monkey Rescue. It is not clear exactly what the end goal had been for the Satchwells but it is likely, as suggested in court, they were the victims of a scam. THE MOVE TO YOUGHAL The house they had acquired in Fermoy was sold for €125,000 and they bought a dilapidated three-storey terraced house in Youghal in May 2016. Richard said he had hoped Tina, whose sadness had become worse, would be happier there, a town where she had always liked to walk along the shore. One of the few other things to have lifted her spirits in recent years was their parrot Pearl, which they bough for €450 and so the couple went to live there with the bird and their dogs Ruby and Heidi. They were a quiet living couple, non-drinkers whose main social outlet in life was travelling around Munster to car-boot sales where they bought and sold bric-a-brac and clothes. Richard did the selling while Tina, with Ruby tucked into a Juicy Couture carry case, went bargain hunting for yet more shoes, make-up sets, clothes, hand-bags and whatever fashion accessories were on offer. Her clothes shopping was prodigious and Richard had converted the rooms on the second floor of their Grattan Street house into a walk-in wardrobe with shelves and rails for her collection. In the attic there were boxes of unworn shoes and her favourite Doc Marten boots. Tina was in great form during the Christmas period in December 2016 when she met her cousin Sarah Howard. She would say in court how she was close to Tina who, when she was young, would take her to places, including downtown in Fermoy to have her ears pierced as a five-year-old. They had a great chat when Tina visited Fermoy along with her dogs, little knowing that it would be the last time she would see her. There was another setback for Tina in January, according to Richard, when Pearl the parrot died. They were bereft and cried for weeks and were upset enough that an autopsy was carried out by their vet. By March a new parrot had been found for sale on the internet and despite Richard's caution about getting the exact same type they went ahead and bought the bird on St Valentine's Day, calling it Valentine. As Richard feared the new addition was not as loveable as Pearl, but Tina persisted in trying to train it into the perfect pet Pearl had been. In a phrase repeated by those who gave evidence, the dogs and the parrot were like children to Tina and as with Richard, inseparable. In his statements Richard would say the same and that while had wanted children Tina did not and it was a decision he respected. He said this in the context that he had sacrificed a lot for Tina, having lost all contact with his own family in England because his mother hated the Irish. No 3 Grattan Street, Youghal, Co Cork, where the Satchwells lived. Photo: Kevin McNulty During their time in Grattan Street Richard continued to work on the house which was over 100 years old and had been empty for some years before they moved in. He had fitted the windows, put in new dry-lining and plastered the walls. He said Tina would sometimes be happy 'rolling away' as they painted the interior. But it was rough and ready with no central heating and a house-proud Tina was not yet ready to receive any guests there. When they would arrive home in the evening from a walk or a drive it would just be them and their pets when the door closed behind them. The casual friends they made on the car-boot sale circuit would recall Tina as a bubbly, outgoing, talkative and friendly. It was one of those people, John Keohane, who was the last person known to have spoken to Tina apart from her husband Richard at the Rathcormac car boot sale on 19 March 2017. His own wife had grown up close to members of the Dingivan family in Fermoy and they always had a few words for each other. The 'lovely' Tina had bought an outfit and some perfume prompting him poke fun that she must have a man lined up for a date. She told him that there was only one man for her and that she loved Richard. THE FINAL NIGHT In an account that he would go on to repeat for six and a half years they left Rathcormac that day and drove home to Youghal. He handed Tina cup of tea and then busied himself emptying the car-boot sale goods from his silver 2005 Limerick-reg Nissan Primera car, according to Richard in a detailed description of their finals hours together he would give in a lengthy Enhanced Cognitive Interview in June 2021 to Detective Sergeant David Noonan. He painted a picture of domestic bliss of a couple so in synch that Richard is able to anticipate her needs as she settles into an unchanging evening routine that bore all the hallmarks of ritual. Unloading the car didn't take too long, Tina had bought very little compared to usual trips to the sales, picking up just a make-up set and a mini fold-up travel hair-dryer. They discussed what pizza to order from Apache Pizza, availing of their €21.99 deal that allowed them to buy two, keeping one for the next day. They settled on one with cajun chicken and mushrooms and the other topped with chicken and sweet corn. He walked to the restaurant to collect the food and two Cokes, returning home to eat in silence. He said that Tina always insisted on no talking while they were eating. He had turned on the immersion heater and next began to run a bath for Tina, a nightly event with plenty of suds and the water hot enough to boil potatoes as Richard put it. As she soaked in the hot water Richard would remove the nail varnish from her toes and then lay two bath towels on the bed ready for Tina. Once out of the bath she would flop on the bed, Richard recalling how the steam rose from her naked body. He then rubbed oil on her body massaging her in silence, spending 30 minutes carefully rubbing each foot, taking particular care on the space between her toes. He would use a file on any hard skin, before leaving to take his own quick bath and to have a shave. On his return Tina was in her pyjamas and ready for sleep, he would bring in Ruby to sleep in her little kennel after checking on Heidi. Some of these details of their final night were added in another interview with gardaí when he was later arrested for murder in October 2023. Tina Satchwell with one of her beloved dogs They snuggled down together to fall asleep wordlessly with Richard waking early the next morning, Monday 20 October 2017, sometime before 6 a.m. which he said has been a life-long habit. Putting on jeans and t-shirt he had a coffee, changed the bird paper in the cage and gave Valentine some fruit. He then went out to the shed where he had been plumbing in a washing machine, working there until around 9 a.m. when the dogs ran into the garden signaling that Tina had gotten out of bed and was downstairs. The version of what happened next is one that Richard clung to and to which he added extra details in the subsequent six and a half years. He went inside making tea and toast for Tina which he brought into her. In a brief conversation she asked him to go Aldi in Dungarvan to buy food for the parrot, such errands being a commonplace task, according to Richard. He changed his clothes and set off for Dungarvan, stopping to light a candle at church in Grange in memory of Florence who had passed away on the same day in 1997 and one for Pearl. He continued on his journey and it was some time around 2p.m. when he opened the door and went back inside Grattan Street. He was surprised to see Tina's keys on the hall floor which he picked up. He then found her phone in the kitchen and presumed she had just gone out and had forgotten to take it. The most unusual thing though was the fact that Tina had left but had not taken Ruby or Heidi with her, a very rare occurrence. As time passed he grew curious and checked the sunbed upstairs in case Tina was there. With no sign of her return he went up stairs again, this time noticing that a box, normally behind Tina's boxes of shoes in the attic room, which contained their €26,000 savings was open and empty. Two suitcases were also gone and it sunk in that Tina had probably left him. The next few days were a blur, he'd tell Det Sgt Noonan, the first night sitting on his 'fat arse' crying as Ruby licked the tears from his face. He thought she would come back and likely had just gone to Fermoy, staying with family there. The following Friday, 24 March, he had an appointment with his doctor in Fermoy and while there he called to Tina's relatives in the town who hadn't seen her. He decided to walk into Fermoy Garda Station to tell then that Tina and gone and he just wanted to find out that she was safer. Conor Gately was on the officer on duty that evening and spoke to Richard who he described as being a matter of fact and not over emotive as he told the version of how she was gone along with the money on his return home. Richard wasn't worried that she was at risk of self-harm and suggested she had left the dogs behind to make it easier for her find accommodation. Garda Gately said he advised him to file a missing person's report and entered the details of what Richard had reported on the garda Pulse system. THE LIES 2017 – 2021 That Friday is the first day that someone other than Richard Satchwell knew that Tina was gone and her cousin Sarah Howard immediately rang Tina's phone when she heard the news. When it went unanswered she tried to call Richard who eventually called her back and she asked what had happened and why the dogs weren't with Tina. He told her that they had an argument and had thrown a cup at him and the day before she disappeared had told him she had wasted 28 years of her life with, something that Sarah said she had never heard before. Tina Satchwell In the following weeks she texted Richard to ask for any news who in turn had asked her to make contact with relatives to see if they had heard from Tina. Strangely, one text from Richard was a question asking if she wanted a chest freezer he wanted to off-load. She didn't reply. In court she'd later say it was unusual because Richard wasn't the type to give something away and cited an instance at a car boot sale when her children picked up a CD and a nail varnish from his stall he charged them both 50 cent each. Gardaí in Youghal learned of the report made to their colleagues and sought to follow up with Richard but had initially been unable to catch him at home until 2 May. When Garda Thomas Keane did get an answer at the house he spoke to Satchwell at the door who repeated the story of how she had left but he was not overly concerned and expected her to return home when she had cleared her head. Like his colleague in Fermoy the officer advised him to make a missing person's report. The officer also carried out a social welfare check to see if she had signed on to collect benefits anywhere else, but nothing was found. On 11 May, Richard finally heeds the advice to report Tina missing and made a statement to Garda James Butler in which he added that Tina had run up debts and probably suffered from an undiagnosed psychiatric condition which had been getting worse over the years and she had become more volatile and was violent towards him. Tina was more likely to lash out than harm herself, he told the garda. He also said that Tina had always told him that in the event of her leaving he would get the guards after him if he tried to find her. Satchwell expanded on his story that he had suffered violence at Tina's hands in a more detailed statement a few days later. He told Garda Aidan Dardis she could fly off the handle and veer from telling him she hated him to falling into his arms in the next. He was a walkover and she wore the trousers according to Richard, and her mood had worsened since Tom's death. At least three or four times a year he was subjected to real violence that left him bloodied and scarred. Tina was already dead at this time and now he was bent on assassinating her character. With investigation upgraded to a missing person report the gardaí carried out a trawl of CCTV, made house to house enquiries, ran a social media campaign and put out media appeals which were ultimately fruitless, according the Sergeant in Charge at Youghal, John Sharkey. A decision was taken that there was a possible criminal element to the case. Tina Satchwell It fell to him seek a search warrant from the District Court on the grounds that an assault causing harm may have taken place at the Satchwells' house. On 7 June, 48 days after Richard said Tina had left, a divisional search squad went into the property. Satchwell was on the road and not at home and was told by phone the search was going ahead. Officers who entered described it as being in a shambles. Crime scenes investigator Cathal Whelan said the house was untidy, unkempt, there was dog faeces on the floor, the bird cage was dirty and there were dishes that appeared not to have been washed in a long time. The second-floor room was crammed with Tina's clothes including unopened packages. Other officers took laptops and documents from the house in the search which otherwise yielded little in terms of clues at that stage as to Tina's whereabouts. Later in the evening a member of the Forensic Technical Bureau arrived and used Blue Star, a chemical that illuminates any trace of blood but there was nothing there to be found. The next day Richard Satchwell went into Midelton Garda Station to give another statement where this time he was met by Sgt Daniel Holland and again Richard took the opportunity to express his love for Tina while at the same time pointing out what he said was her deteriorating mental health and her violence which included being twice knocked unconscious by her. 'I took her abuse because she was in pain from life, she isn't a bad person and I don't want to paint her that way,' said Richard. He knew gardaí had been in contact with Tina's half-sister and mother Mary Collins and when he learned they had been asked if he had been violent to Tina he told Det Sgt Holland he was shocked and felt sick. 'I am destroyed by this, I just want Tina back.' Asked about the mysterious money transfers he said that it was all explained in the emails which the gardaí would be able to see on his laptop. To continue our examination of the Satchwell murder, you can read part two right here .
The Irish Sun
13 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
I was the first reporter let into Richard Satchwell's home – the chilling reason I knew in seconds Tina's body was there
THE first time I met Richard Satchwell was about eight months after his wife Tina disappeared. He agreed to do the interview in the home they shared in Youghal. Advertisement 5 Richard Satchwell was found guilty of murdering his wife Tina Credit: John Delea - The Sun Dublin 5 Tina's remains were found at the couple's home in Youghal in 2023 Credit: Collect 5 Ann Mooney was the first reporter allowed inside the Satchwell home by Richard Credit: John Delea I believe I was the first journalist he brought into the murder house on Grattan Street where he used the interview to appeal for Tina to come home. The fact that I had covered Myself and photographer John Delea arrived at the house and In fact it was so bad that I stepped back out into the fresh air and told John I didn't know if I would be able to conduct the interview in the house because of the disgusting stench. Advertisement Read more in News But I had gotten the interview with him, one he had refused to many other journalists, so I pulled myself together and went in. The living room was an absolute mess. The smell pervaded through everything. The two Jack Russell dogs — Heidi and Ruby — were allowed to run free everywhere, often peeing and pooing in the room without it having any effect on, or reprimand from, The parrot was in a large long cage which had glass on the bottom. This area was almost full of excrement. Advertisement Most read in The Irish Sun The sights, sounds and smells still stay with me to this day. I found it hard to find a clean spot on which to sit on the settee. DRINK CLAIM When I look back now it was very evident that Richard had prepared for our visit and had staged the scene. On the coffee table between us was a very large high heel red shoe. In it was a bottle of Cava — although Richard referred to it as champagne. That, he told me, was waiting for Tina to come home. He said he would open it, pour her a glass and welcome her back. He said he couldn't wait for it to happen. Advertisement Holding the bottle he told me 'it will be opened when she walks through that door' — pointing towards the front entrance. The one thing that struck me during the interview was the number of times he spoke about how much he loved Tina and that he 'would never lay a finger on her'. CONTACT WITH GARDA The more contact I had with Richard, the more I was convinced he had killed Tina. I believed that because he was a truck driver, and travelled all over the country, that he had hidden the body in a remote, hard to find location. After leaving I got into my car and rang one of my Advertisement I asked them if gardai had searched the house and was told they had, from top to bottom. I remember clearly saying: 'I never smelt anything like the smell in the house. I know the dogs are allowed to run around free doing whatever they want to do everywhere, but that still doesn't account for the vile smell permeating throughout the ground floor area that I was in.' 'THERE HAS TO BE A BODY THERE' I actually said: 'Honestly there has to be a body there as nothing else could smell that bad.' But even then I would not have even considered that there was a body buried in a grave underneath the stairs. Did I think Richard killed his wife back in November 2017 when I met him for the first time face to face? Yes, I did. His declarations of love for her, his obsession with her and her appearance, and his absolute belief that she was his and his alone are all the hallmarks of a man who is prepared to kill so that no one else could have the love of his life. Advertisement COULDN'T TAKE REJECTION My belief is that Tina started to get a life when they moved to Youghal. She joined the gym, she started to meet people for coffee and to make friends — and I think she realised there was another life for her, one without Richard. I always felt she told him the morning he killed her that she was leaving him. And he just couldn't take the loss and rejection and killed her. I think he buried her in the house so that he could always be close to her. His own personal secret shrine he could visit at will. All his words and all his appeals for Tina to come home were said and done by a man who was a great actor playing the role of the devoted husband who just couldn't understand why his wife of 25 years had walked out the door leaving behind everything including her two precious dogs, whom she regarded as her kids. "The more contact I had with Richard, the more I was convinced he had killed Tina. I believed that because he was a truck driver, and travelled all over the country, that he had hidden the body in a remote, hard to find location." Ann Mooney Tina never went anywhere without Heidi and Ruby. They were her babies, her fashion accessories and her love. Advertisement Richard continued to use words of love and bewilderment in the interview when he said: 'I don't believe she is dead and I am living in hope that eventually she will get tired of being away and will come home to me. 'I LOVE HER DEEPLY' 'I love her deeply and this disappearance has not changed my feelings for her. I actually have money put away for when she returns so that we can head off together for a few weeks' break. "I am living in a void. But I still believe she is going to turn up as suddenly as she left. 'She is a very independent woman, always has been and doing this (disappearing) is part of that independence. Advertisement 'I am heartbroken. I am still minding the two dogs and the parrot. They are a great consolation to me because she loved them so much. They give me the incentive to get up in the mornings.' He said that every day he and Tina were together since they married, his life was 'one long honeymoon. She is my daylight — she has been my life since meeting her, even before I spoke to her.' And he said, despite his claim Tina left with the almost €30,000 they had kept in cash in the house, he had enough money saved to continue doing up their home, stating: 'I want everything perfect for her when she comes home.' 'NEVER LAY A FINGER' CLAIM Richard stressed in so many interviews that he would never lay a finger on her 'never once, in nearly 30 years of being together', adding: 'The most I have ever done to her is have a tight cuddle, loving the bones off her.' Advertisement He described his life with her as idyllic from the minute he first met her in Rochdale in the UK in 1988 when she was still a teenager. They wed on her 20th birthday in 1991. He claimed when he heard cops were searching Castlemartyr Woods following a viable tip-off that 'it was a kick in his stomach'. Yet one of my sources told me that when the Gardai called to his house to tell him about the search, they knew by his reaction that Tina was probably not buried there. 'I am heartbroken. I am still minding the two dogs and the parrot. They are a great consolation to me because she loved them so much. They give me the incentive to get up in the mornings.' Richard Satchwell But they had to act on the tip they received and we all know what happened — there was not even a trace of the 45-year-old there. Advertisement In interviews done near the woods, Richard claimed he had barely slept since being informed of the search. But before doing the interviews, the killer was laughing, joking and completely at ease. The minute the interviews began he transformed into a heartbroken husband and with tears welling in his eyes appealed to the public to contact the Gardai with any info that would bring Tina home. He said: 'I'm sick in my stomach. The sleep I actually did get, I just nodded off watching telly, and then woke up a couple of hours later, but that's about it. I feel sick.' He feared he would struggle to cope if Tina's remains were found in the woods, something that was never going to happen because she was buried under the stairs. Advertisement 'I WON'T BE ABLE TO COPE' With tears streaming down his face, he said: 'I find it difficult, because after the call I got from the Gardai and knowing what's going on behind me (the search) with barriers there, I'm trying to fill myself with hope. 'I've had people say to me, 'How will you cope if it turns out to be her?'. My answer to that is I won't be able to cope. 'I'm here and I'm just praying and hoping that like the search in Youghal, it all comes to nothing.' Throughout the years after Tina disappeared, Satchwell was asked if he would take a lie detector test. Advertisement 'NOTHING TO HIDE' He had an excuse for not taking one — yet always stressed: 'I have nothing to hide.' He also denied being a possessive and controlling husband. He said: 'Tina was always out and about on her own. Tina is not the type of personality to let anybody tell her what to do or control her. It is just not her.' Richard also claimed he was not jealous of her, even though she was very good looking and distinctive. Advertisement He said: 'Often if I was out and about and I saw something in a shop window and I knew it would be Tina's style, I would buy it. She is a great woman and I didn't have a bad word to say about her.' But then immediately he said that Tina would lose it and hit him — but he never hit her back. 'FLASH TEMPER' He claimed: 'She had a flash temper but there was no intent. She would be crying and apologising. There was no intent. The most I have ever done is hold her in my arms tightly until she calmed down. She was my life.' He said he knew 100 per cent that Tina wasn't having an affair and that, at the time of her disappearance, their marriage was not in a bad place. She never spoke to him about leaving and that while he is not angry with her for doing so, he is 'disappointed'. Advertisement He said: 'But if she came back my arms would go around her, there would be tears. I would make her a cup of tea, make sure she wasn't hungry, contact the guards and contact her family.' In his personal appeal to his wife, again with the tears welling up, he said: 'I love you Tina and all I want is for us to be together again. 'I miss you and life is very empty without you here. I miss your smile and your laughter and without you there is no joy in my life.' LEGAL THREATS He added: 'My gut feeling is that she is alive and that she will come home. I just feel that I would know if she was dead. Advertisement 'I just can't give up hope. Without Tina I have nothing. I would be so happy if she just walked into the house. That is my dream and it would mean the world to me.' Richard and I kept up contact and he usually answered his phone when I called, often leading up to the anniversaries of Tina's disappearance. Until he didn't. The last contact I had from him was a text threatening to take legal action because I quoted him in a story when he hadn't spoken to me. I texted him back to say if he had read the story properly, he would have seen the quotes were from previous chats we had as he hadn't answered my calls or texts. Advertisement I didn't hear back from him and he continued to ignore any requests for interviews. At the end of my original interview with him, photographer John suggested he and Richard could drive around the area. The killer took John up to the pier area near the lighthouse with railings and a bench where he and Tina sat holding hands. JUST A PERFORMANCE Richard also took John to the sand dunes a short distance away where he proposed to Tina because they both loved the sea. Advertisement John told me: 'It seemed to me that he was playing the game of deceit. He wanted to impress on us that he was the heartbroken husband and all he wanted was for Tina to come home.' And finally as I was about to leave the Satchwell home, I asked Richard if after eight months he had given serious consideration to the fact that Tina was dead. He looked me in the eye, put his hand on his heart and said: 'Ann, if my Tina was dead, I would know it here. I know she is going to walk through that door and then everything will be as it was.' He was a great actor and he certainly could have won an Oscar. Advertisement 5 Richard claimed that he 'never lay a finger' on wife Tina 5 Tina in 2016 with her dog Ruby and pet parrot
RTÉ News
13 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Three stories from inside the Satchwell house
In mid-November 2017, Tina Satchwell had been missing eight months. RTÉ Prime Time reporter Barry Cummins visited her home in Youghal, unaware that her body lay less than ten feet away buried beneath concrete. He was there to interview Tina's husband, Richard, who was yesterday found guilty of her murder. Here he writes about that day, and later learning that her remains were feet away - a fact that troubles him to this day. As part of a special programme on the trial of Richard Satchwell, he has since spoken with others who were also in 3 Grattan Street before Tina's body was discovered, six-and-a-half years after she went missing. James McNamara has a story like no-one else. He was the Limerick builder who dug down to the spot where he found the sheeting which held the body of Tina Satchwell. It was Wednesday 11 October 2023 when James brought a Kango hammer into the house and down to the confined space, inside a cubby hole, underneath the stairs of the Satchwell home. The house had been sealed off since the evening before, when Richard Satchwell had been arrested on suspicion of murder. After a fresh review of the missing person's case, a search warrant had been obtained to allow for an intrusive search of the property. That gave gardaí the power to dig up floors, pull down walls, and excavate wherever they saw fit. A plan had been devised six weeks before James and his colleagues assisted gardaí with work at the house. The strategy was that there would be ten search zones at the property - inside, to the rear, and to the side. A kitchen extension which had been built by Richard Satchwell at the back of the property was originally earmarked for special attention by gardaí. But once the house was sealed off, and before any excavation work commenced, a cadaver dog from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) - Fern - was brought in to walk the scene. Fern has successfully found many bodies which lay hidden beneath the ground or underwater. She and her handler were brought south to Youghal and walked the entirety of the four-storey property. Fern started at the top of the stairs and walked down the four flights of stairs with her handler. At the bottom of the stairs, in the hall, towards the bottom steps, Fern suddenly lay flat, giving a firm indication that something was to be found nearby. The house was a mess. Dog faeces were on the floor in many parts of the house, and you couldn't see much of the floor space. A concrete mixer and a sofa were among the many items blocking access to the understairs cubby hole. Part of the structure beside the narrow door under the stairs was a brick wall, with one brick a different hue to the others. The wall looked odd, once you could get a proper look at it, with all the items finally removed from the floor space in front. The brick wall looked amateurish, not professionally constructed. James McNamara and his colleague Pat O'Connor, and a garda from the Technical Bureau, Brian Barry, were standing in the living room on that October evening, discussing the demolition and excavation work to be commenced the following day, when they found themselves looking at the under stairs cubby hole. "The house was manky, I'd never seen anything like it in my life. The smell was very bad," James told me. As they chatted, they decided to take a closer look under the stairs. James went into the cramped space through the narrow entrance beside the brick wall. "Brian gave me a flashlight and I shone it down, and there was lino on the floor. We pulled away the lino and we could see the colour difference in the concrete," James said. A section of the concrete floor was a lighter shade than the rest. Detective Brian Barry quickly contacted the incident room in Midleton. Gardaí immediately agreed the area should be searched. James McNamara got the Kango hammer inside and began drilling into the concrete, but he soon stopped the machine. He had been expecting to drill through up to four inches of concrete, the normal amount that might be laid for flooring, but the concrete under the stairs was much thinner. "When I took up the floor the concrete basically fell apart. The filling underneath should be solid, but it was just loose filling," James told me. James quickly put the Kango hammer aside. The space was too cramped to use a large shovel to dig. Down on his knees, he began using a trowel to remove soil and put it to the side. Even the trowel seemed too big for the space. Soon, James was using his hands to remove the earth and dig down. A portable light was put close beside him to help him see what he was doing, as Detective Barry and James' colleague Pat stayed nearby. James remembers it took just a few minutes. "I went down about the length of my arm, two-and-a-half feet, and that's when I came across the polythene plastic." Detective Brian Barry immediately told James to stop his work, and gardaí began preserving the scene. "Brian said to me 'Right lads, you're done' and told us to leave," remembers James. Two forensic archaeologists, Niamh McCullagh and Aidan Harte, then began slow and methodical work to carefully unearth what was hidden beneath the stairs, a staircase I myself had previously walked up while being given a tour of the house by Richard six years before. Interviewing Richard Satchwell By the time I had entered the house, in late 2017, Tina Satchwell was missing eight months. Myself and two colleagues, producer Kevin Burns and camera operator Shirley Bradshaw, spent most of that evening in the front room of the house in the company of Richard Satchwell, who had agreed to an interview request. By then, Satchwell had, on a number of occasions, been openly asked if gardaí considered him a suspect in his wife's disappearance. I knew as I entered the house that November evening that gardaí had previously spent a full day searching the house with no sign of Tina being found. I can remember as I entered the property the smell of must and dust, as I sat in the front living room smelling the bird droppings which littered the cage in which the couple's parrot lived. Valentine was the parrot which had replaced the previous one, Pearl. Richard told me that the couple were heartbroken at Pearl's death. "We cried for weeks, we had an autopsy done and everything," he said as I stood with him looking at various items on a shelf which spoke of the life of a missing woman. Various bottles of nail varnish sat on the shelf, the ones used by Tina the day before she "got up and left" as Richard Satchwell described it. The bottles were covered in dust, the house was dirty, and the situation was unpleasant. The interviewee picked up a dusty full bottle of Cava which he said he'd bought in Tesco to mark the couple's 25th wedding anniversary the year before. "Tina never opened it," Satchwell recalled, as Pearl looked on. "I don't drink, I'm a teetotaller," he added. We looked above the shelf at a photo of Tina. "She got that done up in Tallaght," he said as we stood beside the parrot in the narrow living room. Richard Satchwell pointed at clothes on hangers resting on a door behind a couch. The clothes Tina bought at a car-boot sale the day before she disappeared. That night, we only filmed in the front room. But to reach it, we had to walk through the hallway and the middle room beside the stairs. As we carried our filming equipment into and out of the house, we would have walked less than three feet from the understairs clandestine burial area. I have often reflected on my interactions with Richard Satchwell, and I am still processing it all. I was doing my job, interviewing a man who was making public appeals for his missing wife. On every occasion I met him - and I even had Richard Satchwell in my own car as we drove around Youghal - I would learn new information. The more I met him the more he talked, and the more he lied. Prosecution The interviews I conducted with Richard Satchwell were used as part of the prosecution's case, showing his demeanour and his comments even as his wife's body lay just feet away from where he and I sat on a couch in his home. I was one of a small number of journalists who had been inside the house at Grattan Street as Tina's body lay hidden, still dressed in her pyjamas and nightgown, as she lay face down beneath the stairs. Kyran O'Brien was working as a photographer with the Irish Independent when he photographed Richard Satchwell at the top of the house, beside the walk-in wardrobe where Tina kept the many clothes she had purchased at car-boot sales and in charity shops. The clothes were often designer labels, Tina always had an eye for a bargain, and she always had an eye for fashion. "All the clothes were immaculately folded and put in plastic and displayed very well," remembered Kyran. "And then he showed me another room where there was a sunbed that he had built as well. And it was all quite tight. It was quite a tight stairs. It was an old, very thin house. The rooms were quite small, but there were basically walk-in wardrobes." Like me, Kyran remembers there was a smell in the house, a smell of damp and dust and neglect. "There was dog poo and there was parrot poo and it was dirty. It was unkempt, it was smelly. It wasn't clean. And he kept trying to offer us cups of tea. And I kept sort of saying to him, 'we have a long drive home, so I'd rather not'," Kyran said. "It's terrible," Kyran told me, "to know I was in the house and the poor woman was not ten feet from where I was sitting. It'll stick with me." James McNamara did the State, and Tina Satchwell, a service when he got down on his knees and began to dig that October evening in 2023. It's a moment he won't forget. "We knew what we were doing was very important work. It was great to be involved with a case like this. It gives a family peace, so it was actually massive." The fact that machinery such as ground penetrating radar failed to give an indication of a body beneath the stairs is due perhaps to the fact the grave was so deep. Tina's body had been buried nearly three feet down, under soil, concrete and a layer of lino. And for years people, including myself, walked those stairs above, never knowing. There are many lessons to be learned from this case for everyone, and there are many vivid memories that will stay with me of my interactions over a number of months with Richard Satchwell.
