Gareth O'Callaghan: A woman's house should be a home – not a place of fear and fatal control

Irish Examiner

13 hours ago

A wise man in criminal law once told me that a defendant who has pleaded not guilty to a crime he knows he committed fears nothing more during his trial than the eyes of the judge. Perhaps that explains why Richard Satchwell rarely looked up at the bench during the trial that found him guilty of the murder of his wife.
A chilling silence descended on the packed courtroom at the Central Criminal Court last Wednesday morning just as Mr Justice Paul McDermott handed down the mandatory life sentence to the former lorry driver.
I wondered what Satchwell must have been thinking as he kept his head bowed – if he felt remorse; then I realised that a man who had hidden his wife's body for six years in a secret grave he dug under the stairs of their home, while courting national publicity in an attempt to convince people he loved her, and would give anything to welcome her home, was emotionally stunted. His only regret was that he got caught.
Did he love his wife? It's possible. Love is just one ingredient that feeds into a narcissistic relationship, and the coercive control he exerted on their marriage.
Richard Satchwell leaving the District Court in Cashel, Co Tipperary, in October 2023. Did he love his wife? It's possible. Love is just one ingredient that feeds into a narcissistic relationship, and the coercive control he exerted on their marriage. File picture
It's not the type of love most decent people understand. It's a love perverted that stems from slavish ownership, with terms and conditions that become more brutal as time passes. Sexual jealousy, anger and control are a deadly cocktail.
Self-absorbed and selfish, Satchwell now takes his place in that rogues' gallery of notorious wife killers who include, among others, Joe O'Reilly, Brian Kearney, and Eamonn Lillis.
O'Reilly murdered his wife Rachel in 2004 by bludgeoning her to death with a dumbbell, while staging it to look like she had disturbed a burglar who panicked and killed her.
His appearance on The Late Late Show, sitting beside Rachel's mother, as he suggested 'theories' to an incredulous Pat Kenny on who could have murdered his wife, was a jaw-dropping moment in television history.
Joe O'Reilly's (right) appearance on The Late Late Show, sitting beside Rachel's mother (left), as he suggested 'theories' to an incredulous Pat Kenny on who could have murdered his wife, was a jaw-dropping moment in television history. File picture: RTÉ/Rose Callaly
He even showed journalists down the dimly-lit hallway to the bedroom in their home where he had murdered his wife barely three weeks earlier, as though it was a magical mystery tour. Her murder was meticulously planned, or so he thought.
Siobhán McLaughlin was murdered by her husband Brian Kearney in 2006, while her three-year-old son played downstairs. Kearney strangled his wife in her bedroom with the flex of a vacuum cleaner, before trying to hoist her over the en-suite door in an attempt to make it look like suicide. He then locked the bedroom door, slipped the key under it, and left, leaving the three-year-old alone in the house.
Siobhán was in the process of 'trying to leave a very unhappy marriage' when Kearney murdered her, her sister Brighid told Newstalk. She had even taken to hiding money in the hot press so that she could eventually escape from her husband's abuse. Kearney was refused parole last year.
Eamonn Lillis beat his wife, Celine Cawley, to death with a brick in 2008, making it appear – like O'Reilly – as though she had disturbed a burglar. Following his release in 2015, Lillis picked up more than €1 million from his share of business and property assets owned by the couple.
He served barely five years for the manslaughter of his wife. He now lives abroad.
What's equally damning is that the attacker in each of these killings could have stopped his vicious assault and called for immediate help while his victim was alive, but didn't. In Lillis's case, he delayed calling an ambulance by almost 15 minutes to give him time to change out of his bloodied clothes and hide them.
Following his release in 2015, Eamonn Lillis picked up more than €1 million from his share of business and property assets owned by the couple. Photo: Julien Behal/PA
So if they loved them, then why did they kill them? Why not just call it quits and walk away? Why would a husband kill his wife when the chances of avoiding a conviction and prison sentence are massively stacked against him?
According to recent statistics from Women's Aid, 275 women have died violently in Ireland at the hands of men since 1996 – an average of nine women every year. 87% were killed by a man they knew. 179 of them were killed in their own homes.
Lucy Freeman, the American writer best known for her articles on psychiatry and mental health in The New York Times, once wrote: 'Murder is the apex of megalomania, the ultimate in control.'
Her words resonate with relationships that are hinged on coercive control, where the man demands to know his female partner's whereabouts at all times, where social connections to family and friends are discouraged, where freedom of movement is restricted.
Years of research has shown that it's mostly inadequate men with fragile egos who kill women. They hate their own vulnerability, which can only be overcome by the subordination of others – mostly their wives and female partners.
Sarah, the partner of a close friend, agreed to talk to me recently about her former husband who she eventually left after years of physical and emotional abuse, including a threat to her life that finally made her realise he might kill her.
'It was only in hindsight, when I'd left him and it was all over, I realised I'd lost contact with everyone. If my mother asked us over, he'd always find an excuse.
"'We're not going,' he'd tell me. He wouldn't allow me socialise with them. He refused to give me money, even though I paid all the bills out of my own wages. If I walked the dog, he'd follow me.
'Anytime I disagreed with him, or if I tried to defend myself, I'd get the silent treatment for days. Then he'd force me to say sorry. Whenever he hit me or kicked me, he'd pretend to be upset and apologise. 'Why don't you hit me back? You'll feel better,' he'd say.
"Some days I came home from work to find he'd emptied the fridge of the little treats I liked; then he'd tell me I'd eaten them – 'because you're a fat pig,' he'd say laughing.
'One day I overheard him saying to someone on the phone that he'd kill me, if only he could get away with it. I packed what I could and went back home to my mother.'
Richard Satchwell now takes his place in Ireland's rogues' gallery of notorious wife killers. File picture
I asked Sarah if she had ever told him she would leave him. 'It was all I thought about but I was terrified to tell him. I actually thought he'd kill me on the spot. I left in the middle of the night when I knew he was asleep.'
Research shows the time of highest risk for a potential victim is during the period where she has made it known she plans to end the marriage. That's almost always the trigger for the abuser because the person they have so successfully controlled for years is now choosing to leave them.
Richard Satchwell told gardaí his wife had 'mentioned 200 or 300 times over the previous 15 years' that she was going to leave him, but, as with the rest of this tragic story, we only have his word for this.
Even after leaving her abuser, a woman is still not safe – as the tragic case of Australian Hannah Clarke showed in 2020. Clarke was stalked by her former partner Rowan Baxter, who doused her and their three children in petrol and burnt them to death in the family car before killing himself.
It's hard to believe that the family home is the most dangerous place in the world for women (and children), when it should be the safest.
It's far more effective to disrupt violent male partners than it is to change them. That disruption can only come from family or friends who detect a shift in behaviour. If you're being shut out by someone you love, you have a duty to them to know why.
A strong indicator that all's not well in the life of your daughter – or your sister or friend – is that persistent feeling you get that something is just not right. Act on it. At least you'll always know you asked. If you don't, it could be the cross you'll bear for the rest of your life.