Richard Satchwell cradled Tina's dead body before he ‘buried her under stairs' to keep her with him, murder trial hears

The Irish Sun

13-05-2025

RICHARD Satchwell told cops that he buried his wife's body under the stairs of their Co Cork home as he wanted to keep her with him and did not want to leave her alone.
The murder accused told interviewing detectives: 'I wanted her to know the hand that killed her was also the hand that loved her.'
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Richard Satchwell told cops that he buried his wife's body under the stairs of their Co Cork home as he wanted to keep her with him and did not want to leave her alone
Credit: John Delea
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Mr Satchwell has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife
Credit: Handout
Following the discovery of her remains at the couple's home in Youghal, over six years after Tina Satchwell was reported missing, the British truck driver told
The Leicester native told officers that he used to talk to the area in which he had buried Tina — and the hardest thing was 'not getting anything back'.
A consultant forensic anthropologist also told the Central Criminal
Detective Garda David Kelleher told prosecutor Gerardine Small SC that at the outset of his first interview with gardai following his re-arrest on October 12, 2023, Mr Satchwell said that he and Tina had been at a car boot sale on March 19, 2017 when she hit him a slap.
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He told the gardai: 'Without a word I got a slap, knocked glasses …someone insulted her or said something nasty, I don't know, and that triggered the slap in the car.'
The accused said that when he walked into the sitting room of his home the following morning, Tina was at the bottom of the stairs with a chisel in her hand taking down plasterboard.
He said: 'This day she flew at me — I went back, fell against the floor.'
Mr Satchwell said he put his hands up and used her dressing gown belt, which he said was at her neck, to try to hold her off as she was going for him with the chisel.
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He continued: 'Before I know it, it had all stopped, it just stopped.
'I put my arms around her, she fell down on top of me. I didn't know what to do. I held her for a good 20 minutes or half an hour. The two dogs just there sitting looking. They came over, started licking her, I just lay there.'
'I JUST LAY THERE'
He said he spent an hour and a half holding his wife's body.
Mr Satchwell explained: 'I just lay there with her in my arms.
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'I spent time holding her and kissing her head.
'I don't know if this was a sane thing. I met her as a 17-year-old girl. I was holding the 17-year-old girl I had met 34 years before. I know you are probably thinking I am a crazy bas****.'
The accused said he later went to the couple's 'favourite spot' in Youghal and sat there thinking what his 'next move would be'.
He said his wife wasn't a bad woman, 'just angry at times'.
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He said when she was calm, 'she was loving'.
Mr Satchwell said he went to Dungarvan to try to keep everything normal and on the way lit a candle for Tina in a church.
'I WAS PANICKED'
When he came back he said he lay on the floor with Tina in his arms all night. Asked why he did not call anyone, he said he felt panic and shame. Mr Satchwell said he then put her in a chest freezer in their shed to keep her away from the dogs.
He said: 'I was panicked. I ain't got no excuses. Once it's done I couldn't take it back.'
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Mr Satchwell called it the worst day of his life.
He said he wasn't a 'monster' and the worst thing of all was once the lies started, he couldn't stop.
He said he never wished to harm Tina and that's why he put up with 'the stuff' he did.
Mr Satchwell told cops there was 'a sense of relief' that the truth was out but he hated himself.
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'You've no idea how many times I nearly walked off the fish pier,' he said, adding that he had stayed for the love of their two dogs, which he said were like children to him.
He said he dug out an area underneath the stairs with a spade which did not have concrete in it and laid his wife on the black plastic on the kitchen floor.
BURIED WIFE IN HOLE
He said it was light when he started digging and dark when he stopped. When he had finished he said all his knuckles were bleeding.
He said: 'I wanted her to know the hand that killed her was also the hand that loved her.'
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He said he had buried her on the following Sunday afternoon, March 26.
He added: 'I know that this is sick, I wanted to keep her with me, I didn't want to leave her alone. It's been killing me since I did it.'
He cried as he told gardai: 'I actually carried her into the hole. I didn't drop her into the hole, I wasn't disrespectful. I can remember folding the ­plastic around her, putting the flowers in.'
He said he had bought a couple of bunches of tulips from Tesco and put her wedding ring in the pocket of her bathrobe.
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Asked by cops where he had got the black plastic she was wrapped in, Mr Satchwell said they had a roll of it which they used to cover the ground at the car boot sales to lay 'stuff' on.
'I didn't want to dirty her so I wrapped her in black plastic. Before I covered her I threw flowers in, I wanted to get her roses but I couldn't.
'I SHOULD HAVE LET HER STAB ME'
'I was in the hole with her. And if I could have done, I would have covered the two of us.'
He said he used to open the door under the stairs and talk to Tina and sometimes it could just be 'hello love'. He said the hardest thing was 'not getting anything back'.
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The accused said: 'I can't put it into words what happened. I should have let her stab me, let it be the end of me.'
Earlier, a consultant forensic anthropologist told the trial that there were no injuries to any of Ms Satchwell's bones, including her hyoid bone, at the time of death and no evidence she had ever ­suffered a fracture.
Expert witness Laureen Buckley said she had identified the remains of an adult female who was probably over 45 years of age, and because the body was lying face down in a grave site, it was 'more preserved on the front'.
Under cross-examination, the witness told Brendan Grehan SC, defending, that the hyoid bone is 'sometimes but not always' found damaged in strangulation cases.
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Buckley said there was no evidence of any fracture to any of the bones including the skull at the time of death.
In cross-examination, the witness confirmed to Grehan there was no evidence Tina Satchwell had ever suffered a fracture.
Mr Satchwell, 58, from Grattan Street, Youghal, Co Cork has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife at that address between March 19 and March 20, 2017.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of five men and seven women.
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