Satchwell: The eight years that led to a guilty verdict

RTÉ News​

2 days ago

Tina Satchwell never lived to see how the ashes of her terrier dog 'Heidi' were lovingly stored in a miniature casket with an engraved plaque, nor how a certificate attested that the animal had been cremated "with the utmost care and respect".
She never got to pay homage to her cherished pet because she had been murdered years earlier and entombed just a few feet away, her body hidden in a three-foot grave dug under the stairs of her home by her husband of 25 years, Richard Satchwell.
Satchwell would go on to make tearful television appeals for Tina to come home and "just let people know you're alright" while his wife remained buried underfoot for six years.
When Tina's remains were eventually discovered, Satchwell would explain to gardaí that he hadn't wanted to dirty his wife, so he had wrapped her body in black plastic that he had used as ground covering at car boot sales.
He described how he dug out the grave under the stairs with a spade before carrying Tina into "the hole, in me arms". "I didn't chuck her down," he made sure to tell detectives.
Before he covered the grave opening with cement, Satchwell threw a couple of bunches of tulips in with his wife. He said he had driven around different shops looking for roses but couldn't find any because it was Mother's Day.
"I had to make it as special as I could for her....I wanted her to know the hand that killed her was also the hand that loved her....I wanted her to see I never truly meant any harm," Satchwell told gardaí.
Something about her
When 22-year-old Richard Satchwell saw Tina Dingivan for the first time in 1989, in the village of Coalville in the UK, he told his brother that he would marry her. He said there was something about Tina that "captivated" him, "confidence, the way she looked, the way she walked, multiple things".
Tina was described at the trial as "a genuinely lovely" woman. The jury heard she was a kind-hearted family person who was social, bubbly and adored her two dogs, who she kept with her as a constant companion and considered "her children". Tina was a "petite lady", only around five-foot five or four in height and weighing approximately eight stone.
The trial heard that her grandmother Florence Dingivan raised her and that Tina grew up believing they were mother and daughter. However, the jury was told that when she went looking for her birth certificate at her confirmation age, Tina "found out the truth" that Florence was actually her grandmother and a woman she believed was her sister was in fact her mother.
Satchwell would go on to murder Tina on the anniversary of her grandmother's death.
After proposing while on a 1991 visit to Youghal in Cork, Richard and Tina got married in the UK on Tina's 20th birthday. They moved back to Fermoy two years later, where they bought a house. In May 2016, the Satchwells moved to Tina's last home on Grattan Street in Youghal.
Witnesses who met Tina at car boot sales across Cork recalled that she was glamorous and colourful. One told the trial that Tina had "an expensive eye" and would wear clothes for a while before selling them on again. Another recalled that Richard Satchwell said his wife's dog had a bigger wardrobe than him.
Satchwell said he spent a lot of time on home improvement works, including building a walk-in wardrobe for Tina's clothes on the second floor of their house, which was overflowing with clothes on racks. However, the trial heard that when gardaí first searched the house after Tina's disappearance, it was dirty and unkempt with dog faeces on the floor, an unemptied bird cage and unwashed dishes lying around.
'A casual inquiry'
On 24 March 2017 Richard Satchwell called to Fermoy Garda Station, over 40km away from Youghal. There he told officers that his wife had left home four days earlier, but that he had no concerns over her welfare, feeling she had left due to a deterioration in their relationship.
He also reported that Tina had taken approximately €26,000 from the couple's savings that was hidden in a money box in the attic.
On 2 May 2017, Garda Thomas Keane called to Grattan Street to see whether there had been any contact from Tina. Satchwell reiterated that he had no concerns for Tina's well-being or safety and anticipated she would be home to him sooner rather than later.
Satchwell formally reported his wife missing on 11 May 2017, upgrading the garda investigation from what was "a casual inquiry of someone leaving home" to a formal missing person investigation.
Recalling the day his wife disappeared, Satchwell said Tina had asked him to get a few things in Aldi in Dungarvan but when he got home she was gone, with her house keys on the ground and her phone on the kitchen table. He said their dogs were in the sitting room, which he thought was strange as she never left the house without them.
When there was no sign of Tina coming home after an hour, Satchwell said he started to get worried and went upstairs to discover two suitcases missing and the €26,000 gone. He told gardaí he felt like "the ground had opened up beneath" him.
The trial heard that trawls of CCTV footage from Youghal town, a social media campaign carrying pictures of Tina and house-to-house inquiries proved fruitless. Ports and airports were canvassed and searches took place on coastlines and in forests.
Now retired sergeant John Sharkey, of Youghal Garda Station, told the trial he formed the opinion that "something criminal may have occurred" in late May or the start of June that year. He said the force became suspicious that "something untoward" had happened to Tina in May 2017 due to the inability to find any trace of her.
'I wasted 28 years with you'
Garda Aidan Dardis took a statement from Satchwell on 14 May 2017, where he said that he and his wife were driving from Youghal to Midleton the week before she went missing when Tina "got angry out of nowhere".
"She said I wasted 28 years with you, I compromised myself with you," Satchwell told gardaí.
Satchwell told the officer that Tina "wore the trousers" in their relationship and he was a "bit of a walkover". He said that after Tina's brother Tom had committed suicide in 2012, her mood-swings had gotten worse but that she always had "a short fuse".
He said he believed Tina had some "undiagnosed psychiatric condition" and would sometimes have violent outbursts towards him. Satchwell said he did not think Tina was a danger to herself, that she was "too vain" and "in love with herself".
Satchwell said he would "never lay a hand on" Tina but that sometimes she had "violent outbursts" towards him where she would hit him "with anything that came to her hand".
He claimed that two weeks after they started going out, Tina had given him a black eye. Satchwell said his wife might slap him once a week, while there was "real violence" three or four times a year.
Satchwell said Tina took out her frustration in life on him and that he suffered her abuse as he thought she was "in pain".
"She isn't a bad person and I don't want to paint her like that," he also added.
Satchwell told gardaí he just wanted to know that Tina was "safe and sound".
"I gave up my family for her, she is my whole world," he said.
First search
Around 10 gardaí conducted a search of the Satchwell home on 7 June 2017 on the basis that there had been an assault causing harm to Tina.
Gardaí noted "home improvement works" were going on in the house but were unfinished. They also noted that there was "relatively new" plasterboard on the stairs and a new red-bricked wall underneath the stairway.
A forensic scientist examined the stairs, hallways and landings of the house for blood using a chemical called 'Bluestar' but none was detected.
Obsessed
The following day, Satchwell voluntarily attended Midleton Garda Station and spoke to Inspector Daniel Holland. Satchwell again explained how he had given up a lot of his life to be with Tina, that his family did not approve of the relationship and they no longer spoke to him. He said he wanted to have children but Tina did not.
Satchwell repeated that Tina had physically assaulted him and on two occasions; "knocked him out cold, unconscious".
He told the inspector that he fully expected Tina to come home but was concerned that publicity from social media appeals would be an obstacle to her returning, in that people might ridicule her for leaving in the first place.
Satchwell described himself as "obsessed" with Tina, despite what he said were her "extreme assaults". Asked why he put up with this, Satchwell said his wife, who he said had a dysfunctional childhood, was "the perfect person" when she was not in a mood and he had long accepted her "dark side".
However, Satchwell's trial would hear that he never reported any such violence to his doctor of 18 years. It was only after Tina's disappearance that Satchwell told his GP that Tina had assaulted him "on multiple occasions" and that the violence was frequent and sometimes severe.
Satchwell's defence counsel would go on to tell his trial that their client was "besotted" with and "worshipped" Tina - knowing "things that most husbands wouldn't know about their wives".
Satchwell would tell gardaí how Tina was not just "slim" but "a size 10 waist and a 29 to 31 leg depending on the make of the trouser". She wore a size 10 to 12 top, her bust was 34 DD and she had a size four to five foot. He said she always hovered between 8 and 8.5 stone in weight, never going above or below.
The accused told gardaí how the couple partook in "rituals" seven nights a week where Satchwell, who said he always knew his role, would run Tina a bath with "as many suds as possible".
Only on a Sunday however, would he take polish off her toes while she soaked in the tub. "I never used to take the nail polish off her fingernails, they were precious," he commented.
He described how he would towel his wife off when she emerged from the bath, which he said "was the closest to physical contact" they had got in the past few years. Satchwell also detailed how he would apply baby oil or lotion to his wife and pedicure her feet.
'We just want you back'
Following his wife's disappearance, Satchwell engaged with reporters from radio, television and - what the prosecution would characterise as - "anyone who would indulge him". Fourteen clips from his media appearances were played for the jury during the trial.
Satchwell spoke to RTÉ's Pascal Sheehy on 26 June 2017, where he made the appeal: "Tina come home, no one's mad at you, the pets are missing you like crazy, we just want and need you back."
Another media interview played for the jury was with Paul Byrne from 'TV3 News' [now Virgin Media news] on 14 July 2017 - four months after his wife disappeared - where Satchwell said he had been with Tina for 28 years and "never lifted a finger to her" during that time.
RTÉ's 'Crimecall' was broadcast on 25 July 2017, where a tearful Richard Satchwell made a televised appeal for Tina to come home, looking directly into the camera and telling her: "Nobody is mad at you, the pets are missing you, just ring the guards, let people know you're alright."
He told Barry Cummins on 'Prime Time Investigates', broadcast on RTÉ on 25 January 2018, that "if someone tried attacking Tina she would pick the nearest thing up and whack them with it. That's the type of person she is, she wouldn't be a pushover".
Satchwell also told 'TV3 News' viewers in July 2017 that he was "innocent of any wrongdoing".
"One day my wife will turn back up or she will get in touch with gardaí, one way or another it will all come out and in time will prove I've done nothing wrong," he said.
Another media interview played to the jury was with TV3 News on 7 March 2018 at Mitchell's Wood in Castlemartyr, where a garda search was taking place. Asked how difficult it was to go to the woods that day, Satchwell said he was "praying and hoping" the search came to nothing, but it was "racing through" his mind that his wife "could be behind them barriers".
Satchwell said on 'Ireland AM' on 8 March 2018 that any person who had helped his wife "get out of Youghal" should be "ashamed" of themselves.
'Still out there'
The trial heard that four years after Tina was reported missing, gardaí conducted an enhanced cognitive interview with Richard Satchwell. The jury were told this method is regarded as one of the "gold standards" in statement-taking, as it is witness-led and "forensic" in detail.
On 20 June 2021 Satchwell told Detective Sergeant David Noonan that he "personally thought" Tina was "still out there somewhere".
The defendant described crying on the evening he discovered Tina had left their home while their dog Heidi licked up his tears. He said the rest of the week was a blur and he waited for "the phone to go".
He claimed that while his wife could be "nasty", minutes later it would be like it never happened; "she'd be apologising and crying".
Satchwell said he had previously tried to end his life by taking a box of sleeping tablets in 1995, when he said Tina was in "one of her bad spells" and violent with him.
He said he had only gone to the doctor with scratches in the past and "when you spread it over 28 years it's not as frequent as it sounds".
The jury would later hear from retired GP Deirdre O'Grady, who remembered Tina attending her practice but had no recollection of the deceased informing her about Richard taking an overdose. The witness said she also did not remember being called out by Richard Satchwell to his home in April 1993.
Satchwell told Det Sgt Noonan that he believed Tina was planning to leave him after her brother died in 2012 and had mentioned "200 or 300 times" over the previous 15 years that she was going to end their relationship.
Thelma and Terry
The trial heard that gardaí noted several issues with Satchwell's account after a 2021 analysis of phones and laptops seized during the initial search of his home in 2017.
Satchwell had sent text messages about problems he had in purchasing two Marmoset monkeys named "Thelma and Terry" at 10.46am on 20 March 2017, around the same period when his wife had disappeared. One message had read: "I am in a mess right now because my wife has said she is leaving me over this."
A similar email was also sent from Satchwell at 10.42am - "in very close proximity to the killing" - to the International Monkey Organisation from which the couple had been trying to buy the two animals. The email read: "I've put an awful lot of work into this and my wife is saying she will leave me over this."
A laptop taken from Grattan Street had also been used to search for 'Quicklime' - a substance thrown on top of bodies to aid the decomposition process - at 9.08pm on 24 March 2017, four days after Satchwell told gardaí that Tina had left their home. A YouTube video on 'Quicklime and water reaction' was also viewed on two occasions seconds later.
The trial heard that gardaí also enlisted a forensic accountant to carry out a financial review of the couple's income and establish whether Tina had left with €26,000 from their savings as claimed by the accused. The accountant concluded there was "no sign" the Satchwells had received "a significant cash windfall" to provide them with such funds.
A significant inconsistency lay in CCTV footage obtained from Youghal post office recorded at 11.13am on 20 March 2017, which showed Satchwell claiming the dole. This was "in direct contradiction" to his statement that he had been in Dungarvan that morning, when Tina was allegedly taking money and packing suitcases.
'Flogging' clothes
Witnesses told the trial that Satchwell was "flogging" his wife's clothes at a car boot sale just weeks after her disappearance and had claimed that Tina had gone to her sister's in the UK after contracting a "terrible infection".
Mary Crowley said she attended a car boot sale on 17 April 2017 in Blarney and saw Satchwell with his stall selling Tina's 'Dr Martens' boots. She said Satchwell told her that he and his wife had moved into a house which had been unoccupied for 12 years and had mould or fungus. He said Tina had gotten a "very serious respiratory illness" and was in the UK.
Satchwell told Ger Carey at the Blarney car boot sale that Tina was so ill she wouldn't be at car boot sales anymore.
Linda Hennessy said she was at the Rathcormac car boot sale in late March or early April 2017 and met Satchwell, who told her Tina was very sick and in hospital.
Sarah Dobson said she met Satchwell at a car boot sale on the May Bank Holiday in 2017, when he was selling Tina's clothes, boots and bags. She said he told her that Tina was very ill in hospital, had lost four stone in weight and was in England with her sister while he fixed the walls of their house.
"I told him she would kill him for selling all the stuff," she said.
Red flag
The trial heard that Superintendent Annemarie Twomey was appointed senior investigation officer in the case on 16 August 2021, by which point Tina Satchwell had been missing for four years and five months.
Supt Twomey said that by February 2022, she had reviewed the case material and had reasonable grounds to believe that Tina was not a missing person and had met her death through unlawful means.
She told the trial that at the end of August 2022, she had reasonable grounds to believe it was necessary to arrest Richard Satchwell as part of the investigation into the murder of Tina. However, she said he was not arrested at that stage as 58 other lines of inquiry needed to be exhausted.
The jury heard that a key report was compiled by Dr Niamh McCullagh, who is a specialist in the search and recovery of human remains concealed in a criminal context. She was requested by Supt Twomey to conduct a review of the evidence and submitted her report on 6 September 2023.
Dr McCullagh told the trial that domestic homicides studies have found the most commonly occurring method for a perpetrator is to create a verbal narrative and to file a false missing person's report.
"My own research looked at cases in Ireland where homicides involving concealment after the event indicates that female victims are disposed of closer to their home address than their male counterparts.
"For all concealed homicide cases that have been studied in Ireland, victims are disposed of within one kilometre of their home address in the majority of cases," she told the trial.
She said one of three possibilities she came to in her report was that Tina Satchwell had been killed at her home address and her body concealed there.
Dr McCullagh said she had recommended to gardaíthat a more invasive search take place at Ms Satchwell's home as there had been structural changes to Grattan Street, which was a "red flag". She recommended that this include specifically the plasterboard, stairs and ground floor of the sitting room.
The witness said she also recommended that the search include a cadaver dog to determine the possibility of buried remains.
The trial heard that it wasn't until 10 October 2023 that an "intrusive search" was conducted at Grattan Street.
'Bits and pieces'
Satchwell was arrested at 5pm on 10 October 2023 for the murder of his wife and brought to Cobh Garda Station. At the same time, the invasive search of Grattan Street was underway.
In his interviews with gardaí that night, Satchwell again repeated that he arrived home to find his wife, two suitcases and €26,000 missing.
Giving another account of alleged violence, Satchwell said Tina would hit him, fling a plate at him and bite him. "Then she'd calm down and there would be tears and she'd apologise for it". He said he didn't hit her back.
He said there had been a "few hundred" fights between them over 30 years; "times I'd hide in the attic when my family visited, times I had to take off work as I couldn't turn up looking the way I did. She had black bruises on her hands from repeatedly hitting me....someone said to her 'your arms are black' and she said she wouldn't hit me again".
He said the couple never "took sexually again" after the suicide of Tina's brother in 2012, which made him feel "useless".
"I never pestered her for sex during any point in the relationship."
By 11 October, Satchwell was still under arrest when Sergeant David Noonan told him that his home was being "dug up", with gardaí "going into the walls" and "looking at every inch of the house".
Sgt Noonan told the defendant he would be shown certain photos of his house.
In a video which was played to the jury, Satchwell could be seen viewing "live" pictures of the stairway in his home while he was in the interview room.
When asked what he kept in a "cubby hole" under the stairs, Satchwell replied: "Bits and pieces."
It was just hours before gardaí would discover Tina Satchwell's body buried there.
Having detained Satchwell for the maximum period they could, gardaí were forced to release him at 4.39pm on 11 October.
Fern
The trial heard that the search for Tina's body was led by a cadaver dog named 'Fern', who had indicated the presence of human remains at the Satchwell home.
Fern had been used to carrying out a systematic search of the house, beginning on the top floor and working down through the property. The trial heard she became "very active" when the stairs were searched.
Detective Garda Brian Barry said building contractors were using powerful lighting to examine under the stairs, when he spotted "different coloured concrete".
"It was a newer pour of concrete, which was very suspicious to me and unusual".
He said builders broke through the concrete and the site was dug until black plastic was exposed, which was found quite deep at 64cm from the surface.
The jury was told that Fern went into "full freeze" mode, indicating the presence of human remains, when shown the black plastic.
At that point, two forensic archaeologists took over the excavation of the scene and revealed a grave which was approximately three foot by six foot. The trial heard that the archaeologists continued their work until a hand was exposed.
Tina Satchwell's remains were finally uncovered at around 8.35pm on the evening of 11 October 2023 - six years and seven months after her death. The trial heard that the site was fully excavated the next day, with Tina's remains removed from the clandestine gravesite and placed in a body bag.
Consultant forensic anthropologist Laureen Buckley said there were no fractures to any of Ms Satchwell's bones, including the hyoid bone - which the jury heard is "sometimes but not always" damaged in strangulation cases.
Professor Paul Brady said he compared the remains with Tina Satchwell's dental records and found they were consistent with those of the missing woman.
'My Irish rose'
The jury heard how, when he was re-arrested the following day, Richard Satchwell presented detectives with a completely new narrative.
He now told gardaí that he had been working in his shed on 20 March 2017. He said that when he came back into the house, Tina was at the bottom of the stairs in her dressing gown with a chisel in her hand, scraping plasterboard that he had put up.
Satchwell claimed that Tina "flew" at him with the chisel, that he had fallen backwards and described holding the belt of her bathrobe at her neck "until she got heavier".
"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 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 laid there. Sometime later, I don't know, I got up and just like to keep things normal."
Satchwell told gardaí he was holding his wife and kissing her on the head.
He said this was the only time he ever "truly" defended himself against Tina and had held her corpse in his arms all night long. "There was no taking back; I just don't know. Shame, panic - I don't know."
Satchwell said he initially laid Tina on a couch and the next few days went by "in a blur".
He described to detectives how he then put Tina's body inside a large chest freezer in the shed two days later, on 22 or 23 March. "I just lifted her into it and she fell in."
Satchwell went on to advertise the same chest freezer on Done Deal on 31 March, having previously offered it to his wife's cousin. The ad read: "Large chest freezer free to take away, working perfect just needs a clean."
The trial heard that one day beforehand, Satchwell sent a text message to Tina's cousin Sarah Howard asking: "Sarah do you want our big chest freezer?"
Ms Howard became emotional as she told the jury that she did not respond to the message, which she thought was "very unusual and very strange".
Satchwell would tell gardaí: "I was robotic, working on automatic. My brain wasn't working. She was heavy, so heavy, it was like trying to lift a ten-tonne bag of coal."
He said he dug out underneath the stairs with a spade and laid his wife on the black plastic on the kitchen floor. "I wanted her to know the hand that killed her was also the hand that loved her," he told detectives.
Satchwell said he buried her the following Sunday afternoon - 26 March - under the stairs of their sitting room, as he wanted to keep her with him and didn't want to leave her alone.
"I went and got roses and called her my Irish Rose but none - [it was] Mother's Day - so I got her tulips," he continued.
He said it could have been 20 minutes or 20 hours, he didn't know how long it took to dig the hole. "It was light when I started and dark when I finished."
"I ain't got no excuses; once it's done I couldn't take it back," he added.
He described working in the tight space under the stairs and said his knuckles were bleeding.
Satchwell cried as he told gardaí: "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 put Tina's wedding ring in the pocket of her bathrobe, although the ring was not found with her remains.
He told gardaí that "the worst thing of all" was once the lies started, he couldn't stop and he had a "sense of relief" that the truth was out.
Satchwell told detectives that he would sit on a little wooden stool and talk to the area in which he had buried Tina, the hardest thing being "not getting anything back".
In later interviews, Satchwell claimed Tina was in a "blind rage" and her face was "distorted" when she attacked him.
Asked by gardaí whether he had caused Tina to die, the accused said he imagined it was the way she was forcing her weight down on top of him and the belt being where it was, "not being able to breathe".
"I can't turn around and say, 'oh her neck was broke or strangulate', I don't know, it just happened so fast."He said this was the only time he ever "truly defended" himself against Tina.
"I can't put it into words what happened. I should have just let her stab me, let it be the end of me," he said. "I'm not a monster," he told detectives.
Cryptic
Gardaí told Satchwell that this description of his wife's death "didn't make sense" and was "most likely a physical impossibility".
However, Satchwell said he wasn't trying to "bullsh*t" detectives. "I'm going to prison, there will be no jury because I'm going to plead guilty."
Satchwell also told gardaí that if they produced any photographs of his wife's body in interview, he would not look at them, informing them: "I want to remember Tina the way she was, not the way I made her."
On a clear October morning, Richard Satchwell was brought before Cashel Courthouse to be charged with the murder of his wife.
During the trial, detectives denied that Satchwell was made to carry out a "perp walk", with defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC submitting that his client was "paraded before the press" while handcuffed to the front.
When asked by Mr Grehan whether by doing so gardaí as a "corporate entity" were "overcompensating" for their previous failures in the investigation, Det Garda David Kelleher said he could only speak about his involvement in the investigation from 2021.
The trial heard that when he was finally charged with Tina Satchwell's murder, the defendant gave the cryptic reply: "Guilty or not guilty, guilty".