12-05-2025
Garda noticed variation in floor colour at Satchwell home, court hears
The Central Criminal Court has heard gardaí began looking for a body under the stairs in Richard and Tina Satchwell's house, after noticing the concrete there was a different colour to the rest of the floor.
Mr Satchwell has denied murdering his 45-year-old wife at their house in Youghal, in Co Cork, in March 2017, before reporting her missing.
Her remains were not found until October 2023.
The court heard the search of the house at Grattan Street in Youghal on 10 October 2023, had been planned a number of weeks previously.
Unlike the previous search of the property in June 2017, this time the Garda Technical Bureau was involved.
Garda Brian Barry was one of the team who attended the house on the evening of 10 October.
The plan had been to take down plasterboard on the walls and to demolish an extension at the back of the house, the court was told, in a search that was scheduled to take a week.
On the evening, a trained cadaver dog had shown significant interest in an area around the bottom of the stairs leading from the ground floor to the first floor.
Garda Barry said he did not check under the stairs at that point as there was a lot of clutter up against the stairs including a couch and a cement mixer which had to be removed.
On the following evening, 11 October, Garda Barry said he had been discussing the ongoing search with the builders, including the plans to demolish the extension.
Ground-penetrating radar had already been used on the area under the stairs and had not detected anything.
But Garda Barry said while he was chatting with the builders, he was looking at the brick wall built at the side of the stairs, which he said "looked like it was built by someone who didn't know how to build walls".
He decided to use strong lighting to have another look under the stairs along with the builder.
Garda asked builders to break up concrete flooring
At that stage he noticed new concrete on part of the floor. He said this was very suspicious and he asked the builder to take out the Kango hammers and break the concrete.
He said the soil underneath was very sandy and easy to dig. The builders exposed black plastic around 64cms down and Garda Barry told the builders to stop digging.
Garda Barry said the hole was unusually deep. He said forensic archaeologists were called in and began further exposing the hole and the black plastic contained within it.
A human hand was revealed and the search was then shut down until the following day when the assistant state pathologist and a forensic anthropologist were called in and the remains were removed from the scene.
The manager of the crime scene, retired Detective Sergeant Shane Curran, said discovering the clandestine burial of human remains buried so deep in the ground was unusual as he said the average depth of "clandestine burials" in the last 25 years was usually around 53cm or less than two feet.
He said this was "very, very deep".
Retired Det Sgt Curran said the original plan was to take down a wall and demolish the extension at the back and examine the ground underneath.
He agreed the order was changed with the cadaver dog making significant indications around the stairs and when Garda Barry searched underneath the stairs.
Retired Det Sgt Curran said the excavation of the grave site began on the evening of Wednesday 11 October and continued until lunchtime the following day.
He said it was at 8.35pm on 11 October when gardaí got the first indication that the area contained human remains.
He said the remains were left in the black plastic in which they had been found, placed in a body bag and transported to the mortuary at Cork University Hospital at around 2.40pm on 12 October.
