Latest news with #RichardSatchwell
Irish Daily Mirror
2 hours ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Evil killer Richard Satchwell abandoned by family and friends since 2023 arrest
Devious killer Richard Satchwell has been given the cold shoulder by his family and friends. He has had no visitors in prison, apart from his legal team, since his arrest in October 2023 over the horrific murder of his wife Tina. The former truck driver had no support from anyone during his trial as the handful of people he knew in his adopted Youghal, Co. Cork and relatives disowned him. The 58 year old from Leicester in England was initially held in Limerick Prison for more than 18 months while he waited to stand trial. He was then transferred to Wheatfield Prison for the duration of the five week murder trial. A prison source said: "He was a model prisoner in Limerick, very courteous, very polite. He was your typical middle class Englishman, with good manners and never raising his voice. "He never commented on the case and kept his thoughts to himself. No-one came to visit him apart from his professional legal team. I can honestly say he doesn't seem to have a friend in the outside world. I suppose it is not surprising when you consider what he did and how he covered up his wife's murder for eight or nine years. "Normally you would have a family member calling to see a fella like him but not one relative called to see him. He won't give us any trouble when he is doing his time. He got on well with the other inmates here and largely kept himself to himself." Following his murder conviction on Friday, Satchwell was returned back to Wheatfield and will stay there until he receives his automatic life sentence in a few weeks. His late wife's family are expected to submit victim impact statements to the court. Prison sources say he will be moved to Mountjoy for one night after his sentencing and will then more than likely be returned to Limerick to serve his life sentence which will probably be at least 20 years. The source added: "He will be an old man if and when he ever gets out of here. It was cruel what he did, pretending his wife was missing and had run off with another man when he had killed her." A spokesperson for the Irish Prison Service said it does not comment on individual prisoner cases. Evil Satchwell buried his beautiful blonde wife under the floor of the staircase in their home after he killed her. The jury didn't accept his story that he took her life in an act of self defence.
The Irish Sun
12 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
‘Master of manipulation' Richard Satchwell planned Tina's murder for months as ‘alibi mode' & kill plot details revealed
EVIL killer Richard Satchwell spent MONTHS planning his wife's murder, The Irish Sun can reveal. Cops believe the monster hatched his Advertisement 4 Richard Satchwell spent months planning his wife's murder Credit: John Delea - The Sun Dublin 4 Tina Satchwell's body was buried under the stairs of her Cork home Credit: Collect 4 Richard Satchwell was found guilty of murdering his wife Detectives also suspect his decision to tell At the time, Satchwell claimed his wife had taken €26,000 from the sale of a He then sent an email to a company selling monkeys claiming his wife was going to leave him. He also collected his dole. The maniac was even looking for Advertisement READ MORE IN IRISH NEWS He then buried Tina under the stairs of their home in Youghal, Co One senior investigator told The Irish Sun on Sunday: 'The speed with which he flew into alibi mode would suggest a certain degree of planning in this horrific crime. 'He did a number of things very quickly and he put a lot of things into action after killing his wife. 'Once he had completed the murder, he then had a story in place about the Advertisement Most read in The Irish Sun Breaking 'He was also a great actor and had everything planned for the sole purpose of avoiding being arrested for the murder of a completely innocent woman. 'He had to have a strategy and that was playing the victim. He was a master of manipulation.' 'LACKED EMPATHY' They added: 'He showed elements where he lacked empathy with her After she was formally reported missing in May 2017 by the killer, Gardai soon established that she had no bank account, driving licence or even a passport. Advertisement At the time, Gardai had engaged with the killer and encouraged him to officially report her missing. As they made public appeals, there were reported sightings of a woman matching Tina's description in the REPORTED SIGHTING We can reveal one of the sightings was made by a journalist. When Gardai were unable to identify her location, the decision was made to search their home on June 7, 2017. At that time, the search was aimed at recovering evidence of domestic violence. Advertisement Satchwell told Gardai at the time she had been abusive to him, but that he had a bottle of Cava in one of her red shoes ready for her return. Detectives also believed he 'grew in confidence' after the search did not recover Tina's remains. 'ENJOYED BEING IN THE SPOTLIGHT' The investigator added: 'Each time there was a search or a reported sighting of Tina, he grew in confidence because he knew all along she was under the stairs. 'He enjoyed being in the spotlight and it excited him. Gardai were dealing with a lot of sightings. Advertisement 'Cops weren't searching for a body because there was no evidence at that time to suggest she was dead. 'Gardai also had no basis in law or evidence to search for a body.' Gardai also suspect Satchwell was paranoid and wrongly believed Tina was having an affair. She had also gone from living in a nice house in Fermoy to squalor in Youghal due to Satchwell's obsession with animals. 'He had to have a strategy and that was playing the victim. He was a master of manipulation.' Senior investigator Cops continued to make appeals on Detectives believe this particular search gave him 'greater confidence' that he would escape justice. The investigator told us: 'That search emboldened him even more and he was out in public appealing for information. He had perfected his act. When nothing was found, he was convinced he was in the clear. Advertisement 'He was trying to generate sympathy for himself, when all along he was nothing more than a cold-blooded killer.' Following the search in 2018 and as the investigation continued through COVER STORY UNRAVELLED It was led by Senior Investigating Officer Anne Marie Twomey, Incident Room Co-ordinator Dave Kelleher and their team of detectives and uniformed officers. By that stage, Gardai were satisfied that Satchwell had lied about the amount of Advertisement Over the coming months, his cover story began to unravel when Gardai recovered a Gardai also established that he had searched for 'quick lime' — a substance which can be used to accelerate the decomposition of bodies and prevent the smell of decay. NEW SEARCH Detectives established the couple had returned to their home, but Tina had never left it again. The decision was made to search the home once more in October 2023. Gardai had to receive special permission to knock walls down and search every inch of the home. Advertisement If they had failed to recover her body, it would have cost the State over €200,000 to repair the But Tina's family said outside Satchwell is currently being held in Advertisement 4 Tina's relatives, Lorraine and Sarah Howard, speaking outside court after the verdict Credit: 2025 PA Media, All Rights Reserved
Extra.ie
12 hours ago
- Extra.ie
Gardaí believe Satchwell 'meticulously planned wife Tina's murder for weeks'
Gardaí believe Richard Satchwell planned the murder of his wife weeks in advance because he thought she was going to leave him, has learned. Senior sources familiar with the investigation that would ultimately result in Satchwell's murder conviction said the Englishman meticulously planned the killing before going to extreme lengths to try to cover his tracks. One source said the 'speed and calmness' he displayed as he went into 'alibi mode' convinced detectives that Tina Satchwell's murder was not a spur-of-the-moment killing. They told 'Satchwell made the decision to kill his wife because she had either decided to leave him or because the relationship was deteriorating so much. Richard Satchwell. Pic: Seán Dwyer 'Tina was not happy in Youghal. She left a lovely house to move into a mortgage-free doer-upper, only for her life to be taken from her by a man she should have been able to trust.' The 58-year-old truck driver, originally from Leicester in the UK, reported his wife missing on March 20, 2017. Satchwell repeatedly lied to gardaí, journalists, family, and friends, telling them he had arrived home to their house in Youghal, east Cork, after running errands to discover his wife had left him. He maintained that his wife went missing from their home, at the very time her body was stuffed into a chest freezer before being buried under the stairs in the living room. But in October 2023 – six years after Satchwell reported her missing – gardaí discovered Tina's skeletal remains under the stairs during a second search of the house. Tina Satchwell. Pic: PA Wire Despite this gruesome discovery, Richard Satchwell pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife at their home in No. 3 Grattan Street in Youghal, arguing that he had been defending himself when he inadvertently killed her as she attacked him with a chisel. The court heard that a phone linked to Satchwell sent text messages about purchasing monkeys over the same period when he is alleged to have murdered his wife. Satchwell attempted to purchase two marmoset monkeys, called Terry and Thelma, over a period of two years, from 2015 to March 2017. On the day of Tina's murder – March 20, 2017 – Satchwell wrote to the monkey rescue, saying: 'I'm in a mess right now because my wife has said she is leaving me over this so please let the organisation know.' Richard Satchwell on RTÉ News in 2017. Pic: RTÉ The emails to the monkey rescue were one aspect of the investigation that convinced detectives that Satchwell planned the murder. A source told 'It was the investigation view that the speed and calmness that he went into alibi mode in terms of sending the monkey email.' The source also noted Tina was 'hardly dead' when Satchwell had showered, changed his clothes and then went to the post office to collect his dole. Satchwell then went on a round trip to Dungarvan in Co. Waterford – around 30kms from Youghal – for a bottle of water 'so he could say she was gone when he got back'. 'This all belies a preparedness that could only have occurred before the killing,' the source said. But while the investigation team believes Satchwell planned to kill his wife, sources familiar with the case said Tina's birth mother thought her daughter's husband was innocent until her body was discovered. Tina Satchwell's mother, Mary Collins. Pic: Brian Lawless/PA Wire Mary Collins told confidants she believed Satchwell was genuine in the numerous media appeals he made appealing for information about his wife's disappearance. 'It was a difficult time for the whole family, and Mary believed Richard,' a source told 'She never doubted him. With hindsight, it's easy to see through his lies, but at the time he was very convincing.' Tina only discovered Mary Collins was her birth mother when she found her birth certificate around the time she was making her confirmation. Up until then, she believed the grandmother who raised her was her mother. Tina Satchwell. Pic: Facebook Ms Collins attended court every day of the trial and was often visibly upset by the evidence of what Satchwell had done to her daughter. When the verdict was read just before lunchtime on Friday, several members of the Satchwell family, who occupied a full bench at the back of the courtroom, wept audibly. Three of the jurors were also crying as they walked out of the jury box for the last time. Afterwards, the family spoke to assembled media on the steps of the Central Criminal Court at Parkgate Street, Dublin. Tina's niece, Sarah Howard, to whom Satchwell had offered the freezer in which he initially stored his wife's remains after he killed her, spoke about the family's dismay at the manner in which he denigrated her aunt's name. 'During this trial, Tina was portrayed in a way that was not who she was,' she told reporters. 'Tina was our precious sister, cousin, auntie and daughter whose presence in our lives meant so much to us all. We can never put into words the impact that her loss has had on all of us. 'Tina was a kind, loving, tender soul who loved her animals as they loved her, and that's the way we want her remembered.' Ms Howard, who gave evidence in the trial just two weeks after giving birth, continued: 'Today, as family, we finally have justice for Tina, and we now ask for privacy to begin our healing.' Before she spoke, Tina's sister, Lorraine Howard, thanked the gardaí and the judge and jury for their work. She also thanked the State's legal team, Geraldine Small and Imelda Kelly. 'Your hard work and professionalism shone through like the classy ladies you are,' she said. Lorraine Howard gave evidence in the case as the only witness for the defence. But has learned that she had no idea she would be appearing in Satchwell's defence until she arrived at court. Her discomfort was visible during her questioning by defence counsel Brendan Grehan. She was brought to the witness box on foot of a statement she made to gardaí in August 2020, when Tina was still believed to be missing. She had been estranged from her sister for 15 years before her disappearance. In the statement, she described Tina as 'high-maintenance' and that her husband spent every penny he had on her. She had also claimed Tina had a bad temper and had screamed at her so badly on one occasion that it induced a miscarriage in her. But when she appeared on the witness stand last week, Ms Howard said: 'I gave that statement in anger… whereas in actual fact, he was the person I should have aimed the anger at,' gesturing with her head towards Satchwell in the dock. 'I believed her to be alive… I was angry with her at the time. I didn't see him [Satchwell] as controlling at the time… but I've revised my views on information I've seen… I wasn't aware of aspects of their relationship.' The murder trial lasted just under five weeks, and the courtroom was packed every day. Much of the credit for finally bringing Satchwell to justice is being given to the senior investigating officer, Superintendent Ann Marie Twomey, who took over the case in 2021. 'She deserves all credit,' a source said. 'She and her team were determined Tina's family would get the justice they deserve.' The five-week murder trial at the Central Criminal Court heard Satchwell, who is from Leicester in England, claimed his wife was physically abusive to him and that she died after she 'flew' at him with a chisel. He also claimed he used the belt of her dressing robe to keep her off him before she went limp. Satchwell then buried his wife under the stairs of their living room. He denied murdering Tina, but did not give evidence during the trial. He has been in custody since he was first charged on October 14, 2023, with Tina's murder. Satchwell now faces mandatory life in prison when he is sentenced next Wednesday by Judge Paul McDermott, after which victim impact statements will be heard.
Sunday World
a day 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 .
RTÉ News
2 days 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.
