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LAST UPDATE | 9 May
THE JURY IN the trial of Richard Satchwell heard today that the search for the body of Tina was led by a dog called Fern, who had indicated the presence of human remains under the stairway at the Satchwell’s Cork home.
The jury were shown photographs of the garda exacavation that uncovered a shallow grave dug underneath the stairs of his room, where the remains of his wife Tina were found six years after he said she went missing.
Detective Garda David Kelleher told Gerardine Small SC, prosecuting, this morning that he went with a search warrant to Grattan Street in Youghal at 5pm on 10 October 2023, where he arrested Satchwell for the murder of Tina on or about 19 March 2017.
Satchwell was subsequently brought him to Cobh Garda Station and an invasive search of Grattan Street was conducted simultaneously, with gardaí bringing in building equipment to excavate the couple’s home.
Mapper Detective Garda Mark Walton gave evidence that the stairs leading to the first floor of the Satchwell home were located in the main living room in the middle of the property and the garda excavation works had been carried out on the ground floor.
Walton told defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC that the stairs was just under three foot wide and there was a supporting brick wall.
Photographer Detective Garda Mairead Crowley told Gerardine Small SC, prosecuting, that she took a video of the interior of the house at Grattan Street when she arrived there on the evening of 10 October 2023, which was shown to the jury.
She said she photographed under the stairs on 12 October, where the human remains were found. The jury was shown the video taken of the inside of Grattan Street, where the main living room can be seen with a cement mixer and tools.
The witness pointed out the red brickwork under the stairs to the jurors.
Referencing the second album of photographs, the witness said there was a door leading in under the stairs which showed lino on the ground and a number of small rolls of wallpaper. She said a piece of plasterboard had been removed.
In the next picture, the lino was removed and there was a view of the cement work.
Crowley referred to a photo of a plastic label found in the soil with a best-before date of 3 March 2017. Photographs in the final album shown to the jury were taken on 12 October with the last picture captured on 13 October she said.
The witness said one of the pictures showed a close-up image of the grave site.
The detective added: “In the same site there is a deeper excavation and you can see black plastic in its entirety and this contained human remains.”
One of the final photos showed the gravesite “with the body removed”.
Under cross-examination, the detective told Grehan that there was a lot of dog faeces and dog bowls when she arrived at the house. She said a parrot had been removed.
“It was a big operation, a skip was outside the front and the place had to be cleared to see what we were dealing with,” she said.
Grehan asked for the measurements of the “resting place” of Tina, where her remains were recovered. She said it was 74cms in depth from the surface to the black plastic.
She agreed one photo showed the remains of Tina within the black plastic and another was of the remains removed from the grave site.
Gerardine Small SC, prosecuting, read a statement from Alan Ward,a specialised victim recovery search dog handler based in Northern Ireland who said he entered the Grattan Street house at 7pm on 10 October 2023 with a dog called Fern to search for human remains.
He said Fern conducted a systemic search of the house beginning on the top floor and working down through the property. A small number of areas piqued her interest but there were no firm indicators, he said.
Fern became “very active” and there was a change of body language when they searched the stairs, he said.
They re-entered the scene at 8.42pm and Fern showed “huge interest” in a red brick wall under the stairs but as there was a large settee against it, they were unable to continue. The following day, the search team removed the settee away from the wall.
He said Fern was very interested in the outside of the wall and their search under the stairs had indicated the presence of human remains inside and outside under the second step of the stairs.
Ward said Fern was in “full freeze” mode on 12 October when searching an area of interest under the stairs, indicating the presence of human remains in black plastic.
Earlier, Satchwell told gardaí that he kept “bits and pieces” beneath the stairway in his Cork home when shown a photograph of the area taken by officers, just hours before they would discover his wife’s body buried there in the shallow grave.
The jury watched Satchwell’s interviews with gardaí following his arrest. He was told by Garda Sergeant David Noonan that his house was being “dug up” and gardaí were “going into the walls” and “looking at every inch”.
Satchwell was then told that he would be shown certain photos of his house. Detective Garda David Kelleher, who was on the stand at the Central Criminal Court today, told Small that the photos were coming from the accused’s home “as a live scenario”.
In the video, which was played to the jury today, Satchwell was shown pictures on a screen in the interview room at Cobh Garda Station of the stairs in his house. Noonan put it to the accused that the picture was a “cubby hole under your stairs”.
Satchwell confirmed this and, when asked, told the garda sergeant that he kept “bits and pieces” in the area. When the next picture was shown to the accused, gardaí asked him to identify an object located in the “cubby hole”.
Noonan went on to ask Satchwell: “Any idea?”
Satchwell continued to look at the picture, to which Noonan asked: “Do you know where this is?”
“Under the stairs,” replied Satchwell.
“What’s in behind there?” asked Noonan.
The accused was seen looking at the screen in the interview room.
“Any idea what’s that, it’s on the same hole under the stairs?” said Noonan, asking the accused to explain what he was looking at.
Satchwell replied: “That was an old back door, before the previous owners put a small extension.”
Kelleher told the jury that having been detained at interview, the accused was released from custody at 4.39pm on 11 October.
The detective said that because of the “ongoing search” at Grattan Street that night, the accused was provided with overnight accommodation and given a new mobile phone.
The detective agreed with defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC that gardaí, having detained Satchwell for the maximum period they could, released him.
The accused man also told gardaí in his first interview after his arrest that he and his wife Tina had not been sexually active in the five years before her disappearance.
During the interview, Satchwell told detectices that Tina had threatened to leave him since her brother died by suicide in 2012 and her personalty changed towards him.
“It went: ‘I’ll f**king leave you, I f**king hate you’, then she would apologise. It didn’t make me feel good – miserable.”
The accused said the couple never “took sexually again” after the death of Tina’s brother in 2012, which made him feel “useless”.
“I never pestered her for sex during any point in the relationship,” he added.
“We wasn’t that sexually active at any point during the relationship, if it happened it happened. I wanted a kiss, she didn’t. Obviously we didn’t have any kids, I’d always bow to the way she wanted it”. [sic]
Satchwell said he would “ideally” liked two children with Tina – “one of each”.
“From day one she said if you want kids I’m the wrong person for you [...] but I told my brother the first day I’d seen her that I’d marry her; something about her that captivated me [...] confidence, the way she looked, the way she walked, multiple things,” he said.
Satchwell said he had met his wife when he was 22 years old and had only had sex with one person before Tina.
He said there were no previous relationships before Tina; “friendships but not relationships”. The accused told gardaí he had a few rules when it came to a relationship, which were “don’t cheat on your partner, don’t hit your partner, don’t abuse kids”.
The trial continues this afternoon before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of five men and seven women.
In her opening address, Small told the jury that after the body was recovered, Satchwell told gardaí that he lost his footing and fell to the ground when his wife tried to stab him with a chisel.
He told detectives that he held her weight off with a belt but that in a matter of seconds, she was dead in his arms.
Satchwell (58), with an address at Grattan Street, Youghal, Co Cork has pleaded not guilty to murdering his 45-year-old wife Tina – née Dingivan – at that address between 19 and 20 March 2017, both dates inclusive.
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