The murder of Tina Satchwell

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In 2017, Tina Satchwell was a 45-year-old woman who had been married to her husband, 57-year-old Richard Satchwell, for twenty-five years before she suddenly disappeared. The couple had been living on Grattan Street in Youghal which is a seaside resort town in County Cork, Ireland since 2016. Tina was an Irish woman who moved to England in the 1980s to live with her grandmother. She was the youngest of five girls & three boys in a tight-knit family. Tina was known as a bright & bubbly woman who adored animals & fashion.

When Tina was 17, she traveled from Ireland to England to spend time with an elderly relative & it was in London that she met Richard in 1990. The couple married in 1991 on Tina’s 20th birthday, two years after they met. After the wedding, they returned to live in Tina’s hometown of Fermoy where Richard worked as a truck driver & stayed in this location for twenty years. They decided to ultimately settle in the quiet, seaside town of Youghal on the East Cork coast. The couple moved into a modest three-story terraced home near the town center where they lived with Tina’s two cherished dogs & a pet parrot.

Tina & Richard enjoyed the outdoors & taking their dogs for walks along the beach. Richard would be away from home for work for stretches of time, but Tina was an independent woman who was content to stay home with her pets. She would also go out with friends & head back to Fermoy to catch up with family. Only 18 months after they moved into their new home, Tina disappeared.

The last time Tina had been seen out in public was one day before she went missing on March 19, 2017 when she & Richard were at a car boot sale. This is a form of market where items are sold from the boot or trunk of a car. Those that saw the couple on this occasion said that they seemed normal.

On March 20, 2017, Richard claimed that that morning at about 10 am, Tina came downstairs & he fixed her a cup of tea & a slice of toast. She asked him if he would go to Aldi in the town of Dungarvan to buy fish. He gave her a kiss & told her he would see her in a couple of hours. Richard said that when he came home at about noon, he found the house empty, other than their two dogs, Ruby & Heidi. He found this strange since Tina typically took the dogs with her wherever she happened to go but he did note that she’d been leaving her Chihuahua, Ruby at home more often in the recent weeks before. He also found TIna’s keys on the ground. She had taken two suitcases & 26,000 pounds with her but left her cell phone & ID behind. The money, which was from the sale of their house, had been kept in a cash box. He said he assumed she had gone to stay with her family in Fermoy.

Richard didn’t notify police of his wife’s disappearance until four days later on March 24. He was questioned as to why he waited so long to make the call & he indicated that he was giving Tina the space she would have wanted & felt he was doing right by her with that decision. He said, “In every relationship, you know your partner, you know what you feel your partner would want you to do in certain circumstances & that’s what I did, I went by what I thought my wife would want me to do. Whether people agree with the way I did it, that’s really up to them, they weren’t living it, I was.” Richard also said that he knew his wife better than anyone, likely even better than he knew himself.

When he was later asked to clarify what he meant when he said he was doing what he thought was right by Tina, he said that his wife had told him that if she went away & he came after her, that she would call the guards on him. Again, he said that he assumed Tina just needed space & said that if she went away, she knew he would be upset, but also, had she told him where she was going, she knew he would find her & try to convince her to come home.

Three months after Tina went missing, the couple’s home was searched as part of the investigation. Various nearby areas & waterways were also searched but there was no sign of Tina.

He indicated that Tina had been through a lot with her family in the 10-12 years before she vanished that had been weighing her down & because of it, her mental health had been suffering. He said he would often lie awake at night, trying to soothe his upset wife. Richard maintained that it was his belief that Tina was alive & well & would eventually come home when she felt ready. He had hope that she was safe, even if she’d moved on with her life. He just hoped that she found some sort of happiness wherever she had gone.

On July 9, more than three months after Tina disappeared, Richard told police that he found two suitcases at a clothing bank that looked very similar to the ones his wife owned, but after DNA analysis, detectives determined they had no connection with TIna.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months & months into years & there was still no sign of Tina. Richard spoke out directly to his wife on the fifth anniversary of her disappearance & said, “To Tina, the hurt & pain of you leaving the way you did can’t be put into words. But I’m still willing to try to put things behind us & work through any problems.” He told Tina he had one big question that he wished she would answer, which is why? He also pleaded for anyone with information about his wife to please come forward. Richard did a series of television interviews & denied that he would ever do anything to harm his wife. He believed that she could still be alive & well.

In 2018, there was an extensive search for Tina at Mitchell’s Wood, which is a 40 acre wooded area, after a witness came forward & indicated that he saw another man at the woods in suspicious circumstances. He also possibly saw the man enter the woods with a blond woman, but left without her. There was no sign of Tina in their search.

Richard spoke out about his frustration that he could ever be suspected of harming his wife & indicated that the police searched his home without his knowledge & away in the country. He said they had a key & could enter the home any time they wished. He said he’s only told the truth & has absolutely nothing to hide & would take a lie detector test at any time. However, when a radio station offered to conduct a lie detector test with Richard, he declined & said he “needed a rest.” During the radio show he admitted that he’d been imprisoned for a month from December 12, 2003 until January 10, 2004 because of welfare fraud when he was working while claiming unemployment benefits.

He said despite the fact that his wife had been missing for over a year, he continued to buy her birthday, anniversary & Christmas gifts. He said that he would not be celebrating Christmas until Tina came home & planned to just stay home with the dogs that she loved so much. He said that he lived in a state of misery every day, unable to work, but held out hope that Tina would return.

It was Tina’s sister Teresa’s belief that someone absolutely harmed Tina & that she hadn’t left home on her own accord. There was no evidence that Tina’s bank account had been touched since her disappearance & no digital footprint to indicate that she was still alive. She didn’t have a passport & the police indicated that she hadn’t passed through any Irish or UK port or airport & there was no indication she had left the country. Her cellphone & ID had been left at home.

In various interviews, Richard shared insight into his family dynamics & indicated that his UK-based family hadn’t attended their 1991 wedding because his relatives harbored deep animosity toward the Irish. His mother had even forced him to make the decision of choosing between her & Tina & he chose Tina. Richard had relocated to Ireland on June 19, 1989 & was so disconnected from his mother that he didn’t learn of her death until six months after she’d passed away.

Richard indicated that his marriage with Tina wasn’t always easy since she allegedly struggled with undiagnosed depression & was absolutely against taking antidepressants. There had been allegations that Richard was controlling in his relationship with Tina but in his defense, he claimed that Tina did not have the personality that would allow anyone to control her. He was asked if he was the jealous type & he said he wasn’t & if he saw an outfit in a shop window that he thought Tina would like, he would buy it for her, even if it was a sexy style.

Richard described Tina as a great woman, but also someone who had a “flash temper.” He said sometimes she would get mad & physically strike out, but she would be immediately remorseful, crying & apologizing after. He said she never had any ill intent & in those moments, he would just hold her tightly until she calmed down, never physically retaliating. He said he’d never laid a finger on his wife in the 30 years they’d been together.

In 2020 after Tina had been missing for three years, Richard spoke to the media & indicated that he was shattered by his wife’s disappearance. At that point, it was his belief that she may have been harmed, but also said that Tina was very tough & had someone tried to attack her, “she’d pick the nearest thing up & whack them with it.” He said that he’d kept everything in the house exactly as Tina had left it before she vanished. “The sitting room is exactly the way it was when she left. The nail polishes used the night before are still in the place she left them. I know that’s probably daft, I don’t know.” He said that Tina was constantly on his mind & that at the time she went missing, they had been together for thirty years. He said on top of the grief of missing his wife, he’s had to deal with accusations that he could have somehow been involved.

He maintained hope that at some point, the truth would come out & he would learn the truth eventually. It was his opinion that her disappearance was completely out of character for her despite the fact that he was aware of the issues she was struggling with that had nothing to do with their relationship. He said that the idea of suicide was out of the question since she was “too much in love with herself.” It was his thought that she could have potentially gone to the UK but there was no sign that she did. He said that the day before she went missing, she was telling everyone that she loved Richard & would never do anything to hurt him. According to Richard, once Tina does get in touch with him, he can forgive her. He said that Tina was responsible for the happiest years of his life & in some ways, also some of the worst.

In March of 2023, police issued a renewed appeal for information to mark the sixth anniversary of Tina’s disappearance. Despite a six-year operation that included an exhaustive search of CCTV footage from Irish ports & airports as well as review of nearly 200 statements, there was never a trace of Tina found.

On Tuesday, October 10, 2023, the Satchwell home was sealed off because police suspected that Tina was buried there. This was a huge development after police had previously looked into almost 400 separate enquiries in what had, up until this point, been considered a missing persons case. At the time, Richard was arrested on suspicion of murder & then released without charges. On Wednesday, October 11, 2023, it was the third day that police searched the Satchwell home with mini diggers & a cadaver dog. That night, the cadaver dog alerted something to the officers inside the home & a search then took place inside a hallway of the home. There, they found mummified human remains wrapped in plastic in an alcove area behind a wall under the stairs while excavating a concrete floor area inside the hallway.

The discovery came after police had been investigating information that there were allegedly renovations happening both inside & outside the Satchwell home in the years following Tina’s disappearance. They were told of alleged late night digging on the property & work going on inside the home in the early morning hours.

The body was removed from the home the next day in a coffin & a local priest offered prayers for the dead. The body was then taken to Dublin for DNA analysis & through dental records, the body was confirmed as belonging to Tina. A vigil was held in her honor & Tina was described as an angel who will always be in the hearts of her family. Tina was said to put a smile on the faces of those she came across & was someone who loved positivity. Everyone who knew her cherished the moments spent with her.

Tina was born Tina Dingivin & was a native of Fermoy, County Cork & the youngest of five girls & three brothers. The family was very tight-knit. Tina & Richard had moved into the house where her remains were found, two years before she disappeared.

Following the discovery of Tina’s body, Richard was re-arrested & taken to Cobh Garda station for questioning before he was charged shortly after 8 pm on Friday, October 13, 2023. He was placed under “special observation” on a prison landing, housed away from the rest of the inmates & was being checked on by staff every fifteen minutes. This decision was made after his solicitor Eddie Burke recommended his client receive medical attention in prison.

The next day, he was brought into the courthouse, his head hung down, wearing a black t-shirt & gray tracksuit bottoms with a tattoo visible on his right arm of a heart with the word Tina inside. Richard pleaded guilty to his wife’s murder.

Tina’s funeral was held on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, more than six & a half years after she’d gone missing. The procession passed through her home town in Cork, the hearse pausing outside her childhood home. Relatives, neighbors & friends gathered in front of the house to pay their respects. Those that knew Tina remember her as a lovely girl who was down to earth & lived a quiet, private life & loved her dogs.

In March of this year, the book of evidence had been formally served on Richard. This is a crucial component in a criminal case that contains a comprehensive summary of the prosecution’s case against the accused. Richard remains in custody to appear before the next sessions of the court in Dublin. He previously sought bail but because of his very serious & the fact that he is considered a flight risk, this was refused.

Tina’s family expressed that they’re struggling to find the right words to describe the pain in their hearts. Had they known the last time they visited Tina would be their final time seeing her, they would have hugged her extra tight. Tina was described as a person who loved positivity & could put a smile on anyone’s face. Everyone that knew & loved her cherished the moments spent with Tina.

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