Advanced decomposition means the cause of death of Tina Satchwell, whose skeletal remains were found under her Co Cork home more than six years after she disappeared, cannot be determined, the assistant state pathologist has told the Central Criminal Court.
In evidence on Tuesday in the continuing trial of Richard Satchwell, who denies the murder of his wife, Dr Margaret Bolster said the remains were lying face down, the skull and some bones had come apart from the body due to decomposition, and there was no evidence of any fractures to the bones.
The significance of the presence of a dressing gown belt draped diagonally from the left across the front of Ms Satchwell’s body, brought under the right arm and knotted, is “unclear”, she said. It was in “a very unusual position”.
The jury was shown a video in which a Garda demonstrated the positioning of the dressing gown belt on his body.
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Dr Bolster, who carried out a post-mortem examination of the remains after they were discovered on October 11th, 2023, also said four pieces of glass were recovered from the scalp and five from the remains of the body.
Under cross-examination by defence counsel Brendan Grehan, Dr Bolster said the position of the belt was “not a usual place” to knot a dressing gown.
She agreed the belt was neither around the neck nor the body and its positioning was “like something used to carry a body”.
Her experience was that ligatures are very often used as a means to move a body. “That was my impression when I saw this,” she said.
She agreed there was no evidence of trauma or fractures to the bones, including of the hyoid bone in the neck.
She has carried out more than 30,000 post-mortems, and her experience is that the hyoid bone is fractured in about 73 per cent of cases of manual strangulation or throttling and in about 24 per cent of ligature strangulation cases, she said.
Tuesday was the 13th day of the trial of Mr Satchwell (58)m who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his 45-year-old wife at their home at No 3 Grattan Street, Youghal, on March 19th and 20th, 2017.
The jury has heard Ms Satchwell’s remains were discovered during a forensic search of the property on October 11th, 2023, about six and a half years after Mr Satchwell reported his wife missing in May 2017.
After the remains were discovered, Mr Satchwell told gardaí his wife came at him with a chisel on the morning of March 20th. He said he used the belt of her dressing gown to fend her off, she “went limp” and died, the trial has heard.
The prosecution’s case is that he put her body in a freezerbefore burying her in a grave site dug under the stairs.
Called on Tuesday to address whether she had file notes concerning Ms Satchwell, local GP Dr Deirdre O’Grady told Mr Grehan she was unable to find any.
That might be because Ms Satchwell had transferred to another doctor or possibly because some notes relating to inactive files were shredded after her practice became computerised in 2001, she said. She had no legal obligation to retain notes relating to inactive files.
Any time Ms Satchwell attended the surgery, her husband accompanied her to her consultation, Dr O’Grady said.
She had no recollection of Mr Satchwell attending her with what Mr Grehan described as his face “destroyed by Tina’s nails” and her telling him it would heal up naturally. She would never have said to a patient they had “to stick it, or leave it”, she said. She had no recollection of seeing Mr Satchwell, at his wife’s suggestion, about an overdose.
The trial continues on Wednesday before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of seven women and five men.
