An eight-year hell inflicted by Richard Satchwell on the family of his murdered wife Tina was ended by a unanimous jury at the Central Criminal Court with one word: “Guilty”.
“Today as a family, we finally have justice for Tina,” her cousin Sarah Howard said after Satchwell was unanimously found guilty of the murder of his wife at their home in March 2017.
When the verdict was read out just before 12.30pm on Friday, it was greeted with weeping from several members of Ms Satchwell’s family.
Murderer Satchwell (58), who showed no reaction, will be back in court next week for sentencing. Murder carries a mandatory life sentence.
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He denied the murder of his 45-year-old wife at their home at Grattan Street, Youghal, Co Cork, over March 19th and 20th in 2017. Until her skeletal remains were discovered more than six-and-a-half years later in a deep grave below the sittingroom stairs, he claimed she had left him, taking their savings.
After the remains were uncovered in October 2023 during a forensic excavation, he claimed she flew at him with a chisel on the morning of March 20th, 2017, and, during a struggle, went “limp” and died. He said he put her body on a couch, then in a chest freezer and, on March 26th, buried her under the stairs.
Gerardine Small SC, prosecuting, said his account was “nonsense”. He was an “arch manipulator” who lied over years to evade responsibility, she said.
Outside court, Ms Howard, flanked by her family, said Ms Satchwell was portrayed during the trial in a way not true to their “precious sister, cousin, auntie, and daughter” and the “kind, loving, gentle soul who loved her animals like they loved her”.
Ms Satchwell’s half-sister, Lorraine Howard, thanked Garda Superintendent Annemarie Twomey and Det Gda David Kelleher, who both got involved in the Garda investigation in 2021, “for putting the pieces together and finding Tina”.
Asked about alleged Garda failures in earlier stages of the investigation, a Garda spokesman said the matter was still before the court and there would be no comment at this time.
[ Why did gardaí ignore ‘red flags’ in the Tina Satchwell murder investigation? ]
Labour Party justice spokesman Alan Kelly said, now that Satchwell was “rightfully convicted”, the question he and many are asking is “why it took so long” to find Ms Satchwell when it seemed “red flags” had been raised some years earlier.
Sinn Féin’s justice spokesman Matt Carthy said there may be a case for Fiosrú, the Office of the Police Ombudsman, to see if any action is required on the adequacy of the initial investigation.
Mr Carthy said he welcomed the verdict and the fact the family of Ms Satchwell has finally received justice.
He pointed out that while she was reported missing in 2017, it was only in 2021, after Supt Ann Marie Twomey assumed responsibility for the case, that a full review of the case file took place. That included consultation with a forensic archaeologist with an expertise in domestic homicide, he said. The search that followed led to the discovery of Ms Satchwell’s body.
“I think that Supt Twomey should be commended and that lessons should be learnt from what was done well in this case in the latter stages and what may not have been done well at the outset,” Mr Carthy said.
“It may make sense for Police Ombudsman to look at this case and consider whether any action is required in terms of the adequacy of the initial investigation,” he said.
In Youghal, the guilty verdict was widely welcomed, including by Canon Bill Bermingham who said it represented a conclusion to “a very sad and distressing story”.
