November 7, 2025 • 36 mins
For more than six years, Ireland believed Tina Satchwell had walked away from her life, maybe to England, maybe for “space,” maybe by choice. Her husband repeated that story in every interview, every appeal, every tearful broadcast.
But the truth of where she really went was buried less than ten feet from where he sat, sealed under concrete in the home they shared. Listen to our other podcast "FEARFUL" on your podcasting app of choice. https://open.spotify.com/show/56ajNkLiPoIat1V2KI9n5c?si=OyM38rdsSSyyzKAFUJpSyw MERCH:https://www.redbubble.com/people/wickedandgrim/shop?asc=u
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wickedandgrim?fan_landing=true
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@wickedlife
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wickedandgrim/ Instagram:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wickedandgrim/?hl=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wickedandgrim
Website: https://www.wickedandgrim.com/ Wicked and Grim is an independent podcast produced by Media Forge Studios, and releases a new episode here every Tuesday and Friday.
Our other podcast: "FEARFUL" - https://open.spotify.com/show/56ajNkLiPoIat1V2KI9n5c?si=OyM38rdsSSyyzKAFUJpSyw
MERCH:https://www.redbubble.com/people/wickedandgrim/shop?asc=u
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wickedandgrim?fan_landing=true
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@wickedlife
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wickedandgrim/ Instagram:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wickedandgrim/?hl=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wickedandgrim
Website: https://www.wickedandgrim.com/
But the truth of where she really went was buried less than ten feet from where he sat, sealed under concrete in the home they shared. Listen to our other podcast "FEARFUL" on your podcasting app of choice. https://open.spotify.com/show/56ajNkLiPoIat1V2KI9n5c?si=OyM38rdsSSyyzKAFUJpSyw MERCH:https://www.redbubble.com/people/wickedandgrim/shop?asc=u
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wickedandgrim?fan_landing=true
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@wickedlife
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wickedandgrim/ Instagram:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wickedandgrim/?hl=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wickedandgrim
Website: https://www.wickedandgrim.com/ Wicked and Grim is an independent podcast produced by Media Forge Studios, and releases a new episode here every Tuesday and Friday.
Our other podcast: "FEARFUL" - https://open.spotify.com/show/56ajNkLiPoIat1V2KI9n5c?si=OyM38rdsSSyyzKAFUJpSyw
MERCH:https://www.redbubble.com/people/wickedandgrim/shop?asc=u
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wickedandgrim?fan_landing=true
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@wickedlife
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wickedandgrim/ Instagram:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wickedandgrim/?hl=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wickedandgrim
Website: https://www.wickedandgrim.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
For six and a half years, Ireland searched for a
woman who was never really missing. Tina Satchwell's name was
repeated on national TV, her photo was printed in newspapers,
and her husband begged through tears for her safe return,
all the while her body was hidden under the floor
of their home. What began as a missing person's mystery
(00:31):
would eventually unravel into one of the most calculated domestic
cover up murders the country had ever seen. This is
the story of the murder of Tina Satchwell.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
My name's Ben, I'm Nicole and you're listening to Wicked
and Grim, a true crime podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
The following podcast and material intended for a mature audience listener.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Dis Wow, that was pretty fancy.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
What was pretty fancy?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
When you had decided to open your.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Drink in the intro portion? Yeah, changed up a little bit. Wow,
why not?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I like it?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
It's Friday. It is It's as they used to stay
in my last workplace. Fuck it Friday.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I thought you were gonna say Friday. No.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
No, I worked in an industry. There was not that
polite of language to sche touche, touche. I hope everyone's
week is going well. Friday means you know what, Generally speaking,
things slow down, and I hope things slow down for
you and you get the time you need.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
You can have a little break and over the weekend
and reflect on life in a good way.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
And a good way, not sit here reflect on poor choices,
that's what I tend to do. But let's reflect on
the good ones.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yes that, yeah, the good choices you made this week
and the fun that you had.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
There we go that little moment. That's the optimism. That's
what we do. It's a bit of a rainy day
here for us, and our our dogs are longingly looking
out the window reflecting on their life because they're not
huge fans of the rain.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Especially Ripley. She actually acts a little bit depressed. She
days like this. It's quite interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
It's like you could probably put together like a sad
movie montage of her looking out the window when it's raining.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, it's a thing, it is, but it gives her
the rest she needs to.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I think that's true. She would be out there twenty
four to seven otherwise. But yeah, gotta love our dogs.
Eh oh yeah, anyways, we got an interesting story here,
no shit. Yeah, I wanted to write this one, because
it's been a while since I've written a story where
I tell you the story as it unravels. Recently, I've
(02:59):
been doing like intros. You know, I've been giving you
up a couple couple minutes of describing it, and then
I backtrack and tell the story as it unravel so
you generally know what happens. And I was really wanting
to do that with this one, where I cut out
that intro and leave it as a surprise, but you
know what, I had to still do it on this
one too, So expect a surprise one coming up where
(03:21):
you don't know it. Okay, expect that coming soon. But
this one, just to know how much of a piece
of shit this guy is right out of the gate,
I think is important.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Okay. So this one's gonna make us angry, Yes it will. Okay,
I kind of gather at that from the intro.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Well, let's get into it. Then let's discover how much
of an asshole this guy is.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So it all started with the sound of jackhammers on
what was usually a quiet residential street in Yucull County
Court in the Republic of Ireland. Their state police force,
known as the Garda sealed off a small terrace house
with steel fencing and tarps and no one could see inside.
The jackhammer were pounding away, and a forensic team head
to toe in white suits, filed in and out, and
(04:06):
a cadaver dog named Fern was led up the front steps.
Inside their tail was stiff head low, sniffing the scents
as it entered. The house had been searched before, six
years earlier, in fact, by many of the same officers
who are actually even now here ripping up a concrete floor.
But this time the Garda they weren't looking for a
(04:27):
missing woman, not like they were last time anyways, this
time they were looking for a body. By nightfall, the
stairs had been ripped up by those jackhammers, the floorboards
pulled away, and the sound of metal on concrete while
it echoed through that narrow hallway, and it had come
to a stop under a single strip light. Detectives stared
down into a rectangular cut of recently poured concrete. The
(04:50):
dog Fern alerted to this spot and they had been right.
Something was there. Forty centimeters down the first tear in
a black place stick tarp appeared and inside they found bones.
Within hours. The remains uncovered were formally removed, taken to
Cork University Hospital, and a tattoo of a recognizable tweetybird
(05:12):
was still visible on the chest and dental records while
they confirmed what everyone had already feared. Tina Satchwell, the
woman who had vanished in twenty seventeen, the woman her
husband had pleaded for on national TV, the woman who
was out there somewhere getting her head straight. Well, she
never left home at all. She'd been there the entire time,
(05:35):
buried beneath one meter of concrete under the stairs, seven
feet from the man who swore he loved her, for
a total of two thousand, three hundred and ninety six days,
or just over six and a half years. She lay there,
and for all that time, every time he made tea
or gave interviews about her missing, every time reporters walked past,
(05:58):
or he cried on camera, she was there and Richard
Satchwell was standing literally on his wife's grave the entire time.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
That gives you chills. How brutal that is.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Hey, doesn't it like just.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Oh, I don't know, that's just awful. I do have
to just say I do love the name Fern for
a dog, though.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That is a good name.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Just on a positive note, I'm digging that, But the
rest of this I'm not digging now.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Before any of this happened, though, before Tina Satchwell was
simply you know, a headline, she was Tina Dingovan from Fermoy,
the youngest in a big, tight knit Irish family who
remembered her as a soft spoken, gentle and a little
shy of a woman. She had away with animals so
natural that strays seemed to find her, and even the
(06:49):
couple parrots that they had gravitated to her more than
anyone else in the house. And she loved dogs. She
wasn't loud, she wasn't confrontational. The hot tempered, violent woman
that Richard would later describe in court, while it borne
no resemblance to the person her family knew, the one
who wrote thankful and thoughtful birthday cards, the one who
spoke politely and never left a room without kissing her
(07:11):
dogs on the head. That's the kind of person she was.
In late nineteen eighties, Tina moved to England to live
with her grandmother. She was seventeen when she met Richard Satchwell,
who was a twenty one year old factory worker. Before
they knew it, two and a half years had passed
by and they were married. Richard liked to tell people
that quote he knew the moment he saw her that
(07:35):
she would be his wife. What he didn't say was
how quickly he controlled every aspect of her life and
she became cut off from everything else outside of him.
No car, no job, no financial access, and no real independence.
The couple eventually returned to Ireland, living in Fermoy before
relocating again in twenty sixteen to the seaside town of Yukul,
(07:57):
a move Tina didn't exactly want, but she agreed because
Richard insisted it would be a fresh start. However, it wasn't.
Her family immediately noticed the changes. There were fewer calls,
fewer visits, and a growing sense of distance between them.
Richard said she just needed some space, but they suspected
(08:19):
something a little closer to well isolation instead. Now Tina
tried to settle into the new life anyways, despite the
pressures and the changes. She walked the dogs, she went
to the different car boot sales and looked after the house.
She also made small plans for repairs and things that
needed to be done, you know. But she had no
(08:39):
driver's license, no bank account in her own name, no
nearby friends, and no way to really do anything without
Richard being there. Everything, Aaron's appointments, money, it all flowed
through him. He had total control over everything, including her,
And then, out of the blue, on March twenty fourth,
(09:01):
twenty seventeen, Richard walked into a Garda station in Fermoy
and calmly reported his wife missing. He told officers there
that she had left him four days earlier, taking their
savings and disappeared on her own terms, but left behind
some things like passport, and there was no bank withdraws
or anything, so she was just kind of gone now.
(09:24):
According to Richard in his report, the last morning he
ever saw his wife began like any other. He told
the Garda that on Monday, March twentieth, twenty seventeen, he
woke early, did some chores and made Tina breakfast. Around
nine am or so, she seemed quiet but not upset
in any way, and around ten thirty am she asked
(09:45):
him to drive to Dungarvin, about thirty kilometers away, to
buy some fish and parrot food. He claimed he left
the house shortly after, drove to Aldie, ran the errands,
and returned home around noon. When he walked back through
the front doors of their home, he said Tina was
simply gone. Richard said he looked through the entire house,
(10:06):
checked the bedrooms, and eventually noticed that two suitcases were missing.
Along with that, he claimed that twenty six thousand pounds
in cash that they kept stored in the attic as
the savings was gone.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Holy shit, he said.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
He waited around and assumed that she'd be calling soon,
but no call came that day, and nothing the next
day either. Then another day passed and still nothing. So
Richard said he didn't report her missing immediately because he
believed she had chosen to leave and simply needed time
away to clear her mind, and she'd be coming back
soon enough, So instead of alerting police, he did laundry,
(10:45):
he walked the dogs, kept the house normal, and just
waited for her to walk back through the front doors.
And he waited a total of four days.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
That sounds like complete garbage.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Well as we know it obviously his, but.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Also because yeah, someone explaining that to the police, like
they couldn't really just right away think something otherwise, you know,
they don't really know these people exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So this is, as of right now, a missing person's case.
So then on Friday March twenty fourth, twenty seventeen, at
around seven pm, he finally decided he was going to
report this and walked into the Fermoy Garda station and
reported her missing formally. He told them that she must
have left voluntarily, possibly with help from someone else, and
might have traveled to England to stay with family. So
(11:30):
when the investigation opened and Garda had no evidence that
a crime had been committed, just like you're talking like
we only have a husband's account here of a wife
who just left without warning.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
It is I just have to say though it is odd.
I feel like anyone would think it's a bit odd
that you wouldn't tell, you know, report a loved one
missing for that long of a period.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Definitely you're right, but just right out of the gate here,
like okay, there's no there's no sign of forced entry,
for example, there's no calls from help, there's no no
indication anyone's come to harm. It's basically just okay, we
have a missing person, so we need to find a
missing person. Once you find a missing person or find
clues that tell you maybe what had happened, then the
(12:13):
investigation can change. So all they have right now is
any indication that it is simply that a missing person's care. Now,
you are, right, though, there are details that don't sit right,
Like why wait those four days before you tell anyone?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, like arguing or not they weren't getting along. That's
a long period of time to go without knowing where
someone is.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Definitely, so there are details that like they're little red flags.
But the problem is evidence wise, that's I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
No, I get it, Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah, I'm playing devil's advocate here. Okay, So like in
the investigators end of the aspect, they need to go
and follow the evidence. Well, what evidence do they have?
The only evidence they have is someone's not here. That's it.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
This is so interesting too. I literally just watched a
show where it was the same kind of thing, and
I don't know if I would have necessarily clued in,
but how they just very slowly take you away from
your normal life and you're just solely dependent on them
and then there's just nothing you can do Like that
is a terrible just sign of abuse. And it's interesting
(13:17):
that in the last two days, like I've just it's
literally the exact same, and I just don't know if
I would have ever clued into that before.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, it's it's textbook manipulation and it is exactly as
you said too, it's abuse.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
And they do it over years, so it's like maybe
not so obvious, but then eventually you're just completely cut off.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, solely dependent on this individual.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It's really messed up.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
There's going to be a lot of things that play
in that. There's going to be gaslighting, there's going to
be you know what, textbook narcissism involved. It's all this
this manipulation to get you dependent on them. I'm not
saying that's exactly what they are setting out to do.
Like the person who's like manipulating you, they may not
realize they're doing it, but they they want you to
(14:00):
be independent on them one way or another.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
And honestly, in the beginning, it might not even come
across wrong. It might even come across as like caring
or oh my gosh, this person like really loves me,
they want to do everything for me and stuff, and
then it's you're in too deep and you're like, holy shit.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, something like you know, there's that chivalrous kind of
old fashioned way. Oh, you know what, I need to
be the breadwinner my wife, she should stay at home.
I want to take care of you. Yeah, that sounds
like a caring thing. And then you know what, maybe
the wife might be like, oh, you know what, that's
so lovely. That sounds great. You know, I can stay
at home and cook your meals and we can have
a traditional way of life. I'm totally in for that.
(14:39):
And then all of a sudden, you are at home
and he starts coming home, and you know what, maybe
the meals you cook aren't that great. Maybe he doesn't
approve of the grocery shopping you're doing, and he starts
controlling the home life too, and it just snowballs and
gets out of control, brutal. Yeah, okay, so where do
we leave off? So Richard waited four days before telling anyone.
(15:00):
That's a big red flag. Also, he didn't report her
missing in u Call, where they live, but in Fermoy instead,
where her family lived. And then there was the cash,
the supposed twenty six pounds that was savings stashed in
their attics. There was no verification that this money was there,
no way a lot right, no way of proving that
it existed. So investigators began doing everything that their standard
(15:24):
protocol protocol required, you know, checking hospitals, looking for a
missing person right, monitoring airports, ferry ports, CCTV footage. They
even began contacting Interpol and interviewing those closest to Tina.
But nothing turned up no matter where they searched. And
a big issue is that her passport was still in
the house, her bank account hadn't been touched, her phone
(15:46):
never pained again after March twentieth. There was no travel record,
not even a taxi fare or bus ticket. So with
all this, it's not like she could have gotten far. Yeah. Sure,
she allegedly has a lot of cash, but she can't
get out of the true with the passport. She doesn't drive,
So how far could she have gotten Well.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, because say, if she was just leaving on her
own free will, she wouldn't be concerned about hiding things
like that either, right for sure?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And not to mention, Okay, you can cut out air
travel and you can cut out driving, so that leaves
you with public transportation, which has surveillance, No surveillance footage
found her going anywhere.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Huh. That's so, that's so scary.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So with all this, the first search of the house
came in June of twenty seventeen. Police were suspecting there
could be more to this story because there are red flags,
so it focused on potential assault or maybe blood evidence,
but not structural work or hidden spaces, so the floors
and walls were left intact. Outside the house, searches were
(16:51):
carried out nearby waterways, harbor areas, scrublands, and forest, including
a large operation in Castle Martyr Woods based on a
reported sighting, but no trace of Tina's surfaced anywhere, not
in the wooded areas, not the surrounding waterways, and not
in the house. Meanwhile, Richard's voice grew louder than the
investigation itself. He appeared on crime Call, he spoke on
(17:15):
national radio, he sat for TV interviews, and he described
himself as a devastated husband, still just waiting for his
wife to come home, just waiting for the moment she
walks back through those front doors. Despite those claims, Richard
never made a documented effort to locate her. He didn't
reach out to her closest friends, He didn't check in
with her family before even reporting her missing. He didn't
(17:38):
ask for her phone records, bank activity, or even attempt
to directly search himself. His position was simple, she left
and she'd be back when she was ready.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Hmm okay, then that, yeah, that is just not not
sitting right.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Hey, there's a lot of red flags.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
The fact that you wouldn't even phone friends, her family, that, yeah,
he did a lot of things wrong.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
He did so. He told everyone that she struggled emotionally,
and he insisted that she may have gone to England,
and he continued to say it was a personal choice
rather than a crisis or anything. So he's not saying that,
you know, she's she's in dire need, which honestly kind
of downplays the search. Even, oh, she's fine, it's just
a personal thing. It's not a crisis, you know what,
(18:23):
she doesn't really need the help, she'll be back. It
downplays any sort of investigation or search. And because there
was still nobody, no evidence, no indication of violence, the
case stalled exactly where Richard wanted it, a mystery with
no answers, no suspect, and the search kind of just
in limbo. Now with this. What the public saw was emotion,
(18:45):
a man crying on camera and talking to rooms about
the woman he just wanted to come home. But investigators,
they saw something different when they watched him on TV,
when they watched him on interviews and all of this.
To them, it seemed like someone carefully shaping a narrative
before anyone else could. That concern sharpened when Richard agreed
(19:06):
to take a lie detector test on a radio broadcast
live radio, then quietly refused it afterwards. So investigators heard
him talking about how he's saying, I will you know what,
do this detector test? And they approach him and he refuses, which.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Is interesting because I do feel like someone like that
could potentially pass a light detector test.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Potentially. It's like we all know lie detector tests are.
They're not one hundred percent that even like if you
fail it, it's it's not really evidence one way or another.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I just feel he would be so confident in this
lie that he could almost get away with it.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
He's almost lying to himself, fooling himself to get past it.
That's true.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
By the time the first anniversary of Tina's disappearance arrived,
the investigation had already started to slow down. Investigators had
searched the house, the area near in the woods, in
the harbor, and even involved Inner Pole at this time,
but nothing had surfaced, not a trace of travel, no
bank activity, or verified sightings. Nothing. On paper, Tina looked
(20:11):
like someone who had simply vanished into thin air. But
there were details that never sat right with detectives this
entire time. But they weren't the only ones. It didn't
sit right with her family either. As I mentioned, Tina
had no passport or form of ID. It was not
missing from the house, it was there. She didn't drive,
she didn't use public transportation, and didn't have a bank
(20:33):
card to withdraw money, and according to Richard, had that
twenty six pounds in cash. But investigators would later learn
that there was no realistic financial trail to support that
number of cash. Kind of what I said earlier. Now,
even if she had left willingly, she would need some help, transportation, accommodation, something,
someone would need to help her. She's out there with suitcases.
(20:55):
Remember she's a missing person. Her face is all over
the place. No one has seen her, not a CCTV footage,
not a witness at least no one came forward. So
if she's out there alone, how is that possible? It
can't be. She would have to have someone helping or
someone covering something up.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And she would most likely go to a family member
or a friend, you would think, right.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Exactly, So for her to disappear on her own like that,
it was simply impossible. Investigators knew that they just couldn't
find that missing. Who was the other person who was
covering it up? What were they covering up?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Now?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Richard's version of events continued to be the only version available,
and that alone was a problem. Every point of information
about Tina's final days came directly from the one person
that had the most to gain from her disappearance and
the only person who had seen her after March nineteenth.
Behind the scenes, the file was still active, but priorities well,
(21:55):
they tend to shift. Cases may lose momentum and they
begin to drift. Tactives rotate, leads expire, and things go stale.
But the people closest to Tina refused to accept that
she had simply just left her life behind. One of
her sisters had put it plainly, if Tina ever needed space,
she would have told someone she trusted, even a short message,
(22:16):
a phone call, a note. Instead, there was nothing. Years
passed with all this, no breakthroughs or clues, and Tina
stayed missing, but the absence never felt right. In twenty
twenty three, more than six years after Tina vanished, the
investigation was still technically open but not really active. Nothing
(22:38):
new would surface, no witnesses that stepped forward, and every
theory well just circled back to the same dead end
she left. No one knew where she went. That's it.
But then something shifted. A new senior investigator, Superintendent an
Marie Toomey, took over the case, and instead of accepting
the old narrative, she and her team rebuilt the file
(22:59):
from scratch. That fresh set of eyes exposed details that
the original investigation had missed or dismissed. The first major
crack came from technology that hadn't been examined back in
twenty seventeen. A laptop that was seized from the Satual
home during the search of it. Now buried in its
search history was a time stamped query made four days
(23:22):
after Tina disappeared. Quote quicklime and water reaction. Now quicklime
is a substance historically used to speed up decomposition and
suppress odors.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Wow. Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Then came the second crack, mobile phone location data. For years.
Richard had insisted he drove to Aldi and Doungavaren the
morning Tina disappeared, but the data proved otherwise. He was
still in u call, collecting his social welfare payment at
the post office around eleven ten am, and his phone
(23:59):
stayed inside the house during the exact window. He claimed
to be away, the story he'd repeated on television radio
in every interview, the one that the country had memorized.
It was physically impossible, because this trail told otherwise. That
was enough to restart this case. But what happened next
wasn't digital, psychological, or forensic. It was honestly kind of
(24:24):
a bit of a lucky break. A drain in the
adjoining property had backed up. Workers were called in and
while clearing it, they noticed debris near the shared wall,
material that looked out of place, so they reported it.
Investigators now took a second look at the Satchwell home
and this this is when they didn't just you know,
(24:48):
do a surface level search. This is when they ripped
it open.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Okay, this is kind of Lucky Hey.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yes, contractors moved in ground penetrating radar scan the floors,
The cadaver dogs brought inside, and the dog named Fern,
they alerted. Beneath the staircase a space that had been
sealed behind a cheap looking brick wall and covered in
fresh plasterboard. When the forensic team peeled everything back and
broke through the concrete beneath it, they found what so
(25:16):
many had feared, what Richard had spent six years denying.
They found human remains wrapped in a black plastic There
was a grave that he had built himself. Tina had
never left the house. She was there the entire time,
entombed under the floor. Richard was walking on every single day,
(25:38):
including whenever he was on TV, begging for her to return.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
How could you just go about your day to day
just being a complete monster like that?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I can't even fathom.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Also, I was going to say earlier, like, of course
they didn't really look in the walls or I don't
know if they can even do that sort of thing,
because they wouldn't have thought someone would be as unhinged
as him to just yeah, literally bury her in their
own home.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Well, like I said, you need evidence to go and
follow a trail. You can't just willly, nearly go do something,
especially like ripping someone's home apart. You're going to go ahead,
and you're going to need a warrant.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So with the digital information, they found the contractor next
door reporting some questionable stuff near this shared well, well,
there's some enough red flags that they can go in
and actually dig deeper. Literally. So the discovery under the
stairs shattered the version of events that Richard Satchwell had
been repeating for all of those years. When investigators pulled
(26:36):
back the plastic and exposed the remains, the missing person
narrative it ended, and what had really happened inside that
house finally began to surface. Richard was arrested on October tenth,
twenty twenty three, the emotional public appeal routine while it
was gone, and once the remains were confirmed as Tina
through dental records, he was taken back into custody and
(26:59):
formally charged with murder. His only response was an interesting
line that sat somewhere between like defiance and resignation. He said, quote, guilty,
you're not guilty, Guilty.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
You're caught, buddy. Also you're damn lucky that you got
six extra years of just live in your life.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
No shit. But during this time, not only did he
just say that, this is when he abandoned the story
that Tina had walked out because obviously, right, that's not
the case. Now, he claimed her death was an accident.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Oh of course.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
He said that she suddenly attacked him with a chisel,
that he fell backwards, and that in the struggle he
somehow ended up holding the belt of her dressing gown
around her neck until she stopped breathing.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Oh my gosh, that is one of the worst lies
I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, and he insisted that this was all just in
a blur. But the problem was what followed didn't look
like an accident, especially when you look at the fact
that he didn't call emergency services after she stopped breathing,
nor did he seek any sort of help or anything.
It was just she died and he entombed her in
the home and lied to the public.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And he probably had no injuries to show or anything.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Exactly, so instead he just did that. He began to
cover it up. He started by storing her in a
chest freezer, dug a deep grave under the stairs, wrapped
her in plastic sheeting, lowered her in, poured concrete over
the burial site, and built a new wall to hide
it all, and then just carried on with his life
(28:36):
while Tina's remains lay beneath the floor of that house.
Richard sold her clothes at car boot sales, gave away
the very freezer he had stored her in oh Man,
and told interviewers she was alive somewhere and just needed time.
But it was obviously a bullshit story. The trial opened
in the very same year we're recording this, in April
(28:57):
of twenty twenty five, at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin,
eighteen months after her body was exhumed, and after almost
a decade of Richard insisting she was alive. The prosecution
didn't have to rely on their theories or speculation. They
had a body burial site, digital evidence, lies on record,
and years of public statements that now played back like
(29:17):
a slow motion confession. Jurors watched Richard's TV interviews, The
Tearful Come Home Please, the claims that he never would
lift a finger to hurt Tina, and everything that was
on the news reportings on the interview. It was now
being looked at in a different light and showed a
(29:38):
cold calculation instead of the sympathy that it did before.
An assistant state pathologist would take the stand and testify
that the cause of death could not be determined due
to the advanced decomposition of her remains, but they did
say that no fractures were found and glass shards were recovered,
including from her scalp, which likely came from a heat
(30:01):
treated piece of glass. Though it's not exactly clear how
Tina was killed, it was obvious her death was being
covered up. The defense leaned heavily on Richard's final version
of events that Tina attacked him first, that her death
was accidental, and that he panicked and made terrible decisions afterwards.
(30:23):
They tried to cast doubt on intent, pushing for manslaughter
instead of murder.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Oh that is just too far fetched.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, now there was a problem though they couldn't get
around Tina wasn't violent. She didn't have a history of
it or anything to back up these claims. There was
no witnesses, no prior police files, no medical files, no
injuries that he had. Nothing. The jury deliberated for nine
hours and twenty eight minutes, over the course of four days,
(30:53):
and on May thirtieth, twenty twenty five, the verdict was read.
Richard Satchwell was found guilty of murder of his wife,
of Tina Satchwell.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Hey, you paused too long. I was like, what the shit,
It can't be anything other than guilty. I was honestly
surprised they it took that long to even deliberate.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, and I made sure I pause a little extra
just to keep you on.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Okay, Well it were because I was like, I could
feel my blood pressure just raising.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I'm glad it worked now, Richard. He stared straight ahead
when they read this verdict with no visible reaction, and
behind him, Tina's family cried, not because the verdict was unexpected,
but because hearing it out loud it made the truth final.
They walked out of that courtroom carrying a truth that
they had always known. That Tina wasn't unstable, dramatic or violent.
(31:42):
She didn't even flee. She was gentle, funny, careful with
her words, and the happiest when she had a dog
at her side. That version of her, that's the real
one that had been buried for years, just like her
body and once her remains were released. Her ashes were
divided between the people who loved her. Most half were
(32:03):
laid to rest with her brother Tom and the other
half with her grandmother Florence. In you call a candlelet
vigil formed outside the house where she was found. People
also brought their dogs along with them for Tina, and
for the first time in years, her name wasn't attached
to speculation. It belonged to her once again. The case
(32:26):
may be legally closed at this point, but it leaves
behind a trail of questions that don't sit neatly inside
a verdict. The guarda had searched the house in twenty
seventeen and walked those same floors where she was buried.
They stood in the same room where she was resting,
and without lifting a single tile, they walked back out.
Devices seized early in the investigation sat untouched for four years,
(32:49):
even though the crucial quick lime search was stored in
them the entire time. The staircade Richard walked up every
day while it held answers from the beginning, and what
changed was an evidence It was approach and due diligence.
That's what made the impact. When a new investigative team
stopped assuming Tina had left by choice, and instead treated
(33:11):
the house as a potential crime scene. The truth resurfaced
within days. Yes, there was a lucky break from the
contractor's next door, but they were already honing in on him.
Richard didn't confess, He didn't slip up in an interview,
he didn't grow careless. He simply ran out of space
to keep lying. That is the real story, not just
(33:32):
of a woman who got murdered, but of a narrative
controlled so completely by a perpetrator that the world believed
she had walked away from her own life. The only
reason she was found is because someone finally stopped listening
to him and started actually looking for her. Now, the
only version of her that matters is the one her
(33:53):
family insisted on from the beginning. She was a kind,
soft hearted woman who loved animals, trusted the wrong person,
and deserved a future that she never got. And that's
a story of Tina Satchwell.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Her family probably knew, Hey, I.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Also, she just seemed like the most incredible lady ever.
And I'm kind of obsessed with the idea that people
would bring dogs to her vigil. Yeah, so it's like
if I ever die and have a funeral, like bring
your dogs. That is just the most humble, sweet thing
I think I've ever heard. I agree, and it shows
exactly how awesome and I don't know, just perfect she
(34:39):
was really.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, I can't you put it perfectly. I can't put
it any better. You're right.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
How old was she then when she passed? You know
the age?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Oh I can't remember. She was forty five years old
when she was killed in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Okay, for some reason I thought she was a bit younger.
But still, that is like far too young too. You know,
have your life well, it's never a good time you
have your life ended, But that's not a long enough life.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
She had half her life still ahead of Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, and it was stolen well, and he had already
stolen so much of it I can imagine.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Right, you're true, that's very true. You're right.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
What a piece of shit?
Speaker 1 (35:18):
So yeah, I told you he was a monster and
you'd hate him and he's garbage.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I do actually just hate him. Yeah, Oh, like he
just I don't know, makes my skin feel like it's crawling.
Just that there's a guy out there that would want
to do that to someone you know, like frick, just
let let people You should love your partner and let
them basically like thrive to be the person that they're
meant to be. In this I don't know anyone that
(35:43):
just dimmed someone else's light.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Is a piece of shit, I know, right, And this
piece of shit is finally in prison at least though
he's well, he's only been sitting there for like five months.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yeah, I'll stop because there really isn't anything else to say,
and we should just honor honor, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
And I did just realize too, I didn't actually talk
about his sentence. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
So he's knocketing out of there. He shouldn't be getting
out of there ever, he can just stay in there forever.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, I agree. And on that note, thank you for
being here. Don't forget to check out our socials and
the links in the description below. We get to keep
doing this because you listen to our show. We're an
independent podcast, hosted research, recorded all that by ourselves in
our little tiny home. Reviews they go a long way.
They really help the show grow. Even just listening to
(36:34):
the end. You're still listening right now. That helps big time,
so thank you so much, we really appreciate you, and
until next time, stay wicked.
For six and a half years, Ireland searched for a
woman who was never really missing. Tina Satchwell's name was
repeated on national TV, her photo was printed in newspapers,
and her husband begged through tears for her safe return,
all the while her body was hidden under the floor
of their home. What began as a missing person's mystery
(00:31):
would eventually unravel into one of the most calculated domestic
cover up murders the country had ever seen. This is
the story of the murder of Tina Satchwell.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
My name's Ben, I'm Nicole and you're listening to Wicked
and Grim, a true crime podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
The following podcast and material intended for a mature audience listener.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Dis Wow, that was pretty fancy.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
What was pretty fancy?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
When you had decided to open your.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Drink in the intro portion? Yeah, changed up a little bit. Wow,
why not?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I like it?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
It's Friday. It is It's as they used to stay
in my last workplace. Fuck it Friday.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I thought you were gonna say Friday. No.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
No, I worked in an industry. There was not that
polite of language to sche touche, touche. I hope everyone's
week is going well. Friday means you know what, Generally speaking,
things slow down, and I hope things slow down for
you and you get the time you need.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
You can have a little break and over the weekend
and reflect on life in a good way.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
And a good way, not sit here reflect on poor choices,
that's what I tend to do. But let's reflect on
the good ones.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yes that, yeah, the good choices you made this week
and the fun that you had.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
There we go that little moment. That's the optimism. That's
what we do. It's a bit of a rainy day
here for us, and our our dogs are longingly looking
out the window reflecting on their life because they're not
huge fans of the rain.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Especially Ripley. She actually acts a little bit depressed. She
days like this. It's quite interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
It's like you could probably put together like a sad
movie montage of her looking out the window when it's raining.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, it's a thing, it is, but it gives her
the rest she needs to.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I think that's true. She would be out there twenty
four to seven otherwise. But yeah, gotta love our dogs.
Eh oh yeah, anyways, we got an interesting story here,
no shit. Yeah, I wanted to write this one, because
it's been a while since I've written a story where
I tell you the story as it unravels. Recently, I've
(02:59):
been doing like intros. You know, I've been giving you
up a couple couple minutes of describing it, and then
I backtrack and tell the story as it unravel so
you generally know what happens. And I was really wanting
to do that with this one, where I cut out
that intro and leave it as a surprise, but you
know what, I had to still do it on this
one too, So expect a surprise one coming up where
(03:21):
you don't know it. Okay, expect that coming soon. But
this one, just to know how much of a piece
of shit this guy is right out of the gate,
I think is important.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Okay. So this one's gonna make us angry, Yes it will. Okay,
I kind of gather at that from the intro.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Well, let's get into it. Then let's discover how much
of an asshole this guy is.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So it all started with the sound of jackhammers on
what was usually a quiet residential street in Yucull County
Court in the Republic of Ireland. Their state police force,
known as the Garda sealed off a small terrace house
with steel fencing and tarps and no one could see inside.
The jackhammer were pounding away, and a forensic team head
to toe in white suits, filed in and out, and
(04:06):
a cadaver dog named Fern was led up the front steps.
Inside their tail was stiff head low, sniffing the scents
as it entered. The house had been searched before, six
years earlier, in fact, by many of the same officers
who are actually even now here ripping up a concrete floor.
But this time the Garda they weren't looking for a
(04:27):
missing woman, not like they were last time anyways, this
time they were looking for a body. By nightfall, the
stairs had been ripped up by those jackhammers, the floorboards
pulled away, and the sound of metal on concrete while
it echoed through that narrow hallway, and it had come
to a stop under a single strip light. Detectives stared
down into a rectangular cut of recently poured concrete. The
(04:50):
dog Fern alerted to this spot and they had been right.
Something was there. Forty centimeters down the first tear in
a black place stick tarp appeared and inside they found bones.
Within hours. The remains uncovered were formally removed, taken to
Cork University Hospital, and a tattoo of a recognizable tweetybird
(05:12):
was still visible on the chest and dental records while
they confirmed what everyone had already feared. Tina Satchwell, the
woman who had vanished in twenty seventeen, the woman her
husband had pleaded for on national TV, the woman who
was out there somewhere getting her head straight. Well, she
never left home at all. She'd been there the entire time,
(05:35):
buried beneath one meter of concrete under the stairs, seven
feet from the man who swore he loved her, for
a total of two thousand, three hundred and ninety six days,
or just over six and a half years. She lay there,
and for all that time, every time he made tea
or gave interviews about her missing, every time reporters walked past,
(05:58):
or he cried on camera, she was there and Richard
Satchwell was standing literally on his wife's grave the entire time.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
That gives you chills. How brutal that is.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Hey, doesn't it like just.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Oh, I don't know, that's just awful. I do have
to just say I do love the name Fern for
a dog, though.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That is a good name.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Just on a positive note, I'm digging that, But the
rest of this I'm not digging now.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Before any of this happened, though, before Tina Satchwell was
simply you know, a headline, she was Tina Dingovan from Fermoy,
the youngest in a big, tight knit Irish family who
remembered her as a soft spoken, gentle and a little
shy of a woman. She had away with animals so
natural that strays seemed to find her, and even the
(06:49):
couple parrots that they had gravitated to her more than
anyone else in the house. And she loved dogs. She
wasn't loud, she wasn't confrontational. The hot tempered, violent woman
that Richard would later describe in court, while it borne
no resemblance to the person her family knew, the one
who wrote thankful and thoughtful birthday cards, the one who
spoke politely and never left a room without kissing her
(07:11):
dogs on the head. That's the kind of person she was.
In late nineteen eighties, Tina moved to England to live
with her grandmother. She was seventeen when she met Richard Satchwell,
who was a twenty one year old factory worker. Before
they knew it, two and a half years had passed
by and they were married. Richard liked to tell people
that quote he knew the moment he saw her that
(07:35):
she would be his wife. What he didn't say was
how quickly he controlled every aspect of her life and
she became cut off from everything else outside of him.
No car, no job, no financial access, and no real independence.
The couple eventually returned to Ireland, living in Fermoy before
relocating again in twenty sixteen to the seaside town of Yukul,
(07:57):
a move Tina didn't exactly want, but she agreed because
Richard insisted it would be a fresh start. However, it wasn't.
Her family immediately noticed the changes. There were fewer calls,
fewer visits, and a growing sense of distance between them.
Richard said she just needed some space, but they suspected
(08:19):
something a little closer to well isolation instead. Now Tina
tried to settle into the new life anyways, despite the
pressures and the changes. She walked the dogs, she went
to the different car boot sales and looked after the house.
She also made small plans for repairs and things that
needed to be done, you know. But she had no
(08:39):
driver's license, no bank account in her own name, no
nearby friends, and no way to really do anything without
Richard being there. Everything, Aaron's appointments, money, it all flowed
through him. He had total control over everything, including her,
And then, out of the blue, on March twenty fourth,
(09:01):
twenty seventeen, Richard walked into a Garda station in Fermoy
and calmly reported his wife missing. He told officers there
that she had left him four days earlier, taking their
savings and disappeared on her own terms, but left behind
some things like passport, and there was no bank withdraws
or anything, so she was just kind of gone now.
(09:24):
According to Richard in his report, the last morning he
ever saw his wife began like any other. He told
the Garda that on Monday, March twentieth, twenty seventeen, he
woke early, did some chores and made Tina breakfast. Around
nine am or so, she seemed quiet but not upset
in any way, and around ten thirty am she asked
(09:45):
him to drive to Dungarvin, about thirty kilometers away, to
buy some fish and parrot food. He claimed he left
the house shortly after, drove to Aldie, ran the errands,
and returned home around noon. When he walked back through
the front doors of their home, he said Tina was
simply gone. Richard said he looked through the entire house,
(10:06):
checked the bedrooms, and eventually noticed that two suitcases were missing.
Along with that, he claimed that twenty six thousand pounds
in cash that they kept stored in the attic as
the savings was gone.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Holy shit, he said.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
He waited around and assumed that she'd be calling soon,
but no call came that day, and nothing the next
day either. Then another day passed and still nothing. So
Richard said he didn't report her missing immediately because he
believed she had chosen to leave and simply needed time
away to clear her mind, and she'd be coming back
soon enough, So instead of alerting police, he did laundry,
(10:45):
he walked the dogs, kept the house normal, and just
waited for her to walk back through the front doors.
And he waited a total of four days.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
That sounds like complete garbage.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Well as we know it obviously his, but.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Also because yeah, someone explaining that to the police, like
they couldn't really just right away think something otherwise, you know,
they don't really know these people exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So this is, as of right now, a missing person's case.
So then on Friday March twenty fourth, twenty seventeen, at
around seven pm, he finally decided he was going to
report this and walked into the Fermoy Garda station and
reported her missing formally. He told them that she must
have left voluntarily, possibly with help from someone else, and
might have traveled to England to stay with family. So
(11:30):
when the investigation opened and Garda had no evidence that
a crime had been committed, just like you're talking like
we only have a husband's account here of a wife
who just left without warning.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
It is I just have to say though it is odd.
I feel like anyone would think it's a bit odd
that you wouldn't tell, you know, report a loved one
missing for that long of a period.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Definitely you're right, but just right out of the gate here,
like okay, there's no there's no sign of forced entry,
for example, there's no calls from help, there's no no
indication anyone's come to harm. It's basically just okay, we
have a missing person, so we need to find a
missing person. Once you find a missing person or find
clues that tell you maybe what had happened, then the
(12:13):
investigation can change. So all they have right now is
any indication that it is simply that a missing person's care. Now,
you are, right, though, there are details that don't sit right,
Like why wait those four days before you tell anyone?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, like arguing or not they weren't getting along. That's
a long period of time to go without knowing where
someone is.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Definitely, so there are details that like they're little red flags.
But the problem is evidence wise, that's I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
No, I get it, Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah, I'm playing devil's advocate here. Okay, So like in
the investigators end of the aspect, they need to go
and follow the evidence. Well, what evidence do they have?
The only evidence they have is someone's not here. That's it.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
This is so interesting too. I literally just watched a
show where it was the same kind of thing, and
I don't know if I would have necessarily clued in,
but how they just very slowly take you away from
your normal life and you're just solely dependent on them
and then there's just nothing you can do Like that
is a terrible just sign of abuse. And it's interesting
(13:17):
that in the last two days, like I've just it's
literally the exact same, and I just don't know if
I would have ever clued into that before.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, it's it's textbook manipulation and it is exactly as
you said too, it's abuse.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
And they do it over years, so it's like maybe
not so obvious, but then eventually you're just completely cut off.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, solely dependent on this individual.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It's really messed up.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
There's going to be a lot of things that play
in that. There's going to be gaslighting, there's going to
be you know what, textbook narcissism involved. It's all this
this manipulation to get you dependent on them. I'm not
saying that's exactly what they are setting out to do.
Like the person who's like manipulating you, they may not
realize they're doing it, but they they want you to
(14:00):
be independent on them one way or another.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
And honestly, in the beginning, it might not even come
across wrong. It might even come across as like caring
or oh my gosh, this person like really loves me,
they want to do everything for me and stuff, and
then it's you're in too deep and you're like, holy shit.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, something like you know, there's that chivalrous kind of
old fashioned way. Oh, you know what, I need to
be the breadwinner my wife, she should stay at home.
I want to take care of you. Yeah, that sounds
like a caring thing. And then you know what, maybe
the wife might be like, oh, you know what, that's
so lovely. That sounds great. You know, I can stay
at home and cook your meals and we can have
a traditional way of life. I'm totally in for that.
(14:39):
And then all of a sudden, you are at home
and he starts coming home, and you know what, maybe
the meals you cook aren't that great. Maybe he doesn't
approve of the grocery shopping you're doing, and he starts
controlling the home life too, and it just snowballs and
gets out of control, brutal. Yeah, okay, so where do
we leave off? So Richard waited four days before telling anyone.
(15:00):
That's a big red flag. Also, he didn't report her
missing in u Call, where they live, but in Fermoy instead,
where her family lived. And then there was the cash,
the supposed twenty six pounds that was savings stashed in
their attics. There was no verification that this money was there,
no way a lot right, no way of proving that
it existed. So investigators began doing everything that their standard
(15:24):
protocol protocol required, you know, checking hospitals, looking for a
missing person right, monitoring airports, ferry ports, CCTV footage. They
even began contacting Interpol and interviewing those closest to Tina.
But nothing turned up no matter where they searched. And
a big issue is that her passport was still in
the house, her bank account hadn't been touched, her phone
(15:46):
never pained again after March twentieth. There was no travel record,
not even a taxi fare or bus ticket. So with
all this, it's not like she could have gotten far. Yeah. Sure,
she allegedly has a lot of cash, but she can't
get out of the true with the passport. She doesn't drive,
So how far could she have gotten Well.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, because say, if she was just leaving on her
own free will, she wouldn't be concerned about hiding things
like that either, right for sure?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And not to mention, Okay, you can cut out air
travel and you can cut out driving, so that leaves
you with public transportation, which has surveillance, No surveillance footage
found her going anywhere.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Huh. That's so, that's so scary.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So with all this, the first search of the house
came in June of twenty seventeen. Police were suspecting there
could be more to this story because there are red flags,
so it focused on potential assault or maybe blood evidence,
but not structural work or hidden spaces, so the floors
and walls were left intact. Outside the house, searches were
(16:51):
carried out nearby waterways, harbor areas, scrublands, and forest, including
a large operation in Castle Martyr Woods based on a
reported sighting, but no trace of Tina's surfaced anywhere, not
in the wooded areas, not the surrounding waterways, and not
in the house. Meanwhile, Richard's voice grew louder than the
investigation itself. He appeared on crime Call, he spoke on
(17:15):
national radio, he sat for TV interviews, and he described
himself as a devastated husband, still just waiting for his
wife to come home, just waiting for the moment she
walks back through those front doors. Despite those claims, Richard
never made a documented effort to locate her. He didn't
reach out to her closest friends, He didn't check in
with her family before even reporting her missing. He didn't
(17:38):
ask for her phone records, bank activity, or even attempt
to directly search himself. His position was simple, she left
and she'd be back when she was ready.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Hmm okay, then that, yeah, that is just not not
sitting right.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Hey, there's a lot of red flags.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
The fact that you wouldn't even phone friends, her family, that, yeah,
he did a lot of things wrong.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
He did so. He told everyone that she struggled emotionally,
and he insisted that she may have gone to England,
and he continued to say it was a personal choice
rather than a crisis or anything. So he's not saying that,
you know, she's she's in dire need, which honestly kind
of downplays the search. Even, oh, she's fine, it's just
a personal thing. It's not a crisis, you know what,
(18:23):
she doesn't really need the help, she'll be back. It
downplays any sort of investigation or search. And because there
was still nobody, no evidence, no indication of violence, the
case stalled exactly where Richard wanted it, a mystery with
no answers, no suspect, and the search kind of just
in limbo. Now with this. What the public saw was emotion,
(18:45):
a man crying on camera and talking to rooms about
the woman he just wanted to come home. But investigators,
they saw something different when they watched him on TV,
when they watched him on interviews and all of this.
To them, it seemed like someone carefully shaping a narrative
before anyone else could. That concern sharpened when Richard agreed
(19:06):
to take a lie detector test on a radio broadcast
live radio, then quietly refused it afterwards. So investigators heard
him talking about how he's saying, I will you know what,
do this detector test? And they approach him and he refuses, which.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Is interesting because I do feel like someone like that
could potentially pass a light detector test.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Potentially. It's like we all know lie detector tests are.
They're not one hundred percent that even like if you
fail it, it's it's not really evidence one way or another.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I just feel he would be so confident in this
lie that he could almost get away with it.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
He's almost lying to himself, fooling himself to get past it.
That's true.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
By the time the first anniversary of Tina's disappearance arrived,
the investigation had already started to slow down. Investigators had
searched the house, the area near in the woods, in
the harbor, and even involved Inner Pole at this time,
but nothing had surfaced, not a trace of travel, no
bank activity, or verified sightings. Nothing. On paper, Tina looked
(20:11):
like someone who had simply vanished into thin air. But
there were details that never sat right with detectives this
entire time. But they weren't the only ones. It didn't
sit right with her family either. As I mentioned, Tina
had no passport or form of ID. It was not
missing from the house, it was there. She didn't drive,
she didn't use public transportation, and didn't have a bank
(20:33):
card to withdraw money, and according to Richard, had that
twenty six pounds in cash. But investigators would later learn
that there was no realistic financial trail to support that
number of cash. Kind of what I said earlier. Now,
even if she had left willingly, she would need some help, transportation, accommodation, something,
someone would need to help her. She's out there with suitcases.
(20:55):
Remember she's a missing person. Her face is all over
the place. No one has seen her, not a CCTV footage,
not a witness at least no one came forward. So
if she's out there alone, how is that possible? It
can't be. She would have to have someone helping or
someone covering something up.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And she would most likely go to a family member
or a friend, you would think, right.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Exactly, So for her to disappear on her own like that,
it was simply impossible. Investigators knew that they just couldn't
find that missing. Who was the other person who was
covering it up? What were they covering up?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Now?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Richard's version of events continued to be the only version available,
and that alone was a problem. Every point of information
about Tina's final days came directly from the one person
that had the most to gain from her disappearance and
the only person who had seen her after March nineteenth.
Behind the scenes, the file was still active, but priorities well,
(21:55):
they tend to shift. Cases may lose momentum and they
begin to drift. Tactives rotate, leads expire, and things go stale.
But the people closest to Tina refused to accept that
she had simply just left her life behind. One of
her sisters had put it plainly, if Tina ever needed space,
she would have told someone she trusted, even a short message,
(22:16):
a phone call, a note. Instead, there was nothing. Years
passed with all this, no breakthroughs or clues, and Tina
stayed missing, but the absence never felt right. In twenty
twenty three, more than six years after Tina vanished, the
investigation was still technically open but not really active. Nothing
(22:38):
new would surface, no witnesses that stepped forward, and every
theory well just circled back to the same dead end
she left. No one knew where she went. That's it.
But then something shifted. A new senior investigator, Superintendent an
Marie Toomey, took over the case, and instead of accepting
the old narrative, she and her team rebuilt the file
(22:59):
from scratch. That fresh set of eyes exposed details that
the original investigation had missed or dismissed. The first major
crack came from technology that hadn't been examined back in
twenty seventeen. A laptop that was seized from the Satual
home during the search of it. Now buried in its
search history was a time stamped query made four days
(23:22):
after Tina disappeared. Quote quicklime and water reaction. Now quicklime
is a substance historically used to speed up decomposition and
suppress odors.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Wow. Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Then came the second crack, mobile phone location data. For years.
Richard had insisted he drove to Aldi and Doungavaren the
morning Tina disappeared, but the data proved otherwise. He was
still in u call, collecting his social welfare payment at
the post office around eleven ten am, and his phone
(23:59):
stayed inside the house during the exact window. He claimed
to be away, the story he'd repeated on television radio
in every interview, the one that the country had memorized.
It was physically impossible, because this trail told otherwise. That
was enough to restart this case. But what happened next
wasn't digital, psychological, or forensic. It was honestly kind of
(24:24):
a bit of a lucky break. A drain in the
adjoining property had backed up. Workers were called in and
while clearing it, they noticed debris near the shared wall,
material that looked out of place, so they reported it.
Investigators now took a second look at the Satchwell home
and this this is when they didn't just you know,
(24:48):
do a surface level search. This is when they ripped
it open.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Okay, this is kind of Lucky Hey.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yes, contractors moved in ground penetrating radar scan the floors,
The cadaver dogs brought inside, and the dog named Fern,
they alerted. Beneath the staircase a space that had been
sealed behind a cheap looking brick wall and covered in
fresh plasterboard. When the forensic team peeled everything back and
broke through the concrete beneath it, they found what so
(25:16):
many had feared, what Richard had spent six years denying.
They found human remains wrapped in a black plastic There
was a grave that he had built himself. Tina had
never left the house. She was there the entire time,
entombed under the floor. Richard was walking on every single day,
(25:38):
including whenever he was on TV, begging for her to return.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
How could you just go about your day to day
just being a complete monster like that?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I can't even fathom.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Also, I was going to say earlier, like, of course
they didn't really look in the walls or I don't
know if they can even do that sort of thing,
because they wouldn't have thought someone would be as unhinged
as him to just yeah, literally bury her in their
own home.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Well, like I said, you need evidence to go and
follow a trail. You can't just willly, nearly go do something,
especially like ripping someone's home apart. You're going to go ahead,
and you're going to need a warrant.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So with the digital information, they found the contractor next
door reporting some questionable stuff near this shared well, well,
there's some enough red flags that they can go in
and actually dig deeper. Literally. So the discovery under the
stairs shattered the version of events that Richard Satchwell had
been repeating for all of those years. When investigators pulled
(26:36):
back the plastic and exposed the remains, the missing person
narrative it ended, and what had really happened inside that
house finally began to surface. Richard was arrested on October tenth,
twenty twenty three, the emotional public appeal routine while it
was gone, and once the remains were confirmed as Tina
through dental records, he was taken back into custody and
(26:59):
formally charged with murder. His only response was an interesting
line that sat somewhere between like defiance and resignation. He said, quote, guilty,
you're not guilty, Guilty.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
You're caught, buddy. Also you're damn lucky that you got
six extra years of just live in your life.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
No shit. But during this time, not only did he
just say that, this is when he abandoned the story
that Tina had walked out because obviously, right, that's not
the case. Now, he claimed her death was an accident.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Oh of course.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
He said that she suddenly attacked him with a chisel,
that he fell backwards, and that in the struggle he
somehow ended up holding the belt of her dressing gown
around her neck until she stopped breathing.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Oh my gosh, that is one of the worst lies
I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, and he insisted that this was all just in
a blur. But the problem was what followed didn't look
like an accident, especially when you look at the fact
that he didn't call emergency services after she stopped breathing,
nor did he seek any sort of help or anything.
It was just she died and he entombed her in
the home and lied to the public.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And he probably had no injuries to show or anything.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Exactly, so instead he just did that. He began to
cover it up. He started by storing her in a
chest freezer, dug a deep grave under the stairs, wrapped
her in plastic sheeting, lowered her in, poured concrete over
the burial site, and built a new wall to hide
it all, and then just carried on with his life
(28:36):
while Tina's remains lay beneath the floor of that house.
Richard sold her clothes at car boot sales, gave away
the very freezer he had stored her in oh Man,
and told interviewers she was alive somewhere and just needed time.
But it was obviously a bullshit story. The trial opened
in the very same year we're recording this, in April
(28:57):
of twenty twenty five, at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin,
eighteen months after her body was exhumed, and after almost
a decade of Richard insisting she was alive. The prosecution
didn't have to rely on their theories or speculation. They
had a body burial site, digital evidence, lies on record,
and years of public statements that now played back like
(29:17):
a slow motion confession. Jurors watched Richard's TV interviews, The
Tearful Come Home Please, the claims that he never would
lift a finger to hurt Tina, and everything that was
on the news reportings on the interview. It was now
being looked at in a different light and showed a
(29:38):
cold calculation instead of the sympathy that it did before.
An assistant state pathologist would take the stand and testify
that the cause of death could not be determined due
to the advanced decomposition of her remains, but they did
say that no fractures were found and glass shards were recovered,
including from her scalp, which likely came from a heat
(30:01):
treated piece of glass. Though it's not exactly clear how
Tina was killed, it was obvious her death was being
covered up. The defense leaned heavily on Richard's final version
of events that Tina attacked him first, that her death
was accidental, and that he panicked and made terrible decisions afterwards.
(30:23):
They tried to cast doubt on intent, pushing for manslaughter
instead of murder.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Oh that is just too far fetched.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, now there was a problem though they couldn't get
around Tina wasn't violent. She didn't have a history of
it or anything to back up these claims. There was
no witnesses, no prior police files, no medical files, no
injuries that he had. Nothing. The jury deliberated for nine
hours and twenty eight minutes, over the course of four days,
(30:53):
and on May thirtieth, twenty twenty five, the verdict was read.
Richard Satchwell was found guilty of murder of his wife,
of Tina Satchwell.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Hey, you paused too long. I was like, what the shit,
It can't be anything other than guilty. I was honestly
surprised they it took that long to even deliberate.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, and I made sure I pause a little extra
just to keep you on.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Okay, Well it were because I was like, I could
feel my blood pressure just raising.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I'm glad it worked now, Richard. He stared straight ahead
when they read this verdict with no visible reaction, and
behind him, Tina's family cried, not because the verdict was unexpected,
but because hearing it out loud it made the truth final.
They walked out of that courtroom carrying a truth that
they had always known. That Tina wasn't unstable, dramatic or violent.
(31:42):
She didn't even flee. She was gentle, funny, careful with
her words, and the happiest when she had a dog
at her side. That version of her, that's the real
one that had been buried for years, just like her
body and once her remains were released. Her ashes were
divided between the people who loved her. Most half were
(32:03):
laid to rest with her brother Tom and the other
half with her grandmother Florence. In you call a candlelet
vigil formed outside the house where she was found. People
also brought their dogs along with them for Tina, and
for the first time in years, her name wasn't attached
to speculation. It belonged to her once again. The case
(32:26):
may be legally closed at this point, but it leaves
behind a trail of questions that don't sit neatly inside
a verdict. The guarda had searched the house in twenty
seventeen and walked those same floors where she was buried.
They stood in the same room where she was resting,
and without lifting a single tile, they walked back out.
Devices seized early in the investigation sat untouched for four years,
(32:49):
even though the crucial quick lime search was stored in
them the entire time. The staircade Richard walked up every
day while it held answers from the beginning, and what
changed was an evidence It was approach and due diligence.
That's what made the impact. When a new investigative team
stopped assuming Tina had left by choice, and instead treated
(33:11):
the house as a potential crime scene. The truth resurfaced
within days. Yes, there was a lucky break from the
contractor's next door, but they were already honing in on him.
Richard didn't confess, He didn't slip up in an interview,
he didn't grow careless. He simply ran out of space
to keep lying. That is the real story, not just
(33:32):
of a woman who got murdered, but of a narrative
controlled so completely by a perpetrator that the world believed
she had walked away from her own life. The only
reason she was found is because someone finally stopped listening
to him and started actually looking for her. Now, the
only version of her that matters is the one her
(33:53):
family insisted on from the beginning. She was a kind,
soft hearted woman who loved animals, trusted the wrong person,
and deserved a future that she never got. And that's
a story of Tina Satchwell.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Her family probably knew, Hey, I.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Also, she just seemed like the most incredible lady ever.
And I'm kind of obsessed with the idea that people
would bring dogs to her vigil. Yeah, so it's like
if I ever die and have a funeral, like bring
your dogs. That is just the most humble, sweet thing
I think I've ever heard. I agree, and it shows
exactly how awesome and I don't know, just perfect she
(34:39):
was really.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, I can't you put it perfectly. I can't put
it any better. You're right.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
How old was she then when she passed? You know
the age?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Oh I can't remember. She was forty five years old
when she was killed in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Okay, for some reason I thought she was a bit younger.
But still, that is like far too young too. You know,
have your life well, it's never a good time you
have your life ended, But that's not a long enough life.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
She had half her life still ahead of Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, and it was stolen well, and he had already
stolen so much of it I can imagine.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Right, you're true, that's very true. You're right.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
What a piece of shit?
Speaker 1 (35:18):
So yeah, I told you he was a monster and
you'd hate him and he's garbage.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I do actually just hate him. Yeah, Oh, like he
just I don't know, makes my skin feel like it's crawling.
Just that there's a guy out there that would want
to do that to someone you know, like frick, just
let let people You should love your partner and let
them basically like thrive to be the person that they're
meant to be. In this I don't know anyone that
(35:43):
just dimmed someone else's light.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Is a piece of shit, I know, right, And this
piece of shit is finally in prison at least though
he's well, he's only been sitting there for like five months.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yeah, I'll stop because there really isn't anything else to say,
and we should just honor honor, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
And I did just realize too, I didn't actually talk
about his sentence. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
So he's knocketing out of there. He shouldn't be getting
out of there ever, he can just stay in there forever.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, I agree. And on that note, thank you for
being here. Don't forget to check out our socials and
the links in the description below. We get to keep
doing this because you listen to our show. We're an
independent podcast, hosted research, recorded all that by ourselves in
our little tiny home. Reviews they go a long way.
They really help the show grow. Even just listening to
(36:34):
the end. You're still listening right now. That helps big time,
so thank you so much, we really appreciate you, and
until next time, stay wicked.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.