Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / Buried Under The Stairs - The Murder of Tina Satchwell

Transcript

Buried Under The Stairs - The Murder of Tina Satchwell · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

0:07
Speaker 1: For six and a half years, Ireland searched for a
0:10
Speaker 1: woman who was never really missing. Tina Satchwell's name was
0:14
Speaker 1: repeated on national TV, her photo was printed in newspapers,
0:18
Speaker 1: and her husband begged through tears for her safe return,
0:23
Speaker 1: all the while her body was hidden under the floor
0:26
Speaker 1: of their home. What began as a missing person's mystery
0:31
Speaker 1: would eventually unravel into one of the most calculated domestic
0:35
Speaker 1: cover up murders the country had ever seen. This is
0:39
Speaker 1: the story of the murder of Tina Satchwell.
0:44
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole and you're listening to Wicked
0:48
Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
0:53
Speaker 1: The following podcast and material intended for a mature audience listener.
1:00
Speaker 2: Dis Wow, that was pretty fancy.
1:23
Speaker 1: What was pretty fancy?
1:24
Speaker 2: When you had decided to open your.
1:25
Speaker 1: Drink in the intro portion? Yeah, changed up a little bit. Wow,
1:29
Speaker 1: why not?
1:30
Speaker 2: I like it?
1:30
Speaker 1: It's Friday. It is It's as they used to stay
1:34
Speaker 1: in my last workplace. Fuck it Friday.
1:37
Speaker 2: I thought you were gonna say Friday. No.
1:39
Speaker 1: No, I worked in an industry. There was not that
1:43
Speaker 1: polite of language to sche touche, touche. I hope everyone's
1:50
Speaker 1: week is going well. Friday means you know what, Generally speaking,
1:53
Speaker 1: things slow down, and I hope things slow down for
1:55
Speaker 1: you and you get the time you need.
1:56
Speaker 2: You can have a little break and over the weekend
1:59
Speaker 2: and reflect on life in a good way.
2:01
Speaker 1: And a good way, not sit here reflect on poor choices,
2:05
Speaker 1: that's what I tend to do. But let's reflect on
2:07
Speaker 1: the good ones.
2:08
Speaker 2: Yes that, yeah, the good choices you made this week
2:11
Speaker 2: and the fun that you had.
2:12
Speaker 1: There we go that little moment. That's the optimism. That's
2:14
Speaker 1: what we do. It's a bit of a rainy day
2:16
Speaker 1: here for us, and our our dogs are longingly looking
2:19
Speaker 1: out the window reflecting on their life because they're not
2:22
Speaker 1: huge fans of the rain.
2:23
Speaker 2: Especially Ripley. She actually acts a little bit depressed. She
2:27
Speaker 2: days like this. It's quite interesting.
2:29
Speaker 1: It's like you could probably put together like a sad
2:32
Speaker 1: movie montage of her looking out the window when it's raining.
2:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a thing, it is, but it gives her
2:38
Speaker 2: the rest she needs to.
2:39
Speaker 1: I think that's true. She would be out there twenty
2:42
Speaker 1: four to seven otherwise. But yeah, gotta love our dogs.
2:45
Speaker 1: Eh oh yeah, anyways, we got an interesting story here,
2:49
Speaker 1: no shit. Yeah, I wanted to write this one, because
2:52
Speaker 1: it's been a while since I've written a story where
2:55
Speaker 1: I tell you the story as it unravels. Recently, I've
2:59
Speaker 1: been doing like intros. You know, I've been giving you
3:03
Speaker 1: up a couple couple minutes of describing it, and then
3:05
Speaker 1: I backtrack and tell the story as it unravel so
3:08
Speaker 1: you generally know what happens. And I was really wanting
3:10
Speaker 1: to do that with this one, where I cut out
3:12
Speaker 1: that intro and leave it as a surprise, but you
3:15
Speaker 1: know what, I had to still do it on this
3:18
Speaker 1: one too, So expect a surprise one coming up where
3:21
Speaker 1: you don't know it. Okay, expect that coming soon. But
3:25
Speaker 1: this one, just to know how much of a piece
3:27
Speaker 1: of shit this guy is right out of the gate,
3:28
Speaker 1: I think is important.
3:30
Speaker 2: Okay. So this one's gonna make us angry, Yes it will. Okay,
3:34
Speaker 2: I kind of gather at that from the intro.
3:36
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into it. Then let's discover how much
3:40
Speaker 1: of an asshole this guy is.
3:41
Speaker 2: Okay, let's do it.
3:43
Speaker 1: So it all started with the sound of jackhammers on
3:46
Speaker 1: what was usually a quiet residential street in Yucull County
3:49
Speaker 1: Court in the Republic of Ireland. Their state police force,
3:53
Speaker 1: known as the Garda sealed off a small terrace house
3:56
Speaker 1: with steel fencing and tarps and no one could see inside.
3:59
Speaker 1: The jackhammer were pounding away, and a forensic team head
4:02
Speaker 1: to toe in white suits, filed in and out, and
4:06
Speaker 1: a cadaver dog named Fern was led up the front steps.
4:09
Speaker 1: Inside their tail was stiff head low, sniffing the scents
4:13
Speaker 1: as it entered. The house had been searched before, six
4:16
Speaker 1: years earlier, in fact, by many of the same officers
4:20
Speaker 1: who are actually even now here ripping up a concrete floor.
4:24
Speaker 1: But this time the Garda they weren't looking for a
4:27
Speaker 1: missing woman, not like they were last time anyways, this
4:30
Speaker 1: time they were looking for a body. By nightfall, the
4:34
Speaker 1: stairs had been ripped up by those jackhammers, the floorboards
4:37
Speaker 1: pulled away, and the sound of metal on concrete while
4:40
Speaker 1: it echoed through that narrow hallway, and it had come
4:42
Speaker 1: to a stop under a single strip light. Detectives stared
4:46
Speaker 1: down into a rectangular cut of recently poured concrete. The
4:50
Speaker 1: dog Fern alerted to this spot and they had been right.
4:54
Speaker 1: Something was there. Forty centimeters down the first tear in
4:59
Speaker 1: a black place stick tarp appeared and inside they found bones.
5:04
Speaker 1: Within hours. The remains uncovered were formally removed, taken to
5:09
Speaker 1: Cork University Hospital, and a tattoo of a recognizable tweetybird
5:12
Speaker 1: was still visible on the chest and dental records while
5:15
Speaker 1: they confirmed what everyone had already feared. Tina Satchwell, the
5:20
Speaker 1: woman who had vanished in twenty seventeen, the woman her
5:23
Speaker 1: husband had pleaded for on national TV, the woman who
5:27
Speaker 1: was out there somewhere getting her head straight. Well, she
5:31
Speaker 1: never left home at all. She'd been there the entire time,
5:35
Speaker 1: buried beneath one meter of concrete under the stairs, seven
5:39
Speaker 1: feet from the man who swore he loved her, for
5:42
Speaker 1: a total of two thousand, three hundred and ninety six days,
5:47
Speaker 1: or just over six and a half years. She lay there,
5:51
Speaker 1: and for all that time, every time he made tea
5:54
Speaker 1: or gave interviews about her missing, every time reporters walked past,
5:58
Speaker 1: or he cried on camera, she was there and Richard
6:03
Speaker 1: Satchwell was standing literally on his wife's grave the entire time.
6:09
Speaker 2: That gives you chills. How brutal that is.
6:12
Speaker 1: Hey, doesn't it like just.
6:14
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, that's just awful. I do have
6:18
Speaker 2: to just say I do love the name Fern for
6:20
Speaker 2: a dog, though.
6:20
Speaker 1: That is a good name.
6:22
Speaker 2: Just on a positive note, I'm digging that, But the
6:25
Speaker 2: rest of this I'm not digging now.
6:27
Speaker 1: Before any of this happened, though, before Tina Satchwell was
6:30
Speaker 1: simply you know, a headline, she was Tina Dingovan from Fermoy,
6:38
Speaker 1: the youngest in a big, tight knit Irish family who
6:40
Speaker 1: remembered her as a soft spoken, gentle and a little
6:43
Speaker 1: shy of a woman. She had away with animals so
6:46
Speaker 1: natural that strays seemed to find her, and even the
6:49
Speaker 1: couple parrots that they had gravitated to her more than
6:52
Speaker 1: anyone else in the house. And she loved dogs. She
6:55
Speaker 1: wasn't loud, she wasn't confrontational. The hot tempered, violent woman
6:59
Speaker 1: that Richard would later describe in court, while it borne
7:02
Speaker 1: no resemblance to the person her family knew, the one
7:06
Speaker 1: who wrote thankful and thoughtful birthday cards, the one who
7:08
Speaker 1: spoke politely and never left a room without kissing her
7:11
Speaker 1: dogs on the head. That's the kind of person she was.
7:16
Speaker 1: In late nineteen eighties, Tina moved to England to live
7:18
Speaker 1: with her grandmother. She was seventeen when she met Richard Satchwell,
7:22
Speaker 1: who was a twenty one year old factory worker. Before
7:25
Speaker 1: they knew it, two and a half years had passed
7:27
Speaker 1: by and they were married. Richard liked to tell people
7:31
Speaker 1: that quote he knew the moment he saw her that
7:35
Speaker 1: she would be his wife. What he didn't say was
7:38
Speaker 1: how quickly he controlled every aspect of her life and
7:41
Speaker 1: she became cut off from everything else outside of him.
7:45
Speaker 1: No car, no job, no financial access, and no real independence.
7:49
Speaker 1: The couple eventually returned to Ireland, living in Fermoy before
7:53
Speaker 1: relocating again in twenty sixteen to the seaside town of Yukul,
7:57
Speaker 1: a move Tina didn't exactly want, but she agreed because
8:01
Speaker 1: Richard insisted it would be a fresh start. However, it wasn't.
8:06
Speaker 1: Her family immediately noticed the changes. There were fewer calls,
8:11
Speaker 1: fewer visits, and a growing sense of distance between them.
8:15
Speaker 1: Richard said she just needed some space, but they suspected
8:19
Speaker 1: something a little closer to well isolation instead. Now Tina
8:24
Speaker 1: tried to settle into the new life anyways, despite the
8:27
Speaker 1: pressures and the changes. She walked the dogs, she went
8:30
Speaker 1: to the different car boot sales and looked after the house.
8:34
Speaker 1: She also made small plans for repairs and things that
8:37
Speaker 1: needed to be done, you know. But she had no
8:39
Speaker 1: driver's license, no bank account in her own name, no
8:42
Speaker 1: nearby friends, and no way to really do anything without
8:46
Speaker 1: Richard being there. Everything, Aaron's appointments, money, it all flowed
8:50
Speaker 1: through him. He had total control over everything, including her,
8:57
Speaker 1: And then, out of the blue, on March twenty fourth,
9:01
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, Richard walked into a Garda station in Fermoy
9:06
Speaker 1: and calmly reported his wife missing. He told officers there
9:11
Speaker 1: that she had left him four days earlier, taking their
9:13
Speaker 1: savings and disappeared on her own terms, but left behind
9:18
Speaker 1: some things like passport, and there was no bank withdraws
9:20
Speaker 1: or anything, so she was just kind of gone now.
9:24
Speaker 1: According to Richard in his report, the last morning he
9:27
Speaker 1: ever saw his wife began like any other. He told
9:31
Speaker 1: the Garda that on Monday, March twentieth, twenty seventeen, he
9:35
Speaker 1: woke early, did some chores and made Tina breakfast. Around
9:38
Speaker 1: nine am or so, she seemed quiet but not upset
9:43
Speaker 1: in any way, and around ten thirty am she asked
9:45
Speaker 1: him to drive to Dungarvin, about thirty kilometers away, to
9:49
Speaker 1: buy some fish and parrot food. He claimed he left
9:53
Speaker 1: the house shortly after, drove to Aldie, ran the errands,
9:56
Speaker 1: and returned home around noon. When he walked back through
10:00
Speaker 1: the front doors of their home, he said Tina was
10:03
Speaker 1: simply gone. Richard said he looked through the entire house,
10:06
Speaker 1: checked the bedrooms, and eventually noticed that two suitcases were missing.
10:11
Speaker 1: Along with that, he claimed that twenty six thousand pounds
10:15
Speaker 1: in cash that they kept stored in the attic as
10:18
Speaker 1: the savings was gone.
10:19
Speaker 2: Holy shit, he said.
10:21
Speaker 1: He waited around and assumed that she'd be calling soon,
10:24
Speaker 1: but no call came that day, and nothing the next
10:27
Speaker 1: day either. Then another day passed and still nothing. So
10:32
Speaker 1: Richard said he didn't report her missing immediately because he
10:34
Speaker 1: believed she had chosen to leave and simply needed time
10:37
Speaker 1: away to clear her mind, and she'd be coming back
10:40
Speaker 1: soon enough, So instead of alerting police, he did laundry,
10:45
Speaker 1: he walked the dogs, kept the house normal, and just
10:48
Speaker 1: waited for her to walk back through the front doors.
10:50
Speaker 1: And he waited a total of four days.
10:52
Speaker 2: That sounds like complete garbage.
10:55
Speaker 1: Well as we know it obviously his, but.
10:57
Speaker 2: Also because yeah, someone explaining that to the police, like
11:01
Speaker 2: they couldn't really just right away think something otherwise, you know,
11:05
Speaker 2: they don't really know these people exactly.
11:08
Speaker 1: So this is, as of right now, a missing person's case.
11:12
Speaker 1: So then on Friday March twenty fourth, twenty seventeen, at
11:14
Speaker 1: around seven pm, he finally decided he was going to
11:17
Speaker 1: report this and walked into the Fermoy Garda station and
11:20
Speaker 1: reported her missing formally. He told them that she must
11:23
Speaker 1: have left voluntarily, possibly with help from someone else, and
11:27
Speaker 1: might have traveled to England to stay with family. So
11:30
Speaker 1: when the investigation opened and Garda had no evidence that
11:33
Speaker 1: a crime had been committed, just like you're talking like
11:36
Speaker 1: we only have a husband's account here of a wife
11:38
Speaker 1: who just left without warning.
11:40
Speaker 2: It is I just have to say though it is odd.
11:43
Speaker 2: I feel like anyone would think it's a bit odd
11:45
Speaker 2: that you wouldn't tell, you know, report a loved one
11:49
Speaker 2: missing for that long of a period.
11:51
Speaker 1: Definitely you're right, but just right out of the gate here,
11:54
Speaker 1: like okay, there's no there's no sign of forced entry,
11:57
Speaker 1: for example, there's no calls from help, there's no no
12:00
Speaker 1: indication anyone's come to harm. It's basically just okay, we
12:04
Speaker 1: have a missing person, so we need to find a
12:07
Speaker 1: missing person. Once you find a missing person or find
12:10
Speaker 1: clues that tell you maybe what had happened, then the
12:13
Speaker 1: investigation can change. So all they have right now is
12:15
Speaker 1: any indication that it is simply that a missing person's care. Now,
12:21
Speaker 1: you are, right, though, there are details that don't sit right,
12:23
Speaker 1: Like why wait those four days before you tell anyone?
12:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, like arguing or not they weren't getting along. That's
12:30
Speaker 2: a long period of time to go without knowing where
12:32
Speaker 2: someone is.
12:33
Speaker 1: Definitely, so there are details that like they're little red flags.
12:37
Speaker 1: But the problem is evidence wise, that's I'm not saying that.
12:43
Speaker 2: No, I get it, Yeah, I get it.
12:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm playing devil's advocate here. Okay, So like in
12:47
Speaker 1: the investigators end of the aspect, they need to go
12:50
Speaker 1: and follow the evidence. Well, what evidence do they have?
12:52
Speaker 1: The only evidence they have is someone's not here. That's it.
12:55
Speaker 2: This is so interesting too. I literally just watched a
12:58
Speaker 2: show where it was the same kind of thing, and
13:01
Speaker 2: I don't know if I would have necessarily clued in,
13:03
Speaker 2: but how they just very slowly take you away from
13:07
Speaker 2: your normal life and you're just solely dependent on them
13:10
Speaker 2: and then there's just nothing you can do Like that
13:13
Speaker 2: is a terrible just sign of abuse. And it's interesting
13:17
Speaker 2: that in the last two days, like I've just it's
13:19
Speaker 2: literally the exact same, and I just don't know if
13:22
Speaker 2: I would have ever clued into that before.
13:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's textbook manipulation and it is exactly as
13:28
Speaker 1: you said too, it's abuse.
13:30
Speaker 2: And they do it over years, so it's like maybe
13:32
Speaker 2: not so obvious, but then eventually you're just completely cut off.
13:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, solely dependent on this individual.
13:38
Speaker 2: It's really messed up.
13:39
Speaker 1: There's going to be a lot of things that play
13:40
Speaker 1: in that. There's going to be gaslighting, there's going to
13:42
Speaker 1: be you know what, textbook narcissism involved. It's all this
13:45
Speaker 1: this manipulation to get you dependent on them. I'm not
13:49
Speaker 1: saying that's exactly what they are setting out to do.
13:53
Speaker 1: Like the person who's like manipulating you, they may not
13:56
Speaker 1: realize they're doing it, but they they want you to
14:00
Speaker 1: be independent on them one way or another.
14:03
Speaker 2: And honestly, in the beginning, it might not even come
14:06
Speaker 2: across wrong. It might even come across as like caring
14:09
Speaker 2: or oh my gosh, this person like really loves me,
14:11
Speaker 2: they want to do everything for me and stuff, and
14:13
Speaker 2: then it's you're in too deep and you're like, holy shit.
14:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, something like you know, there's that chivalrous kind of
14:20
Speaker 1: old fashioned way. Oh, you know what, I need to
14:22
Speaker 1: be the breadwinner my wife, she should stay at home.
14:24
Speaker 1: I want to take care of you. Yeah, that sounds
14:27
Speaker 1: like a caring thing. And then you know what, maybe
14:30
Speaker 1: the wife might be like, oh, you know what, that's
14:32
Speaker 1: so lovely. That sounds great. You know, I can stay
14:34
Speaker 1: at home and cook your meals and we can have
14:36
Speaker 1: a traditional way of life. I'm totally in for that.
14:39
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, you are at home
14:41
Speaker 1: and he starts coming home, and you know what, maybe
14:44
Speaker 1: the meals you cook aren't that great. Maybe he doesn't
14:46
Speaker 1: approve of the grocery shopping you're doing, and he starts
14:48
Speaker 1: controlling the home life too, and it just snowballs and
14:52
Speaker 1: gets out of control, brutal. Yeah, okay, so where do
14:56
Speaker 1: we leave off? So Richard waited four days before telling anyone.
15:00
Speaker 1: That's a big red flag. Also, he didn't report her
15:03
Speaker 1: missing in u Call, where they live, but in Fermoy instead,
15:06
Speaker 1: where her family lived. And then there was the cash,
15:09
Speaker 1: the supposed twenty six pounds that was savings stashed in
15:12
Speaker 1: their attics. There was no verification that this money was there,
15:17
Speaker 1: no way a lot right, no way of proving that
15:19
Speaker 1: it existed. So investigators began doing everything that their standard
15:24
Speaker 1: protocol protocol required, you know, checking hospitals, looking for a
15:27
Speaker 1: missing person right, monitoring airports, ferry ports, CCTV footage. They
15:33
Speaker 1: even began contacting Interpol and interviewing those closest to Tina.
15:36
Speaker 1: But nothing turned up no matter where they searched. And
15:40
Speaker 1: a big issue is that her passport was still in
15:43
Speaker 1: the house, her bank account hadn't been touched, her phone
15:46
Speaker 1: never pained again after March twentieth. There was no travel record,
15:51
Speaker 1: not even a taxi fare or bus ticket. So with
15:53
Speaker 1: all this, it's not like she could have gotten far. Yeah. Sure,
15:57
Speaker 1: she allegedly has a lot of cash, but she can't
15:59
Speaker 1: get out of the true with the passport. She doesn't drive,
16:03
Speaker 1: So how far could she have gotten Well.
16:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, because say, if she was just leaving on her
16:08
Speaker 2: own free will, she wouldn't be concerned about hiding things
16:11
Speaker 2: like that either, right for sure?
16:13
Speaker 1: And not to mention, Okay, you can cut out air
16:16
Speaker 1: travel and you can cut out driving, so that leaves
16:18
Speaker 1: you with public transportation, which has surveillance, No surveillance footage
16:23
Speaker 1: found her going anywhere.
16:26
Speaker 2: Huh. That's so, that's so scary.
16:29
Speaker 1: So with all this, the first search of the house
16:32
Speaker 1: came in June of twenty seventeen. Police were suspecting there
16:35
Speaker 1: could be more to this story because there are red flags,
16:39
Speaker 1: so it focused on potential assault or maybe blood evidence,
16:42
Speaker 1: but not structural work or hidden spaces, so the floors
16:46
Speaker 1: and walls were left intact. Outside the house, searches were
16:51
Speaker 1: carried out nearby waterways, harbor areas, scrublands, and forest, including
16:55
Speaker 1: a large operation in Castle Martyr Woods based on a
16:58
Speaker 1: reported sighting, but no trace of Tina's surfaced anywhere, not
17:03
Speaker 1: in the wooded areas, not the surrounding waterways, and not
17:06
Speaker 1: in the house. Meanwhile, Richard's voice grew louder than the
17:10
Speaker 1: investigation itself. He appeared on crime Call, he spoke on
17:15
Speaker 1: national radio, he sat for TV interviews, and he described
17:18
Speaker 1: himself as a devastated husband, still just waiting for his
17:23
Speaker 1: wife to come home, just waiting for the moment she
17:25
Speaker 1: walks back through those front doors. Despite those claims, Richard
17:30
Speaker 1: never made a documented effort to locate her. He didn't
17:33
Speaker 1: reach out to her closest friends, He didn't check in
17:35
Speaker 1: with her family before even reporting her missing. He didn't
17:38
Speaker 1: ask for her phone records, bank activity, or even attempt
17:41
Speaker 1: to directly search himself. His position was simple, she left
17:47
Speaker 1: and she'd be back when she was ready.
17:50
Speaker 2: Hmm okay, then that, yeah, that is just not not
17:55
Speaker 2: sitting right.
17:56
Speaker 1: Hey, there's a lot of red flags.
17:58
Speaker 2: The fact that you wouldn't even phone friends, her family, that, yeah,
18:01
Speaker 2: he did a lot of things wrong.
18:03
Speaker 1: He did so. He told everyone that she struggled emotionally,
18:07
Speaker 1: and he insisted that she may have gone to England,
18:10
Speaker 1: and he continued to say it was a personal choice
18:12
Speaker 1: rather than a crisis or anything. So he's not saying that,
18:15
Speaker 1: you know, she's she's in dire need, which honestly kind
18:18
Speaker 1: of downplays the search. Even, oh, she's fine, it's just
18:21
Speaker 1: a personal thing. It's not a crisis, you know what,
18:23
Speaker 1: she doesn't really need the help, she'll be back. It
18:26
Speaker 1: downplays any sort of investigation or search. And because there
18:30
Speaker 1: was still nobody, no evidence, no indication of violence, the
18:33
Speaker 1: case stalled exactly where Richard wanted it, a mystery with
18:37
Speaker 1: no answers, no suspect, and the search kind of just
18:42
Speaker 1: in limbo. Now with this. What the public saw was emotion,
18:45
Speaker 1: a man crying on camera and talking to rooms about
18:48
Speaker 1: the woman he just wanted to come home. But investigators,
18:52
Speaker 1: they saw something different when they watched him on TV,
18:54
Speaker 1: when they watched him on interviews and all of this.
18:57
Speaker 1: To them, it seemed like someone carefully shaping a narrative
19:01
Speaker 1: before anyone else could. That concern sharpened when Richard agreed
19:06
Speaker 1: to take a lie detector test on a radio broadcast
19:09
Speaker 1: live radio, then quietly refused it afterwards. So investigators heard
19:14
Speaker 1: him talking about how he's saying, I will you know what,
19:17
Speaker 1: do this detector test? And they approach him and he refuses, which.
19:22
Speaker 2: Is interesting because I do feel like someone like that
19:25
Speaker 2: could potentially pass a light detector test.
19:28
Speaker 1: Potentially. It's like we all know lie detector tests are.
19:32
Speaker 1: They're not one hundred percent that even like if you
19:35
Speaker 1: fail it, it's it's not really evidence one way or another.
19:39
Speaker 2: I just feel he would be so confident in this
19:43
Speaker 2: lie that he could almost get away with it.
19:45
Speaker 1: He's almost lying to himself, fooling himself to get past it.
19:48
Speaker 1: That's true.
19:50
Speaker 2: Now.
19:50
Speaker 1: By the time the first anniversary of Tina's disappearance arrived,
19:54
Speaker 1: the investigation had already started to slow down. Investigators had
19:57
Speaker 1: searched the house, the area near in the woods, in
20:00
Speaker 1: the harbor, and even involved Inner Pole at this time,
20:03
Speaker 1: but nothing had surfaced, not a trace of travel, no
20:06
Speaker 1: bank activity, or verified sightings. Nothing. On paper, Tina looked
20:11
Speaker 1: like someone who had simply vanished into thin air. But
20:14
Speaker 1: there were details that never sat right with detectives this
20:17
Speaker 1: entire time. But they weren't the only ones. It didn't
20:20
Speaker 1: sit right with her family either. As I mentioned, Tina
20:25
Speaker 1: had no passport or form of ID. It was not
20:28
Speaker 1: missing from the house, it was there. She didn't drive,
20:30
Speaker 1: she didn't use public transportation, and didn't have a bank
20:33
Speaker 1: card to withdraw money, and according to Richard, had that
20:36
Speaker 1: twenty six pounds in cash. But investigators would later learn
20:40
Speaker 1: that there was no realistic financial trail to support that
20:42
Speaker 1: number of cash. Kind of what I said earlier. Now,
20:45
Speaker 1: even if she had left willingly, she would need some help, transportation, accommodation, something,
20:51
Speaker 1: someone would need to help her. She's out there with suitcases.
20:55
Speaker 1: Remember she's a missing person. Her face is all over
20:59
Speaker 1: the place. No one has seen her, not a CCTV footage,
21:04
Speaker 1: not a witness at least no one came forward. So
21:07
Speaker 1: if she's out there alone, how is that possible? It
21:10
Speaker 1: can't be. She would have to have someone helping or
21:13
Speaker 1: someone covering something up.
21:17
Speaker 2: And she would most likely go to a family member
21:19
Speaker 2: or a friend, you would think, right.
21:21
Speaker 1: Exactly, So for her to disappear on her own like that,
21:24
Speaker 1: it was simply impossible. Investigators knew that they just couldn't
21:28
Speaker 1: find that missing. Who was the other person who was
21:31
Speaker 1: covering it up? What were they covering up?
21:35
Speaker 2: Now?
21:35
Speaker 1: Richard's version of events continued to be the only version available,
21:38
Speaker 1: and that alone was a problem. Every point of information
21:42
Speaker 1: about Tina's final days came directly from the one person
21:45
Speaker 1: that had the most to gain from her disappearance and
21:47
Speaker 1: the only person who had seen her after March nineteenth.
21:52
Speaker 1: Behind the scenes, the file was still active, but priorities well,
21:55
Speaker 1: they tend to shift. Cases may lose momentum and they
21:58
Speaker 1: begin to drift. Tactives rotate, leads expire, and things go stale.
22:04
Speaker 1: But the people closest to Tina refused to accept that
22:06
Speaker 1: she had simply just left her life behind. One of
22:09
Speaker 1: her sisters had put it plainly, if Tina ever needed space,
22:14
Speaker 1: she would have told someone she trusted, even a short message,
22:16
Speaker 1: a phone call, a note. Instead, there was nothing. Years
22:22
Speaker 1: passed with all this, no breakthroughs or clues, and Tina
22:26
Speaker 1: stayed missing, but the absence never felt right. In twenty
22:32
Speaker 1: twenty three, more than six years after Tina vanished, the
22:34
Speaker 1: investigation was still technically open but not really active. Nothing
22:38
Speaker 1: new would surface, no witnesses that stepped forward, and every
22:41
Speaker 1: theory well just circled back to the same dead end
22:44
Speaker 1: she left. No one knew where she went. That's it.
22:47
Speaker 1: But then something shifted. A new senior investigator, Superintendent an
22:53
Speaker 1: Marie Toomey, took over the case, and instead of accepting
22:56
Speaker 1: the old narrative, she and her team rebuilt the file
22:59
Speaker 1: from scratch. That fresh set of eyes exposed details that
23:04
Speaker 1: the original investigation had missed or dismissed. The first major
23:09
Speaker 1: crack came from technology that hadn't been examined back in
23:12
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. A laptop that was seized from the Satual
23:16
Speaker 1: home during the search of it. Now buried in its
23:19
Speaker 1: search history was a time stamped query made four days
23:22
Speaker 1: after Tina disappeared. Quote quicklime and water reaction. Now quicklime
23:29
Speaker 1: is a substance historically used to speed up decomposition and
23:34
Speaker 1: suppress odors.
23:36
Speaker 2: Wow. Wow.
23:39
Speaker 1: Then came the second crack, mobile phone location data. For years.
23:44
Speaker 1: Richard had insisted he drove to Aldi and Doungavaren the
23:47
Speaker 1: morning Tina disappeared, but the data proved otherwise. He was
23:52
Speaker 1: still in u call, collecting his social welfare payment at
23:55
Speaker 1: the post office around eleven ten am, and his phone
23:59
Speaker 1: stayed inside the house during the exact window. He claimed
24:03
Speaker 1: to be away, the story he'd repeated on television radio
24:07
Speaker 1: in every interview, the one that the country had memorized.
24:10
Speaker 1: It was physically impossible, because this trail told otherwise. That
24:16
Speaker 1: was enough to restart this case. But what happened next
24:19
Speaker 1: wasn't digital, psychological, or forensic. It was honestly kind of
24:24
Speaker 1: a bit of a lucky break. A drain in the
24:27
Speaker 1: adjoining property had backed up. Workers were called in and
24:31
Speaker 1: while clearing it, they noticed debris near the shared wall,
24:35
Speaker 1: material that looked out of place, so they reported it.
24:40
Speaker 1: Investigators now took a second look at the Satchwell home
24:44
Speaker 1: and this this is when they didn't just you know,
24:48
Speaker 1: do a surface level search. This is when they ripped
24:50
Speaker 1: it open.
24:52
Speaker 2: Okay, this is kind of Lucky Hey.
24:54
Speaker 1: Yes, contractors moved in ground penetrating radar scan the floors,
24:59
Speaker 1: The cadaver dogs brought inside, and the dog named Fern,
25:02
Speaker 1: they alerted. Beneath the staircase a space that had been
25:05
Speaker 1: sealed behind a cheap looking brick wall and covered in
25:08
Speaker 1: fresh plasterboard. When the forensic team peeled everything back and
25:12
Speaker 1: broke through the concrete beneath it, they found what so
25:16
Speaker 1: many had feared, what Richard had spent six years denying.
25:21
Speaker 1: They found human remains wrapped in a black plastic There
25:27
Speaker 1: was a grave that he had built himself. Tina had
25:30
Speaker 1: never left the house. She was there the entire time,
25:34
Speaker 1: entombed under the floor. Richard was walking on every single day,
25:38
Speaker 1: including whenever he was on TV, begging for her to return.
25:42
Speaker 2: How could you just go about your day to day
25:44
Speaker 2: just being a complete monster like that?
25:46
Speaker 1: I can't even fathom.
25:48
Speaker 2: Also, I was going to say earlier, like, of course
25:50
Speaker 2: they didn't really look in the walls or I don't
25:53
Speaker 2: know if they can even do that sort of thing,
25:55
Speaker 2: because they wouldn't have thought someone would be as unhinged
25:58
Speaker 2: as him to just yeah, literally bury her in their
26:03
Speaker 2: own home.
26:03
Speaker 1: Well, like I said, you need evidence to go and
26:06
Speaker 1: follow a trail. You can't just willly, nearly go do something,
26:09
Speaker 1: especially like ripping someone's home apart. You're going to go ahead,
26:13
Speaker 1: and you're going to need a warrant.
26:14
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
26:16
Speaker 1: So with the digital information, they found the contractor next
26:19
Speaker 1: door reporting some questionable stuff near this shared well, well,
26:23
Speaker 1: there's some enough red flags that they can go in
26:25
Speaker 1: and actually dig deeper. Literally. So the discovery under the
26:30
Speaker 1: stairs shattered the version of events that Richard Satchwell had
26:33
Speaker 1: been repeating for all of those years. When investigators pulled
26:36
Speaker 1: back the plastic and exposed the remains, the missing person
26:39
Speaker 1: narrative it ended, and what had really happened inside that
26:42
Speaker 1: house finally began to surface. Richard was arrested on October tenth,
26:48
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, the emotional public appeal routine while it
26:52
Speaker 1: was gone, and once the remains were confirmed as Tina
26:55
Speaker 1: through dental records, he was taken back into custody and
26:59
Speaker 1: formally charged with murder. His only response was an interesting
27:03
Speaker 1: line that sat somewhere between like defiance and resignation. He said, quote, guilty,
27:10
Speaker 1: you're not guilty, Guilty.
27:12
Speaker 2: You're caught, buddy. Also you're damn lucky that you got
27:15
Speaker 2: six extra years of just live in your life.
27:18
Speaker 1: No shit. But during this time, not only did he
27:22
Speaker 1: just say that, this is when he abandoned the story
27:24
Speaker 1: that Tina had walked out because obviously, right, that's not
27:27
Speaker 1: the case. Now, he claimed her death was an accident.
27:31
Speaker 2: Oh of course.
27:33
Speaker 1: He said that she suddenly attacked him with a chisel,
27:38
Speaker 1: that he fell backwards, and that in the struggle he
27:41
Speaker 1: somehow ended up holding the belt of her dressing gown
27:44
Speaker 1: around her neck until she stopped breathing.
27:48
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that is one of the worst lies
27:50
Speaker 2: I've ever heard.
27:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he insisted that this was all just in
27:53
Speaker 1: a blur. But the problem was what followed didn't look
27:57
Speaker 1: like an accident, especially when you look at the fact
27:59
Speaker 1: that he didn't call emergency services after she stopped breathing,
28:03
Speaker 1: nor did he seek any sort of help or anything.
28:07
Speaker 1: It was just she died and he entombed her in
28:10
Speaker 1: the home and lied to the public.
28:12
Speaker 2: And he probably had no injuries to show or anything.
28:16
Speaker 1: Exactly, so instead he just did that. He began to
28:21
Speaker 1: cover it up. He started by storing her in a
28:24
Speaker 1: chest freezer, dug a deep grave under the stairs, wrapped
28:27
Speaker 1: her in plastic sheeting, lowered her in, poured concrete over
28:30
Speaker 1: the burial site, and built a new wall to hide
28:33
Speaker 1: it all, and then just carried on with his life
28:36
Speaker 1: while Tina's remains lay beneath the floor of that house.
28:39
Speaker 1: Richard sold her clothes at car boot sales, gave away
28:42
Speaker 1: the very freezer he had stored her in oh Man,
28:45
Speaker 1: and told interviewers she was alive somewhere and just needed time.
28:50
Speaker 1: But it was obviously a bullshit story. The trial opened
28:54
Speaker 1: in the very same year we're recording this, in April
28:57
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin,
29:01
Speaker 1: eighteen months after her body was exhumed, and after almost
29:04
Speaker 1: a decade of Richard insisting she was alive. The prosecution
29:08
Speaker 1: didn't have to rely on their theories or speculation. They
29:10
Speaker 1: had a body burial site, digital evidence, lies on record,
29:14
Speaker 1: and years of public statements that now played back like
29:17
Speaker 1: a slow motion confession. Jurors watched Richard's TV interviews, The
29:23
Speaker 1: Tearful Come Home Please, the claims that he never would
29:27
Speaker 1: lift a finger to hurt Tina, and everything that was
29:32
Speaker 1: on the news reportings on the interview. It was now
29:35
Speaker 1: being looked at in a different light and showed a
29:38
Speaker 1: cold calculation instead of the sympathy that it did before.
29:44
Speaker 1: An assistant state pathologist would take the stand and testify
29:47
Speaker 1: that the cause of death could not be determined due
29:50
Speaker 1: to the advanced decomposition of her remains, but they did
29:53
Speaker 1: say that no fractures were found and glass shards were recovered,
29:57
Speaker 1: including from her scalp, which likely came from a heat
30:01
Speaker 1: treated piece of glass. Though it's not exactly clear how
30:06
Speaker 1: Tina was killed, it was obvious her death was being
30:09
Speaker 1: covered up. The defense leaned heavily on Richard's final version
30:14
Speaker 1: of events that Tina attacked him first, that her death
30:17
Speaker 1: was accidental, and that he panicked and made terrible decisions afterwards.
30:23
Speaker 1: They tried to cast doubt on intent, pushing for manslaughter
30:26
Speaker 1: instead of murder.
30:28
Speaker 2: Oh that is just too far fetched.
30:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, now there was a problem though they couldn't get
30:34
Speaker 1: around Tina wasn't violent. She didn't have a history of
30:38
Speaker 1: it or anything to back up these claims. There was
30:40
Speaker 1: no witnesses, no prior police files, no medical files, no
30:44
Speaker 1: injuries that he had. Nothing. The jury deliberated for nine
30:49
Speaker 1: hours and twenty eight minutes, over the course of four days,
30:53
Speaker 1: and on May thirtieth, twenty twenty five, the verdict was read.
30:58
Speaker 1: Richard Satchwell was found guilty of murder of his wife,
31:04
Speaker 1: of Tina Satchwell.
31:05
Speaker 2: Hey, you paused too long. I was like, what the shit,
31:07
Speaker 2: It can't be anything other than guilty. I was honestly
31:10
Speaker 2: surprised they it took that long to even deliberate.
31:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I made sure I pause a little extra
31:15
Speaker 1: just to keep you on.
31:16
Speaker 2: Okay, Well it were because I was like, I could
31:19
Speaker 2: feel my blood pressure just raising.
31:22
Speaker 1: I'm glad it worked now, Richard. He stared straight ahead
31:26
Speaker 1: when they read this verdict with no visible reaction, and
31:28
Speaker 1: behind him, Tina's family cried, not because the verdict was unexpected,
31:32
Speaker 1: but because hearing it out loud it made the truth final.
31:36
Speaker 1: They walked out of that courtroom carrying a truth that
31:38
Speaker 1: they had always known. That Tina wasn't unstable, dramatic or violent.
31:42
Speaker 1: She didn't even flee. She was gentle, funny, careful with
31:47
Speaker 1: her words, and the happiest when she had a dog
31:49
Speaker 1: at her side. That version of her, that's the real
31:53
Speaker 1: one that had been buried for years, just like her
31:57
Speaker 1: body and once her remains were released. Her ashes were
32:00
Speaker 1: divided between the people who loved her. Most half were
32:03
Speaker 1: laid to rest with her brother Tom and the other
32:06
Speaker 1: half with her grandmother Florence. In you call a candlelet
32:10
Speaker 1: vigil formed outside the house where she was found. People
32:14
Speaker 1: also brought their dogs along with them for Tina, and
32:17
Speaker 1: for the first time in years, her name wasn't attached
32:21
Speaker 1: to speculation. It belonged to her once again. The case
32:26
Speaker 1: may be legally closed at this point, but it leaves
32:28
Speaker 1: behind a trail of questions that don't sit neatly inside
32:31
Speaker 1: a verdict. The guarda had searched the house in twenty
32:35
Speaker 1: seventeen and walked those same floors where she was buried.
32:37
Speaker 1: They stood in the same room where she was resting,
32:39
Speaker 1: and without lifting a single tile, they walked back out.
32:44
Speaker 1: Devices seized early in the investigation sat untouched for four years,
32:49
Speaker 1: even though the crucial quick lime search was stored in
32:53
Speaker 1: them the entire time. The staircade Richard walked up every
32:57
Speaker 1: day while it held answers from the beginning, and what
33:00
Speaker 1: changed was an evidence It was approach and due diligence.
33:04
Speaker 1: That's what made the impact. When a new investigative team
33:08
Speaker 1: stopped assuming Tina had left by choice, and instead treated
33:11
Speaker 1: the house as a potential crime scene. The truth resurfaced
33:15
Speaker 1: within days. Yes, there was a lucky break from the
33:18
Speaker 1: contractor's next door, but they were already honing in on him.
33:22
Speaker 1: Richard didn't confess, He didn't slip up in an interview,
33:25
Speaker 1: he didn't grow careless. He simply ran out of space
33:28
Speaker 1: to keep lying. That is the real story, not just
33:32
Speaker 1: of a woman who got murdered, but of a narrative
33:35
Speaker 1: controlled so completely by a perpetrator that the world believed
33:39
Speaker 1: she had walked away from her own life. The only
33:42
Speaker 1: reason she was found is because someone finally stopped listening
33:45
Speaker 1: to him and started actually looking for her. Now, the
33:51
Speaker 1: only version of her that matters is the one her
33:53
Speaker 1: family insisted on from the beginning. She was a kind,
33:57
Speaker 1: soft hearted woman who loved animals, trusted the wrong person,
34:01
Speaker 1: and deserved a future that she never got. And that's
34:06
Speaker 1: a story of Tina Satchwell.
34:11
Speaker 2: Her family probably knew, Hey, I.
34:14
Speaker 1: I think so.
34:15
Speaker 2: Also, she just seemed like the most incredible lady ever.
34:18
Speaker 2: And I'm kind of obsessed with the idea that people
34:21
Speaker 2: would bring dogs to her vigil. Yeah, so it's like
34:24
Speaker 2: if I ever die and have a funeral, like bring
34:27
Speaker 2: your dogs. That is just the most humble, sweet thing
34:31
Speaker 2: I think I've ever heard. I agree, and it shows
34:34
Speaker 2: exactly how awesome and I don't know, just perfect she
34:39
Speaker 2: was really.
34:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't you put it perfectly. I can't put
34:43
Speaker 1: it any better. You're right.
34:45
Speaker 2: How old was she then when she passed? You know
34:47
Speaker 2: the age?
34:48
Speaker 1: Oh I can't remember. She was forty five years old
34:52
Speaker 1: when she was killed in twenty seventeen.
34:53
Speaker 2: Okay, for some reason I thought she was a bit younger.
34:57
Speaker 2: But still, that is like far too young too. You know,
35:01
Speaker 2: have your life well, it's never a good time you
35:04
Speaker 2: have your life ended, But that's not a long enough life.
35:06
Speaker 1: She had half her life still ahead of Yeah.
35:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was stolen well, and he had already
35:11
Speaker 2: stolen so much of it I can imagine.
35:14
Speaker 1: Right, you're true, that's very true. You're right.
35:16
Speaker 2: What a piece of shit?
35:18
Speaker 1: So yeah, I told you he was a monster and
35:19
Speaker 1: you'd hate him and he's garbage.
35:21
Speaker 2: I do actually just hate him. Yeah, Oh, like he
35:24
Speaker 2: just I don't know, makes my skin feel like it's crawling.
35:27
Speaker 2: Just that there's a guy out there that would want
35:30
Speaker 2: to do that to someone you know, like frick, just
35:33
Speaker 2: let let people You should love your partner and let
35:36
Speaker 2: them basically like thrive to be the person that they're
35:40
Speaker 2: meant to be. In this I don't know anyone that
35:43
Speaker 2: just dimmed someone else's light.
35:44
Speaker 1: Is a piece of shit, I know, right, And this
35:47
Speaker 1: piece of shit is finally in prison at least though
35:50
Speaker 1: he's well, he's only been sitting there for like five months.
35:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll stop because there really isn't anything else to say,
35:57
Speaker 2: and we should just honor honor, right, Yeah.
36:02
Speaker 1: And I did just realize too, I didn't actually talk
36:03
Speaker 1: about his sentence. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
36:07
Speaker 2: So he's knocketing out of there. He shouldn't be getting
36:10
Speaker 2: out of there ever, he can just stay in there forever.
36:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. And on that note, thank you for
36:18
Speaker 1: being here. Don't forget to check out our socials and
36:20
Speaker 1: the links in the description below. We get to keep
36:23
Speaker 1: doing this because you listen to our show. We're an
36:25
Speaker 1: independent podcast, hosted research, recorded all that by ourselves in
36:29
Speaker 1: our little tiny home. Reviews they go a long way.
36:32
Speaker 1: They really help the show grow. Even just listening to
36:34
Speaker 1: the end. You're still listening right now. That helps big time,
36:37
Speaker 1: so thank you so much, we really appreciate you, and
36:40
Speaker 1: until next time, stay wicked.