Tina Satchwell's murder 'premeditated', with 'plotting and calculated actions', trial hears

While his wife’s dead body was in the freezer in their home, Richard Satchwell looked up 'quicklime' online, court told

Richard Satchwell told gardaí he had been 'living two lives' since his wife Tina's death, going to work by day as if everything was normal and coming home to a filthy house where his 'perfect' wife’s body was decomposing in a shallow grave under their sitting room floor.

Tina Satchwell’s murder seemed “premeditated”, with “plotting” and “calculated” actions, gardaí said during an interview with her husband after her body was found buried in their sitting room.

Even after Richard Satchwell “changed his narrative” following the discovery of his wife’s remains in their East Cork home more than six years after he reported her missing, he was still “not telling full truths”, gardaí said.

Detective Garda Noelle McSweeney and Detective Garda John O’Donovan interviewed Mr Satchwell after he was arrested for his wife’s murder in October 2023 for one hour and 15 minutes at Cobh Garda Station. 

A video recording of the interview was played at his trial at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Dublin on Wednesday. 

Mr Satchwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife, Tina Satchwell, nee Dingivan, who was 45.

“In a very short period of time” after his wife’s death, Mr Satchwell had the “mental capacity” to send an email and go to the post office to get social welfare “to keep face”, Det Garda McSweeney said.

“That itself showed planning. There was a mental process there.

“They were calculated manoeuvres,” she said.

But Mr Satchwell denied this, saying he was acting out of panic and routine.

“If it was calculated, I would have memorised everything.

“I would have covered my back,” he said.

Although he should have gone to gardaí with his “hands up” immediately after his wife’s death, he did not “and can’t take that back now”.

“It started as a lie and the lie escalated,” he said.

But because Mr Satchwell had started with one “truth” but then moved to another, seemed plotting and calculating, Det Garda McSweeney said.

Mr Satchwell had maintained a narrative for more than six years that his wife had vanished, making tearful media appeals for Tina to “come home”.

But once her remains were found buried in a shallow grave in their home, he changed his narrative, then claiming his wife attacked him with a chisel, he held a belt to her neck in self-defence and she suddenly collapsed dead.

She had “caught him off guard”, he said, it happened “on the spur of the moment”. There had been no intent and it was not premeditated, he said.

“If it were premeditated there are thousands of country lanes myself and Tina used to walk down where I could have buried her,” he said.

Richard Satchwell said he believed he had placed his wife’s body in a sleeping position in the grave and wanted to 'make her comfortable'. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

His only premeditated acts in life had been shoplifting clothes to sell at car boot sales and cheque fraud when he went out buying his wife clothes with the cheques, he said.

“Your story has changed, what we’re trying to get to is the truth,” Det Garda McSweeney said.

Mr Satchwell told gardaí he had been “living two lives” since his wife's death, going to work by day as if everything was normal and coming home to a filthy house where his “perfect” wife’s body was decomposing in a shallow grave under their sitting room floor.

Mr Satchwell said he believed he had placed his wife’s body in a sleeping position in the grave and wanted to “make her comfortable”.

Daytime was “like a battery charger”.

At work, as a truck driver, he could “concentrate on driving, on doing the job. So the stress of home, it was always there but not at the forefront,” he said.

It was “motivation” to escape from “the house I didn’t want to be in”. But he would go home where there was “dog shit on the couch”, “dog shit and urine on floors”, and a bed which had not been changed “in years”.

“I was so deflated. I guess I was living the life of a homeless person with a roof overhead,” he said in the interview at Cobh Garda Station.

He had “no quality of life”, no desire and “no motivation to clean or do anything”, he said.

“That was how I was living.” He said he felt “scared, sorrowful, ashamed”.

“I have a conscience. I still dream of Tina. I never lost the desire to be with her.

“I lived with Tina for 28 years, married for 25 and I can’t make sense of it.” 

But while his wife’s dead body was in the freezer, he looked up "quicklime” online, the court heard.

But he said he never purchased it.

The trial continues.