Richard Satchwell found guilty of murdering wife Tina in 2017

Jury convicts Richard Satchwell after six-year investigation into disappearance and discovery of Tina’s body beneath their home

Richard Satchwell, who buried his wife Tina in a shallow grave under the stairs of their Youghal home, has been found guilty of her murder at the Central Criminal Court.

The 58-year-old from Leicester, England, was found guilty by a jury of five men and seven women following nine hours and 28 minutes of deliberations.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott will issue the sentence next Wednesday, June 6, where Mr Satchwell faces mandatory life imprisonment.

As the verdict was read to the court just after 12.25pm on Friday, members of Tina Satchwell’s family wept in court, as did some members of the jury.

Mr Satchwell, dressed in a navy jumper and navy slacks, showed no emotion as the verdict was delivered, placing his head in his hand. He had shown little reaction during any part of the 23-day trial in courtroom six of Dublin’s Criminal Courts of Justice.

He had pleaded not guilty to murdering his 45-year-old wife Tina — née Dingivan — at their home address at Grattan Street, Youghal, Co Cork, between March 19 and 20, 2017, both dates inclusive.

For six years, he maintained that he had returned home from shopping on Monday, March 20 2017, to find Tina had vanished, along with two suitcases and a sum of cash.

Mr Satchwell gave numerous media interviews after reporting his wife missing, telling journalists that he had “never laid a finger” on his wife and pleading with her to come home. He also told the media he’d be willing to take a lie detector test.

In July 2017, four months after he claimed she had left him, Mr Satchwell told TV3 News – now Virgin Media News – that: “One day my wife will turn back up or she will get in touch with gardaí, one way or another it will all come out and in time will prove I've done nothing wrong.” 

Mr Satchwell frequently made himself available for media interviews throughout the time he maintained she was missing, being interviewed on multiple occasions.

He also told gardaí that Tina Satchwell had regularly been violent towards him and had threatened to leave him. Mr Satchwell said he believed Tina had left him to get her “own back” on him for having left her for a period over a decade prior.

Despite gardaí searching the Youghal home in June 2017 — where Ms Satchwell’s body was already buried at this point — and seizing multiple devices belonging to Mr Satchwell, her body lay undiscovered for many years.

Members of the Howard family (Lorraine Howard Red Jacket Brown hair and Sarah Howard Blonde hair denim jacket) speak to the press after the conviction of Richard Satchwell of Tina Satchwell, at the CCJ in Dublin today.

It was not until Supt Ann Marie Twomey was appointed senior investigating officer in August 2021 that the investigation accelerated. She told the court that she formed the opinion that there were “reasonable grounds to believe Tina Satchwell was not a living person and had met her death through unlawful means”.

Shortly after becoming the senior investigating officer, she also formed the view that Mr Satchwell was a suspect in the case. When he was initially arrested again in October 2023, he told gardaí once more that he believed his wife had left him in March 2017 and disappeared.

However, after her body was discovered underneath their home shortly after his arrest, Mr Satchwell changed his story.

He then told gardaí that she "flew" at him with a chisel and she died as he tried to hold her off with a belt. The court heard he then placed her body in a chest freezer before putting her in the shallow grave underneath the stairs.

In her closing argument, prosecuting counsel Gerardine Small SC told the jury that Mr Satchwell's narrative of how his wife died after he held her off by the belt of her bathrobe was "absolutely farcical" and had "more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese".

Ms Small submitted that the British truck driver had woven "a web of deceit" and continued his "fabricated narrative" over the years. Counsel said Mr Satchwell's objective from the very outset was "always to put everyone off the scent."

Tina Satchwell (pictured). File picture

She said the accused did this because he had murdered Tina Satchwell and it was nonsense to suggest it was an accident or self-defence.

On the other hand, defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC said there was no doubt Mr Satchwell was guilty, but asked the jurors what exactly he was guilty of.

He argued that although the accused had lied "to the people of Ireland," the lies do not make him a murderer or relieve the prosecution of the burden of proving the ingredients of murder.

He said there was no evidence in the case that Mr Satchwell intended to kill or cause serious injury to Tina.

"The prosecution are happy to glide over that".

He said people lie for lots of different reasons and can lie to cover up their conduct or because they killed the very thing they loved. "As reprehensible as lies might be, they don't make your job easier, they make it harder because lies can be told for all manner of reasons," he told the jury.

Many details were heard in this trial, from the couple attempting to purchase a monkey online from what were clearly scammers, to Mr Satchwell’s offering of the chest freezer he had originally placed Tina’s body in to her cousin.

There were versions of Tina Satchwell presented at this trial: the dog lover, the avid swimmer, the shopper with an eye for a bargain at car boot sales, the “abuser” who was regularly violent towards her husband.

But so much of what we heard about her at this trial was Richard Satchwell’s version of her — the version of her created by the man who had killed her.

He was telling people how much he wanted her to come home when she’d never left. Her body was buried there — after he had murdered her.

Through his media interviews and garda statements, Richard Satchwell was trying to have the last word on his wife.

This guilty verdict ensures he won’t.

He will be sentenced next week.