In mid-November 2017, Tina Satchwell had been lacking eight months. RTÉ Prime Time reporter Barry Cummins visited her house in Youghal, unaware that her physique lay lower than ten toes away buried beneath concrete. He was there to interview Tina’s husband, Richard, who was yesterday discovered responsible of her homicide.
Right here he writes about that day, and later studying that her stays had been toes away – a proven fact that troubles him to today.
As a part of a particular programme on the trial of Richard Satchwell, he has since spoken with others who had been additionally in 3 Grattan Road earlier than Tina’s physique was found, six-and-a-half years after she went lacking.
James McNamara has a narrative like no-one else. He was the Limerick builder who dug all the way down to the spot the place he discovered the sheeting which held the physique of Tina Satchwell.
It was Wednesday 11 October 2023 when James introduced a Kango hammer into the home and all the way down to the confined house, inside a cubby gap, beneath the steps of the Satchwell house.
The home had been sealed off for the reason that night earlier than, when Richard Satchwell had been arrested on suspicion of homicide.
After a contemporary overview of the lacking individual’s case, a search warrant had been obtained to permit for an intrusive search of the property. That gave gardaí the facility to dig up flooring, pull down partitions, and excavate wherever they noticed match.
A plan had been devised six weeks earlier than James and his colleagues assisted gardaí with work on the home. The technique was that there can be ten search zones on the property – inside, to the rear, and to the aspect.
Prime Time: A killer caught
A kitchen extension which had been constructed by Richard Satchwell behind the property was initially earmarked for particular consideration by gardaí.
However as soon as the home was sealed off, and earlier than any excavation work commenced, a cadaver canine from the Police Service of Northern Eire (PSNI) – Fern – was introduced in to stroll the scene.
Fern has efficiently discovered many our bodies which lay hidden beneath the bottom or underwater. She and her handler had been introduced south to Youghal and walked everything of the four-storey property.
Fern began on the prime of the steps and walked down the 4 flights of stairs along with her handler.
On the backside of the steps, within the corridor, in direction of the underside steps, Fern instantly lay flat, giving a agency indication that one thing was to be discovered close by.
The home was a large number. Canine faeces had been on the ground in lots of components of the home, and also you could not see a lot of the ground house. A concrete mixer and a settee had been among the many many gadgets blocking entry to the understairs cubby gap.
A part of the construction beside the slim door beneath the steps was a brick wall, with one brick a distinct hue to the others.
The wall regarded odd, as soon as you can get a correct have a look at it, with all of the gadgets lastly faraway from the ground house in entrance.
The brick wall regarded amateurish, not professionally constructed.
Watch a particular programme in regards to the demise and clandestine burial of Tina Satchwell on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Participant at 9.35pm on 3 June.
James McNamara and his colleague Pat O’Connor, and a garda from the Technical Bureau, Brian Barry, had been standing in the lounge on that October night, discussing the demolition and excavation work to be commenced the next day, after they discovered themselves trying on the beneath stairs cubby gap.
“The home was manky, I would by no means seen something prefer it in my life. The scent was very dangerous,” James advised me.
As they chatted, they determined to take a more in-depth look beneath the steps. James went into the cramped house by the slim entrance beside the brick wall.
“Brian gave me a flashlight and I shone it down, and there was lino on the ground. We pulled away the lino and we may see the color distinction within the concrete,” James mentioned.
A piece of the concrete ground was a lighter shade than the remaining. Detective Brian Barry shortly contacted the incident room in Midleton. Gardaí instantly agreed the world ought to be searched.
James McNamara acquired the Kango hammer inside and started drilling into the concrete, however he quickly stopped the machine.
He had been anticipating to drill by as much as 4 inches of concrete, the conventional quantity that could be laid for flooring, however the concrete beneath the steps was a lot thinner.
“After I took up the ground the concrete mainly fell aside. The filling beneath ought to be stable, but it surely was simply unfastened filling,” James advised me.
James shortly put the Kango hammer apart. The house was too cramped to make use of a big shovel to dig. Down on his knees, he started utilizing a trowel to take away soil and put it to the aspect. Even the trowel appeared too massive for the house.
Quickly, James was utilizing his arms to take away the earth and dig down.
A conveyable gentle was put shut beside him to assist him see what he was doing, as Detective Barry and James’ colleague Pat stayed close by.
James remembers it took only a few minutes.
“I went down in regards to the size of my arm, two-and-a-half toes, and that is after I got here throughout the polythene plastic.”
Detective Brian Barry instantly advised James to cease his work, and gardaí started preserving the scene.
“Brian mentioned to me ‘Proper lads, you are achieved’ and advised us to depart,” remembers James.
Two forensic archaeologists, Niamh McCullagh and Aidan Harte, then started sluggish and methodical work to rigorously unearth what was hidden beneath the steps, a staircase I personally had beforehand walked up whereas being given a tour of the home by Richard six years earlier than.
Interviewing Richard Satchwell
By the point I had entered the home, in late 2017, Tina Satchwell was lacking eight months.
Myself and two colleagues, producer Kevin Burns and digital camera operator Shirley Bradshaw, spent most of that night within the entrance room of the home within the firm of Richard Satchwell, who had agreed to an interview request.
By then, Satchwell had, on a lot of events, been overtly requested if gardaí thought-about him a suspect in his spouse’s disappearance. I knew as I entered the home that November night that gardaí had beforehand spent a full day looking out the home with no signal of Tina being discovered.
I can bear in mind as I entered the property the scent of should and mud, as I sat within the entrance lounge smelling the hen droppings which littered the cage wherein the couple’s parrot lived.
Valentine was the parrot which had changed the earlier one, Pearl. Richard advised me that the couple had been heartbroken at Pearl’s demise.
“We cried for weeks, we had an post-mortem achieved and all the things,” he mentioned as I stood with him taking a look at numerous gadgets on a shelf which spoke of the lifetime of a lacking lady.
Varied bottles of nail varnish sat on the shelf, those utilized by Tina the day earlier than she “acquired up and left” as Richard Satchwell described it.
The bottles had been coated in mud, the home was soiled, and the scenario was disagreeable.
The interviewee picked up a dusty full bottle of Cava which he mentioned he’d purchased in Tesco to mark the couple’s twenty fifth marriage ceremony anniversary the yr earlier than.
“Tina by no means opened it,” Satchwell recalled, as Valentine regarded on. “I do not drink, I am a teetotaller,” he added.
We regarded above the shelf at a photograph of Tina. “She acquired that achieved up in Tallaght,” he mentioned as we stood beside the parrot within the slim lounge.
Richard Satchwell pointed at garments on hangers resting on a door behind a sofa. The garments Tina purchased at a car-boot sale the day earlier than she disappeared.
That night time, we solely filmed within the entrance room. However to achieve it, we needed to stroll by the hallway and the center room beside the steps.
As we carried our filming gear into and out of the home, we’d have walked lower than three toes from the understairs clandestine burial space.
I’ve typically mirrored on my interactions with Richard Satchwell, and I’m nonetheless processing all of it.
I used to be doing my job, interviewing a person who was making public appeals for his lacking spouse. Every time I met him – and I even had Richard Satchwell in my very own automobile as we drove round Youghal – I might study new data.
The extra I met him the extra he talked, and the extra he lied.
Prosecution
The interviews I performed with Richard Satchwell had been used as a part of the prosecution’s case, displaying his manner and his feedback whilst his spouse’s physique lay simply toes away from the place he and I sat on a sofa in his house.
I used to be one among a small variety of journalists who had been inside the home at Grattan Road as Tina’s physique lay hidden, nonetheless wearing her pyjamas and nightgown, as she lay face down beneath the steps.
Kyran O’Brien was working as a photographer with the Irish Unbiased when he photographed Richard Satchwell on the prime of the home, beside the walk-in wardrobe the place Tina saved the various garments she had bought at car-boot gross sales and in charity retailers.
The garments had been typically designer labels, Tina at all times had a watch for a cut price, and he or she at all times had a watch for trend.
“All the garments had been immaculately folded and put in plastic and displayed very nicely,” remembered Kyran.
“After which he confirmed me one other room the place there was a sunbed that he had constructed as nicely. And it was all fairly tight. It was fairly a decent stairs. It was an outdated, very skinny home. The rooms had been fairly small, however there have been mainly walk-in wardrobes.”
Like me, Kyran remembers there was a scent in the home, a scent of damp and mud and neglect.
“There was canine poo and there was parrot poo and it was soiled. It was unkempt, it was smelly. It wasn’t clear. And he saved attempting to supply us cups of tea. And I saved form of saying to him, ‘we’ve an extended drive house, so I would fairly not’,” Kyran mentioned.
“It is horrible,” Kyran advised me, “to know I used to be in the home and the poor lady was not ten toes from the place I used to be sitting. It’s going to stick to me.”
James McNamara did the State, and Tina Satchwell, a service when he acquired down on his knees and started to dig that October night in 2023. It is a second he will not overlook.
“We knew what we had been doing was crucial work. It was nice to be concerned with a case like this. It offers a household peace, so it was really huge.”
The truth that equipment equivalent to floor penetrating radar failed to offer a sign of a physique beneath the steps is due maybe to the very fact the grave was so deep.
Tina’s physique had been buried almost three toes down, beneath soil, concrete and a layer of lino.
And for years individuals, together with myself, walked these stairs above, by no means understanding.
There are lots of classes to be discovered from this case for everybody, and there are numerous vivid reminiscences that can stick with me of my interactions over a lot of months with Richard Satchwell.
A particular programme by reporter Barry Cummins and producer Sallyanne Godson in regards to the demise and clandestine burial of Tina Satchwell shall be broadcast on a particular Prime Time programme on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Participant on Tuesday, 3 June
