A British truck driver who murdered his wife and buried her under the stairs at their home has been jailed for life.
Richard Satchwell, 58, had denied the murder of Tina Satchwell at their home in County Cork between March 19 and March 20, 2017.
Yet after nine hours and 28 minutes of deliberations, the jury at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin reached a unanimous guilty verdict last Friday.
On Wednesday at the sentencing, the family of Tina Satchwell, nee Dingivan, described her as a kind and gentle woman who loved animals.
Tina’s cousin, Sarah Howard said that Tina was murdered “by someone who claimed to love her”.
“The emotional toll of her loss is something I will carry with me always,” she said.
Tina’s half-sister Lorraine Howard said the way Tina was buried in plastic in her own home “sends shivers down my spine every time I think about it”.
“I will never be able to forgive Richard Satchwell for what he has done.”
Satchwell appeared in court on Wednesday in a light blue shirt.
His barrister, Brendan Grehan SC, told the court that Satchwell intends to appeal, and that he “never intended to kill Tina”.
Mr Grehan also said that Satchwell said “despite anything he said in the trial, Tina was a lovely person”.
The court was told the couple married in the UK on Tina’s 20th birthday, and later settled in Co Cork, first in Fermoy before moving to Youghal in 2016.
The trial heard that on March 24, 2017, Richard Satchwell went to gardai and claimed his wife had left their Youghal home four days ago because their relationship had deteriorated.
Satchwell had also claimed Tina had taken 26,000 euros in cash from savings they kept in the attic, which the court later heard they did not have the capacity to save.
He formally reported his wife missing in May 2017 and claimed to investigators that his wife was sometimes violent towards him.
In the following years, he made more than a dozen media appearances in which he spoke extensively about the morning he claimed Tina left the house and never returned.
After her remains were found buried under a concrete floor under the stairs in their home in October 2023, Satchwell claimed that Tina “flew” at him with a chisel.
He further claimed that to protect himself, he held a dressing gown belt to her neck before she went limp.
His denial of the charge was ultimately rejected by the jury who found him guilty of murder.
