The trial of 58-year-old Richard Satchwell for the murder of his wife in Cork eight years ago has heard he claimed she died after attacking him with a chisel, and that he buried her in a grave in their sitting room.
Mr Satchwell, from Grattan Street in Youghal, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 45-year-old Tina Satchwell between 19 and 20 March 2017.
Prosecuting counsel Gerardine Small told the jury that Tina and Richard Satchwell had been married for 25 years.
She said that Ms Satchwell was a very petite, glamorous woman who loved fashion and her two dogs, especially her chihuahua, Ruby.
On 24 March 2017, Mr Satchwell went to gardaí in Fermoy and told them Ms Satchwell had gone missing four days previously.
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He said he had been in Dungarvan getting some items and when he came home in the afternoon, she was gone.
Mr Satchwell claimed she had taken two suitcases as well as savings of €26,000 which had been hidden in a box in the attic.
He claimed she left due to a deterioration in their relationship, and that she was liable to violent outbursts directed at him.
But Mr Satchwell said he had no concerns about her welfare. She had left behind her keys, her phone and her dogs.
As it happened: Satchwell claimed wife would hit him
The Grattan Street house was searched in June 2017 and electronic devices were seized. Ports, airports, coasts and forests were all searched.
Over the years, Mr Satchwell maintained the same story in interviews with gardaí and with the media.
However, Ms Small said significant inconsistencies in his story emerged.
She said that a forensic accountant concluded the Satchwells would not have had the capacity to save €26,000.
CCTV footage and location data from Mr Satchwell's phone showed he had not been in Dungarvan on the morning of 20 March as he had claimed.
Information from electronic devices showed Mr Satchwell was offering a chest freezer for free on 31 March.
He had also sent an email on 20 March to an international monkey rescue organisation.
The court heard he and his wife were trying to buy two monkeys but were encountering difficulties and in the email, he said his wife was going to leave him over this.
There was also a search for quicklime from one of the computers.
The court was told the Satchwells were regular attendees at car boot sales and that Mr Satchwell was selling his wife's clothes and footwear at a sale shortly after her disappearance.
He told people there that she had contracted a respiratory infection and had gone to the UK to visit her sister.
On 10 October 2023, gardaí arrested Mr Satchwell and began an invasive search of the couple’s home.
Mr Satchwell maintained the same story about her disappearing from the house and was released on 11 October but later that evening, the decomposed remains of his wife were found at the house.
She had been wrapped in black sheeting and was in a three-foot grave dug underneath the stairs in the sitting room which had been cemented over.
State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster was unable to give a cause of death.
Mr Satchwell was rearrested, and the jury was told the narrative changed.
He claimed he was out the back in the shed. He said when he came back in his wife was at the bottom of the stairs, in her dressing gown with a chisel in her hand scraping plasterboard that he had put up.
Mr Satchwell said she flew at him with the chisel when he asked her what she was doing. He fell backwards onto the ground and Mr Satchwell said she was on top of him trying to stab him in the head with the chisel.
He said he was trying to protect himself and took a belt which was at Ms Satchwell’s neck and was holding her off him with this belt - he said she fell limp and then she was dead in his arms.
He told gardaí he transferred his wife's body to a freezer in the shed two days later.
He then brought her back from the freezer a couple of days later, dug a grave, wrapped her in black plastic sheeting, buried her and cemented over it.
Garda Conor Gately was on duty in Fermoy Garda Station when Mr Satchwell attended to say his wife was missing.
In evidence to the Central Criminal Court he said Mr Satchwell was "matter of fact" and "not over emotive".
He said Mr Satchwell said he believed Ms Satchwell had left the marital home because of a deterioration in their relationship.
Gda Gately said Mr Satchwell "behaved as I would have expected".
Garda Thomas Keane, from Youghal Garda Station, said he was asked to follow up on the whereabouts of Ms Satchwell on 17 April 2017.
He said he advised Mr Satchwell to report his wife missing on 2 May when he spoke to him at the doorstep of the house.
Gda Keane said Mr Satchwell told him Ms Satchwell was not a drinker or a smoker and there was no recent activity on her social media accounts.
He said Mr Satchwell was not overly concerned about her whereabouts.
In cross examination, Gda Keane said he was in touch with Mr Satchwell every two to three months over the years.
He said there were numerous media appeals, and he would be in contact with him to get photographs of Ms Satchwell.
Brendan Grehan SC, defending Mr Satchwell, asked Gda Keane if he had been in the house, to which the garda said he had been inside the property a few years after Ms Satchwell had disappeared.
This afternoon the trial heard that in statements made by Mr Satchwell to gardaí after reporting his wife missing, he claimed she was frequently violent towards him.
Mr Satchwell, who is originally from the UK, told gardaí in May and July 2017, that he had given up his family for her as his mother "hated the Irish".
He said Ms Satchwell wore the trousers in the relationship and he was a bit of a walkover.
He claimed that she had always had a short fuse but got worse after the death of her brother.
He said in the previous two years Tina might slap him once a week and he would experience "real violence" three or four times a year.
He claimed she would hit him with anything that came to her hand and he would never hit her.
Mr Satchwell said that before his wife disappeared, she had told him she had wasted her life with him.
He told the gardaí he did not think she was a danger to herself as she was "too vain" and "in love with herself".
He claimed, however, that he would take her back "no questions" and would give his life for her.
He told the gardaí that when he found she had left the house, he was sure she had gone to Fermoy to her brother or sister and he was giving her a few days to cool off but he felt the ground opened up beneath him when he realised she was not in Fermoy.
The trial will continue tomorrow.
