The trial of Richard Satchwell, who is accused of the murder of his wife Tina in 2017, has heard details of a specialised interview carried out by gardaí in 2021, two years before her body was discovered.
Mr Satchwell reported his wife missing in 2017. Her body was found in October 2023, in a grave dug in the couple's sitting room. He has pleaded not guilty to murder.
Detective Sergeant David Noonan told the court he carried out an "enhanced cognitive interview" with Mr Satchwell in June 2021.
He said this was a type of interview which is "witness led" and is recognised as the "gold standard" in taking a witness or victim statement. He said it allows interviewers to get a lot more details.
A 124-page transcript of the interview was read to the jury in the trial.
In the interview, Mr Satchwell claimed things between him and his wife altered after her brother, Tom, took his own life in 2012.
He said he believed she was planning to leave him after this. He said she had mentioned 200 or 300 times over the previous 15 years that she was going to leave.
He had left her in 1992 and spent some time in England. And he said she told him she wanted to get her own back on him.
But he said they then got their chihuahua, Ruby, and parrot, Pearl. He said this made her happy and he believed she had decided to stay until 2017.
He said he always knew she’d get her own back but he "never thought it would be like this".
He said there were rumours she had gone off with a Polish man, but he never believed them. He said Tina was the type of person who would strike up a conversation with anyone.
Mr Satchwell told Det Sgt Noonan there were difficulties in Ms Satchwell’s family. There had been allegations that a female relative of hers had been abused by a male relative. He said Ms Satchwell also believed that she had been "touched" herself as a child.
Mr Satchwell said Ms Satchwell could be mean and angry and sometimes hit him. He said he went to the doctor in 1994 with his face destroyed by scratches. The doctor told him he could leave or stick it out and he decided to stick it out.
At other times he said he had black eyes, bite marks, bites down his arm and cuts to his forehead. He said that made it sound bad, but when it was spread out over the 28 years he had known Ms Satchwell, it was not as bad.
He said he did not retaliate and he told the garda he did not keep tabs on his wife.
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Mr Satchwell was asked about works carried out in the couple’s house in Youghal. He said he had replaced all the windows and every step on the stairs as well as putting up new plasterboard. He said he had transformed an upstairs room into a walk-in wardrobe for his wife. He said he had been described as a jack of all trades and master of none.
Mr Satchwell described how the couple had gone to a car boot sale in Carrigtwohil on the day before Ms Satchwell went missing. They had got a pizza deal that night and she had talked about the items she hadn’t bought at the sale.
That night he said he ran his wife a bath, as he did every night. He said he would sit in the bathroom talking to her while she was in the bath. He would then rub baby oil into her body all over and spend 30 minutes massaging each of her feet.
He said she would often spend a lot of time crying before she went to sleep but he said there were no tears on the night before she went missing.
He said she cuddled into him and they went to sleep around midnight. The next morning she asked him to go to Dungarvan to get bird food and some fish and to call at a church to light a candle for their dead parrot, Pearl, who had died some months previously. He said when Pearl died it was like losing a child.
When he came back, he said his wife was gone. As the day went on he said he got some jumpiness in his stomach and checked again upstairs to find two suitcases were gone as well as €26,000 the couple had in savings. He said he didn’t sleep that night but spent the evening crying, as Ruby the chihuahua licked up his tears.
On 24 March, after finding that Ms Satchwell was not in Fermoy with relatives, he went to gardaí.
He told Det Sgt Noonan, that he believed one of two things would happen - she would just knock at a friend’s house, "probably with another fella" or a registered letter would arrive, demanding that he sold the house.
He said he believed Tina had been planning to leave in 2013, but when they got the parrot she was happy again. He said depression could do stupid things to you and he personally believed she was still out there.
