The search team looking for the remains of Cork woman Tina Satchwell discovered a human hand after a garda noticed an area of floor where new concrete had been poured.
The Central Criminal Court has been hearing details of the search for Ms Satchwell in October 2023.
She had been reported missing by her husband Richard Satchwell in March 2017. He denies her murder.
The court heard the search of the Satchwells' house at Grattan Street in Youghal on 10 October 2023 had been planned a number of weeks previously.
Unlike the previous search of the property in June 2017, this time the Garda Technical Bureau was involved.
Forensic Archaeologist Doctor Niamh McCullagh had been asked in September 2022, by the new investigating officer Superintendent Ann Marie Twomey to carry out a review of the investigation into Ms Satchwell's disappearance.
Her specific goal, she said, was to look at locations where human remains could have been clandestinely concealed.
She filed her final report in September the following year and recommended that gardaí should look at the probability that Ms Satchwell was killed at home and concealed there.
She recommended they should conduct another search the Satchwells’ home.
Watch: RTÉ's Legal Affairs correspondent Órla O'Donnell reports from court
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She said this search should be more invasive than the initial search in June 2017.
She recommended it should be "extensive, systematic and invasive" and should look at the plasterboard, the stairs, the ground floor sitting room and an extension outside.
Dr McCullagh also recommended the use of a cadaver dog.
She told defence counsel Brendan Grehan that she had access to all the investigation material, including photographs showing structural changes to the house and a statement describing a wheelie bin full of stones in the rear yard.
She said her research into "concealed homicides" showed that female victims were disposed closer to their own home addresses than males and were disposed of within 1km of their home address or at their home address.
Dr McCullagh said she was requested to lead the search in October 2023, from a forensic archaeology perspective.
She said they started on the top floor and used equipment such as ground penetrating radar and metal detectors.
Gda Brian Barry was one of the technical bureau team who attended the house on the evening of 10 October.
He said the plan had been to take down plasterboard on the walls and to demolish an extension at the back of the house, in a search that was scheduled to take a week.
On the first evening, trained cadaver dog "Fern" had shown significant interest in an area around the bottom of the stairs leading from the ground floor to the first floor.
Gda Barry said he did not check under the stairs at that point as there was a lot of clutter up against it, including a couch and a cement mixer which had to be removed.
On the following evening, 11 October, Gda Barry said he had been discussing the ongoing search with the builders, including the plans to demolish the extension.
Ground penetrating radar had already been used on the area under the stairs and had not detected anything.
However, Gda Barry said while he was chatting with the builders, he was looking at the brick wall built at the side of the stairs, which he said "looked like it was built by someone who didn't know how to build walls".
He decided to use strong lighting to have another look under the stairs along with the builder James McNamara.
At that stage he noticed new concrete on part of the floor. He said this was very suspicious to him and he asked the builder to take out the kango hammers and break the concrete.
He said the soil underneath was very sandy and easy to dig.
The builders exposed black plastic around 64 centimetres down and Gda Barry said this was "very significant" and he told the builders to stop digging.
Gda Barry said the hole was unusually deep.
Forensic archaeologists were called in and began further exposing the hole and the black plastic contained within it.
Dr McCullagh described to the court how she carried out her work – she said she could see evidence of human-made interference within the natural order of the soil.
At a depth of around .7metres, she found human bones and it was clear she said that this was a potential clandestine grave which needed a full forensic investigation.
Gda Barry said he saw a human hand and at that point it was decided to resume the operation the next day.
The following day builders removed the brick wall partitioning under the stairs from the rest of the living room.
The Assistant State Pathologist and Forensic Anthropologist arrived and the full remains of Ms Satchwell were uncovered.
Dr McCullagh said the body was decomposed with some surviving soft tissue and fabric observed.
It was covered in plastic sheeting which had been folded over the body and they removed the body from the scene, still wrapped in the sheeting.
She told defence counsel Brendan Grehan that the grave looked "approximately" like a conventional grave dug in a graveyard but the dimensions were larger than required for the "body bundle" contained within it.
She said a stone slab found at the scene was at the head of the body.
The manager of the crime scene, retired Detective Sergeant Shane Curran, said discovering the clandestine burial of human remains buried so deep in the ground was unusual as he said the average depth of "clandestine burials" in the last 25 years was usually around 53 cm or less than two feet.
He said this was "very very deep". The soil was described as sandy and very easy to dig.
Sergeant Curran said in the last 25 years, 20 individuals had been found in clandestine burials – "secreted, or hidden away".
Gda Karen McCarthy took possession of a number of items during the post-mortem examination carried out on the remains.
She gave evidence that the body had been wrapped in a blanket as well as the plastic sheeting.
Ms Satchwell had been wearing a dressing gown and pyjamas.
Gda McCarthy said there was a purse in the left pocket of the dressing gown containing a public service card in Tina Satchwell’s name as well as a Holland and Barrett reward card, an Xtravision membership card, a Tesco clubcard and a Boots advantage card as well as identification from the Rathcormac car boot sale.
Gda McCarthy said she also took possession of a dressing gown belt as well as small shards of glass from Ms Satchwell’s head and arm and a bellybutton piercing.
The trial will continue tomorrow.
