No cause of death could be determined for Cork woman, Tina Satchwell, due to the length of time that had passed since she died, the Central Criminal Court has been told.
Ms Satchwell was reported missing by her husband Richard Satchwell in March 2017. Her remains were found buried under the stairs in their home in Youghal, Co Cork in October 2023. Mr Satchwell denies her murder.
The court heard this morning from Assistant State Pathologist, Dr Margaret Bolster who examined Ms Satchwell's remains after their discovery.
Dr Bolster helped in the excavation of the body on 12 October 2023 and carried out a post-mortem examination that night and the following morning.
She said the body was wrapped in black plastic when it was discovered. Before it was moved, they wrapped the remains in further black plastic and put it in a black body bag.
She said underneath the black plastic, the body was wrapped in a soiled sheet and bones could be seen protruding. The body was wearing a dressing gown, and a gold coloured purse with a "playboy" logo was recovered from the pocket of the gown.
Dr Bolster said she cut the belt from the dressing gown in order to examine the body. She said the belt was in an "unusual position". The belt extended over the left side of the neck, under the right shoulder and right arm, under the body and was then knotted on the front of the chest. She said it was quite taut and was not threaded through the loops of the dressing gown.
Dr Bolster told the court a number of pieces of glass were recovered from Ms Satchwell’s body - from her chest, arm and skull. Four pieces of glass were taken from her scalp and five from the rest of her body.
No fractures were identified on Ms Satchwell’s body. Her skull was not fractured and the small hyoid bone in the neck was intact. Dr Bolster added that damage to this bone would be seen in 24% of cases involving strangling using a ligature but the figure could be as high as 73% in cases of "manual strangulation" or throttling.
There was no damage to Ms Satchwell’s hands. And she said there was no evidence of bruising in the very small amount of muscle remaining on the body.
Dr Bolster said that due to the long interval after Ms Satchwell’s death, a cause of death could not be determined. She said the significance of the presence of the dressing gown belt over the front of the neck was unclear as significant moving and wrapping of the body had taken place after death.
The jury was shown a video and photographs of Detective Garda David Kelleher with a belt around him which Dr Bolster said was a reconstruction carried out to clarify the position of the belt when she saw the body.
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Dr Bolster said it was "not the usual way you put on a dressing gown". She agreed with defence counsel, Brendan Grehan that one could say it was neither around the neck nor around the body alone.
She also agreed with Mr Grehan that it was like something used to carry a body. She said it was difficult to move a deceased body around the place and she had very often found that "ligatures were used as leverage to move bodies around the place".
She said it was not possible to say where the glass found on Ms Satchwell’s body had come from.
Dr Bolster said she had carried out around 30,000 post mortem examinations in her career so far.
Det Gda Kelleher was asked about examining the dressing gown and belt again in February this year. The court heard that gardaí searched the pockets of the dressing gown looking for a wedding ring which Mr Satchwell had told them he had buried with his wife but did not find a ring.
The court also heard from Doctor Deirdre O'Grady who had been asked to see if she had any records of treating Tina Satchwell in the 1990s and return to court.
She said she had no such notes eventhough she had treated Ms Satchwell and she said she was a meticulous note keeper. She said Ms Satchwell could have taken them to give to another doctor or they could have been culled when she moved premises.
She said she had no recollection of Ms Satchwell telling her her husband had taken an overdose in the 1990s. She said that would be clearly something she would recall.
And she said she had no recollection either of him coming to see her with scratches on his face from Tina’s nails and telling him to stick it or leave her. She said those would not be words she would use in those circumstances.
