Arrest in Tina Satchwell disappearance case

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121228612#Comment_121228612

I havent seen anything that confirms the body was found in the garden. I seen mention of it being it found in renovated area inside the house

cap.in.hand.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121228325#Comment_121228325

I was looking at it from the view what kind of obvious lack of mental capabilities that Richard had to sustain this situation in his home

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121228612#Comment_121228612

Are detectives (decent or otherwise) routinely assigned to missing persons cases?

John_Rambo

Awful news.

How did he hide the smell & avoid flies (if the poor woman was interred in the house).

Day Lewin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121229037#Comment_121229037

Well - there have been several mentions of concrete. I'd rather not imagine the details, but....

BorneTobyWilde

WHat a joke, a one legged cadaver dog with half a nose, and no ears could have found her on day one

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230123#Comment_121230123

Could you list the cases where cadaver dogs have been used on the first day a person is reported missing? Even one and the dog can have even more than 1 leg.

calculator

Watching his cork red fm interview on YT He doesn't come across well.

65535

Not sure if ye know - if it does contravine or do anything wrong then delete - thanks.

Heard from a reliable source....

Engineer was in the house that was up for sale next door and had to do an infra red scan to determine the insulation level of that house next door.

The BER rating is normal for a house that is up for sale.

The BER Engineer found 'anomolies' in the wall which triggered the current investigation.

No idea why suspect was released but that may have been difficulty in getting the actual evidence that was so well hidden.

A judge would have had to have given the go-ahead to do the digging as they had a 3 week window given to them but only needed 3 days it seems.

IsaacWunder

God, but this really is Keystone Cops stuff. Some choice quotes from today’s papers:

Irish Times:

The remains were found at about 9pm on Wednesday night by Garda scenes of crime examiners. They used kango hammers, pickaxes and shovels to break up and remove a concrete floor in a stairwell on the ground floor of a three-storey house on Grattan Street after a cadaver dog got a scent through the concrete. The homeowner is understood to have had a brick wall built beside the stairs to close off a side view to the stairwell. Gardaí believe the works were carried out shortly after Ms Satchwell’s disappearance as it was noted when they searched the house in June 2017 as part of the investigation. The construction of the sidewall after Ms Satchwell’s disappearance in March 2017 was picked up by detectives carrying out a review of the investigation file in recent months. It was one of the first areas a search team examined after entering the property on Tuesday. They found the decomposed body buried in earth almost a metre down…

Similar story in the Irish Independent:

The remains, understood to involve an almost complete skeleton, were found in an area underneath the stairwell. Gardaí had to carefully excavate the space, which appeared to have been walled-in.

And the cherry of incompetence on top, after previously confirming to the press they were searching Tina Satchwell’s home, the following quote is in today’s Irish Independent also:

Gardaí said it was too early to speculate over the identity of the individual. However, DNA cross-reference samples were on standby, and detectives hope to know by early today who the remains are.

Too early to speculate 🤨

Xander10

If the stairwell was freshly bricked up, when the Gardai carried out a search 3 months after the reported disappeance, then there search was inadequate.

Field east

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230205#Comment_121230205

Can a cadaver smell a body that is buried and decomposing for , say , only Two weeks. And how long does it take for the required smell to permeate through one metre of soil and maybe also the body wrapped in plastic?

Day Lewin

I've just googled a few questions ;like "How deep can a cadaver dog smell a corpse?" etc

and wow -- they are remarkable animals.

Apparently, (depending on the breed, which is important) some can smell a body up to 15 feet underground! (4 to 5 meters)

and some can even smell a body from decades ago.

But it is not an exact science - also depends on the type of training the dog received. So not always admissible in courtroom evidence.

Gusser09

If the body has been there all along then the Gardai have a lot to answer for.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230853#Comment_121230853

FFS,why?

The Gardai don't have the resources nor the authority to dig up everywhere they can think of in missing persons cases.

Mo Ghile Mear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230684#Comment_121230684

If you had never been in his house before (which they hadn’t) they wouldn’t know it was freshly done. The search was 3 months after her disappearance so it wouldn’t look fresh. And he may have covered it over with wallboard and wallpaper. It could have been completed during the 4 days before he reported her missing.

Ozvaldo

..

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230942#Comment_121230942

pure incompetence

Posters continue claiming that AGS messed up here (& I'd be the first to agree if they did) but they had no legal grounds to start ripping apart a private property.

airy fairy

Did the search of his house after her disappearance include bringing a dog to search?

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230959#Comment_121230959

Why would you bring a dog in a missing persons case?

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230853#Comment_121230853

Think about all the people that go missing every year in Ireland. You seem to think the gardai should rip all their families houses apart?

You do realise how much this would cost to do and put the houses back together after.

Its my understanding that the Satchwells had been renovating the house bit by bit at the time - they were not that long living there. Its possible building work was not considered odd rightly or wrongly. He even bloody allowed the primetime cameras into his house to do a piece on her disapearance - thats how brazen and confident he was.

airy fairy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230965#Comment_121230965

The house was searched 3 months after her disappearance, why would they search the house at all in a missing persons case if that's the logic.

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231031#Comment_121231031

Exactly they obviously had enough of a suspicion to search the house yet didn't find the body then. That to me is incompetent. To some poster on here AGS can do no wrong though.

It was a small enough terrace in Cork. Not the bloody Aras in the Phoenix Park.

Mantis Toboggan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230965#Comment_121230965

Cadaver dog

airy fairy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231102#Comment_121231102

Did they bring a dog along back then? If not, why not, and if there was a dog, how was a scent not picked up then and it was the other day?

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231128#Comment_121231128

So the gardai should automatically assume that everyone who is reported missing was murdered and should pretty much declare that by bring feckin cadaver dogs to a missing persons house?

The house had been undergoing various renovations so the new work whilst curious was not something completely out of the ordinary.

People honestly need to think about the legal routes that must be followed and that people are innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.

Wildsurfer

For some reason I thought this was a case from the 80s or 90s, never realised it was so recent. Looks like he got caught out by accident, 'material' found by ground workers next door handed over to AGS led to it being upgraded to a murder investigation.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231314#Comment_121231314

But in order for it to become a murder investigation, you need to have something that gives you an actual reason to think it was murder. There is no point just upgrading a case to a murder investigation unless you have fairly solid leads and clearly up till now they didn't despite the accusations in previous posts of incompetence, etc.

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230853#Comment_121230853

You need to update your knowledge of what the Garda can and cannot do. Making wild assumptions won't help.

Day Lewin

I genuinely think that the Guards were suspicious all along; the whole story was suspicious, and the lady vanished without trace, not a whisp ever seen again, no activity, nothing.

And the husband acted strangely all along too.

Officially, only a "Missing Persons" but in the background, the possibility of murder was always present. We may not presuppose the verdict of a court case, but ~~~ any reasonable citizen could see how the wind was blowing, right from the start.

Still can't understand how they missed the concreting-in; you don't have to be a cadaver dog to smell new cement, fresh plaster, paint.

road_high

I do find it difficult to reconcile the body being there in the (relatively small) house and AGS effectively walking by it and on seemingly several occasions. If that wasn’t procedure then the procedure is wrong in my opinion

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231392#Comment_121231392

I genuinely think that the Guards were suspicious all along; the whole story was suspicious, and the lady vanished without trace, not a whisp ever seen again, no activity, nothing.

Weren't some members of AGS seen in a pub joking about RS's claims? I believe that everyone in the force were suspicious but there was nothing they could go on to take it further.

odyssey06

If a warrant was needed for 'invasive' searches. Is there any non invasive technology that could have been used that might have detected something suspicious?

The house was examined by AGS, so the Guards have authority \ permission to do that? Just not invasively?

JeffKenna

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230977#Comment_121230977

But surely that same logic would apply for the guards spending a month digging up Castlemartyr Woods looking for her body? What the hell were they doing and how much did that cost?

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231695#Comment_121231695

It still would have cost a packet but much less than the same kind of search inside a private dwelling.

road_high

Read something about next doors survey doing an infra red survey of the walls and something showed up- why in the name of heavens not do something similar?

JeffKenna

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231729#Comment_121231729

Golly I don't know, I would have thought the pay/overtime was the big cost in all these operations. 4 weeks versus the few days it took. Not to mention the technology they mentioned on the Sunday World podcast yesterday. That should have been done on the house before any dig in Castlemartyr.

the.red.baron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121228752#Comment_121228752

why

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231791#Comment_121231791

No doubt the Catlemartyr search did cost alot. The cost of reinstating a house though would be far higher - Do you know what building work costs nowadays - its shockingly high.

There is also the possibility of ripping a house apart and finding nothing and being sued by the owner. So it can be very costly from a machinery, labour, construction and legal costs point of view.

Definitely the gardai should have used dogs and maybe scanning equipment given that nobody seen Tina leave the house despite her living in a town and there being no CCTV footage of her anywhere.

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231821#Comment_121231821

Gardai watching him, and wouldn't let it happen. They aren't just going to release their prime suspect and allow him to flee/kill himself.

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231827#Comment_121231827

Search in the woods far outweighs the cost involved in doing simple repairs to the house. They knew exactly where they needed to look. Everyone in this thread knew where to look without even being in the house.

road_high

Search in the woods would be far more expensive as it’s a vast area- far bigger time and resources needed

the.red.baron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231387#Comment_121231387

where did you get your knowledge? because they can certainly use a shovel

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231947#Comment_121231947

Ripping a house structurally apart and putting back is a huge cost. Digging a defined area in the woods isnt the same cost at all and there is very little threat of being sued if nothing found.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231947#Comment_121231947

No they didn't know. People had suspicions but only one person knew where Tina's body was. People are making absurd claims about what should have happened and how AGS are incompetent, etc and really need to think about the approach constrained by what most call "the law". Gardai aren't given search warrants because a house that had undergone various minor repairs while the couple lived there showed signs of minor repairs. How many wrong digs are the gardai allowed to undertake (based on absolutely no credible information) before people start saying "hang on a minute"?

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121232103#Comment_121232103

They did. You'll see that when further details are released.

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121232067#Comment_121232067

It's not really that big of a cost. There's not really that much damage done.

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121232053#Comment_121232053

I read up on things and so can you. Until every other scenario is exhausted and unless they have good information they can't just rock up and get a search warrant. Fred West was suspected for years and his home was searched but there was no invasive search for years until someone came forward. Then they found loads of bodies in the walls and patios of his home.

A quick google search of people going missing in Ireland - 2019 -- 9,506 people, 2020 -- 8,497 people, 2021 -- 9,598, 2022 -- 10,512. That's a lot of enquiries home and abroad, searches etc. Imagine if many of those needed cadaver dogs, warrants etc. In these investigations the Garda need help from the public, foreign police, Interpol etc.

A young girl in Dundalk, Ciara Breen, disappeared in 1997. I am very familiar with the case as I knew her mother and kept in touch with her until she died without knowing what happened to her daughter (only child). The Garda are still trying to find her and a year or two ago cadaver dogs were used in a very swampy area with no luck unfortunately. They followed up hundreds of leads even false claims made by cranks (and there were plenty of those) and are still actively investigation her disappearance but no break has come as yet. I am aware that they even found a couple of people who disappeared and didn't want to be found but not Ciara.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121232185#Comment_121232185

The boards.ie definition of "sure everyone knew" is unlikely to meet the legal threshold for probable cause.

The absolute worst outcome in these cases is the murderer walking away thanks to a detective warrant or botched search.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121232067#Comment_121232067

You keep on saying ripping apart structurally. There's nothing structurally about a free standing non loadbearing wall under a staircase. Stop blowing the costs out of wack.

Drilling a hole in a wall, even knocking one block out to examine other side is cost in the hundreds.

There's a procedural gap here for the guards to update their policies. It's a gapping hole excuse the pun. But future cases like this should mean a policy change and spec to seek a warrant should be changed. If this new building Work didn't breach the spec then the spec needs updating or refinement.

Based on what the public have been told i believe a judge would have granted exploratory work confined to this area.

They didn't seek that, he got away with it. Pure luck or fortune changed that. And not actions of the authorities