Arrest in Tina Satchwell disappearance case

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

Awful news.

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

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

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 🤨

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?

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

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.

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.

Cadaver dog

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.

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?

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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