Man (50s) arrested in connection with 2017 disappearance of Tina Satchwell

Gardaí investigating the disappearance of Tina Satchwell in Co Cork six years ago have arrested a man for questioning and sealed off a house in Youghal.

Detectives arrested the man, aged in his 50s, in Youghal shortly after 5pm on Tuesday and brought him to Cobh Garda station. He is being held under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, which allows gardaí detain suspects for up to 24 hours before they have to be charged or released.

Garda sources indicated that the arrest and the search of the property are the result of a detailed review of evidence already gathered in the investigation, which was being treated as a missing person case but was recently reclassified as a murder investigation.

Garda technical experts cordoned off the man’s residence in Youghal and scenes of crime examiners, equipped with chainsaws, hedge trimmers, kango hammers, shovels, pickaxes and other digging tools, entered the property and began a major search.

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It is understood the operation will involve the clearing of undergrowth from a garden area and the excavation of a concrete yard at the rear of the house. A cadaver dog is due to assist with the search of the outside areas and the interior of the house.

The arrest is the first by gardaí investigating the disappearance of Ms Satchell, who was 45-years-old when she went missing on March 20th, 2017 from the home she shared with her husband, Richard Satchwell, on Grattan Street in Youghal.

Mr Satchwell told gardaí that he brought his wife tea and toast at around 10am that day and she asked him to go to Aldi in Dungarvan to get some shopping. He said that when he returned two hours later, she was gone and he did not hear from her again.

“It wasn’t unusual for her to turn around and ask me to go shopping, I thought nothing of it at the time. When I came back the keys were on the ground,” he said previously.

In an interview on Ireland AM in 2018, Mr Satchwell said that while his wife had suffered from undiagnosed depression, she had a huge fear of ending up on anti-depressants. 

“That was the one thing she made me promise I would never make her have,” he said.

Mr Satchwell also told gardaí that two suitcases were missing as well of items of Ms Satchwell’s clothing and some €26,000 in cash from the sale of their previous home and the proceeds of car boot sales. However, Ms Satchwell’s beloved dogs, Ruby and Heidi, were still at home.

A native of Fermoy, Ms Satchwell, then Tina Dingivan, travelled to the UK in the 1980s and while living with her grandmother in Leicester met Mr Satchwell, whose brother lived nearby. The couple married in Oldham in 1990 before later moving to Fermoy and later Youghal.

Ms Satchwell’s disappearance led to a huge investigation in which gardaí followed 400 lines of inquiry, viewed more than 100 hours of CCTV footage and took some 170 witness statements. They also examined Mr Satchwell’s home and car but found no clues to his wife’s disappearance.

Reports that a person matching Ms Satchwell’s description was seen with another person at Mitchel’s Wood at Bridgemount in Castlemartyr led to a 12 day search of 40 acres of woodland by 60 garda in March 2018 but failed to find any trace of the missing woman.

Anyone who may have any information that can assist the investigation is asked to contact Midleton Garda Station on (021) 4621550.