Gardaí are reviewing the criminal investigations into the murders of Tina Satchwell and Michael Gaine, whose bodies were not found during initial searches but were later discovered in the location they had vanished from.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said a report would be compiled for Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan on the Satchwell case and that the Gaine case was undergoing a “peer review”.
Richard Satchwell (58) was on Wednesday jailed for life for the 2017 murder of his wife, Tina. Her skeletal remains were found in a deep grave under the stairs of the couple’s Co Cork home in October 2023, more than six years after her husband reported her missing.
Last month, in a separate case, the remains of Kerry farmer Mike Gaine (56) were discovered in a slurry tank on his farmyard just outside Kenmare, two months after he vanished from the farmyard. His remains were initially found after slurry was taken from the tank for spreading on nearby fields.
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In the Gaine case, the farmyard was searched in late March as part of the first phase of investigation, after Mr Gaine was reported missing.
In the case of Ms Satchwell, gardaí visited her home and searched it in 2017, though they did not seek to intrusively examine an area where construction work had just been carried out.
“We are subjecting the Michael Gaine investigation to a peer review because I think there’s learning for us around those who commit crime and then attempt to dispose of the body, and often are successful in disposing of the body,” Mr Harris said, speaking to the media at the Garda College, Templemore, Co Tipperary, on Friday.
While gardaí from time-to-time carry out “lessons learned” reviews of investigations, the two murder inquiry reviews now taking place follow serious concerns being raised about both cases over the quality of searches carried out that failed to locate the bodies.
The Gaine review is perhaps the more notable of the two as it is highly unusual for gardaí to peer review an inquiry that is still ongoing, especially a murder inquiry where criminal charges are still hoped for.
Asked if a cadaver dog should have been brought into the Satchwell home in Cork in 2017, especially as there were clear signs significant construction work had just been carried out that should also have aroused suspicion, Mr Harris said: “it’s very early for me to make a judgment on that”.
“We want to review that ourselves. We have the expertise within the organisation and obviously then we’ll report on that to the Minister and the Policing and Community Safety Authority.
“But I think there’s definitely lessons we wish to learn from all these homicides; where it’s a missing persons (investigation) and then it converts in time to a homicide investigation. We’ve seen a real pattern around that in recent years.”
This week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said it took gardaí “longer than maybe ordinarily” to conclude the Satchwell case, and he believed the inquiry, which missed the victim’s remains for so long, should be evaluated internally.
Mr Harris pointed out that although the investigation into the Tina Satchwell disappearance in 2017 did not discover her remains, it yielded a significant amount of information. That evidence was then used for a subsequent review of the case, which resulted in her remains being found and the murder conviction being secured.
Mr Harris also pointed out when the initial search was carried out at the Satchwell home in 2017, a forensic analyst accompanied gardaí. They were looking for “blood spatter” – which would have revealed the murder at the house – but none was found.
Also speaking to the media in Templemore, where 120 new gardaí graduated on Friday, Mr O’Callaghan said he was very pleased the Satchwell case had concluded with the victim’s remains being found and a murder conviction secured.
However, it would always be “preferable if murders were solved sooner than was the case” with the Satchwell murder, he said.
