Richard Satchwell: Tina suffering from undiagnosed depression

THE husband of missing woman Tina Satchwell has said that his wife was suffering from undiagnosed depression when she disappeared but that they had a long-running understanding that she would never go on anti-depressants.

In an interview with Ireland AM on TV3 this morning, Richard indicated that Tina, aged 45, had experienced a number of personal upheavals over the last 10 to 12 years.

Tina Satchwell

However, he said that he was too close to her to realise the extent of her upset before she went missing from their home in Youghal in March of last year.

“One of Tina’s biggest fears was ever ending up on anti-depressants. That was the one thing she made me promise I would never make her have. That was kind of from day one. Her best friend told me Monday that she did know that Tina was upset and depressed,” he said.

“We celebrated our 25th anniversary just before the Christmas and everything was good. People who looked at photographs of that Christmas day (before she went missing) who know her said you can see the upset in her eyes. When you are living so close to it you don’t see everything that is going on.

No sign

“I didn’t have any sign. One week after she went away I went to a local car boot sale and a lot of the people from the car boot sale told me that she was going around the car boot sale on the Sunday (before she disappeared) saying ‘I love Richard I would never do anything to hurt him.’ That was the day before.”

Mr Satchwell said that life was beginning to weigh down on Tina but that they had no issue with their marital relationship.

“From time to time she had turned around and said that ‘If I ever decide to get up and go and you come after me I will go to the guards.’ But then twenty minutes later she would be like ‘I didn’t really say that.’ It was the way she was.

“One minute she could be sitting down laughing and the next she could be crying. There is a lot of stuff happened over a spell of 10 or 12 years within the family which one step on top of the other was beginning to weigh down on Tina herself.”

Gardai searching at Mitchel's Wood, Castlemartyr, Co. Cork for evidence relating to the disappearance of Tina Satchwell. The search began this week and is expected to last at least a fortnight.

Pic Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision

Mr Satchwell said he waited four days to report Tina missing because he wanted to give her space. When he realised that she was not with family in Fermoy, he said “the entire floor” fell away from under him.

He said he couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t make contact and stressed that he wasn’t mentally strong enough to deal with the possibility of her being dead.

He said he is virtually in constant contact with the guards and doesn’t consider himself a suspect in the case. He said that he feels “a spark of hope” every time the gardaí contact him. He added that he is utterly bereft and “lost” without his wife.

“We did everything together, not having that anymore it is lonely. Every job, she would always come out with me. Even in the lorries and stuff.”

Gardaí began a search of Mitchel’s Wood in Castlemartyr on Monday in connection with Tina’s disappearance. It is expected to last at least two weeks.