Latest: 'My wife could be behind those barriers': Richard Satchwell visits Castlemartyr search site
The husband of missing woman Tina Satchwell has visited a site which is being searched as part of the investigation into the disappearance of his wife.
A cordon was imposed around Mitchel's Wood, at Bridgetown, just outside Castlemartyr village Monday for an operation that could take up to three weeks.
Richard Satchwell said visiting the area today made him feel sick.
"I feel sick [at the thought her remain might be there]," he told TV3 News.
"My wife could be behind those barriers."
Tina Satchwell went missing from the couple's home in Youghal, last year.
Her husband said he is finding the search "difficult".
"I am even more frightful. I'm not a religious man but at night I'm having a little prayer," he said.
He said the couple never visited the woods in Castlemartyr together, and he had never been there before himself.
"It's a place that we've never been. This is the first time I've ever stopped off here."
Exclusive. : Richard Satchwell visits the site where #Gardai are searching for his #missing wife #TinaSatchwell. See #3News @5.30 & on b3 @7&10 pic.twitter.com/F2NinWm1Oh
— Paul Byrne (@PaulByrne_1) March 8, 2018
Earlier: Richard Satchwell: Tina had undiagnosed depression, but did not want anti-depressants
By Olivia Kelleher
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 (45) had experienced a number of personal upheavals over the last 10 to 12 years.
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, Co Cork 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.
"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."
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 told Ireland AM that 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 gardai 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."
Meanwhile, a search for information in the case which got underway on Monday at Mitchel's Wood in Castlemartyr, Co Cork continues.
Supt Colm Noonan has appealed to members of the public who may have noticed activity at the wood this time last year to come forward.
"I would like members of the public who have any information in relation to activity here at Mitchel's Wood during March 2017 to contact the gardai. We can be contacted at Midleton Garda Station at 021 462 1550 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 66611."
Mrs Satchwell is originally from Fermoy in Co Cork, and is described as 5ft 6in tall, of medium build with blonde shoulder-length hair and blue eyes.
Following her disappearance, gardaí carried out a full forensic examination of her property. They have also examined her mobile phone records and bank accounts to see if there has been any activity since her disappearance.
Since her disappearance, members of the Garda Water Unit have carried out a series of dives just off the quays in Youghal. The North Cork Garda Divisional Search team also joined with an army search team from Collins Barracks in Cork to comb scrubland on Golf Links Road in Youghal.
In January, gardaí ruled out any link between her disappearance and the discovery of two suitcases near her home four months later.
Tina Satchwell was reported missing from her home in in Youghal on March 24, 2017 last by her husband Richard who said she failed to come home four days earlier.
In July of last year Mr Satchwell contacted gardaí to say he had found two suitcases which looked like ones belonging to Tina at a clothes bank in the Tesco carpark in Youghal.
The luggage was sent to the Forensic Science Ireland laboratory for examination. Following DNA analysis detectives are now satisfied that they did not belong to Ms Satchwell and are not linked to her or her disappearance.
