940 missing: Are there lessons from the Gaine or Satchwell cases?

RTÉ News​

10-07-2025

Gardaí are reviewing the initial investigations into the cases of Tina Satchwell and Michael Gaine – both were treated as missing persons enquiries before being reclassified as murder investigations.
In each, initial searches failed to locate them.
Tina Satchwell was later found buried under the stairs of her home and Michael Gaine's remains were discovered on his farm, not far from where his jeep was parked.
These are just two of the latest cases where missing people were eventually found close to where they were last seen, after extensive searches.
An Garda Síochána told Prime Time that 940 people are currently listed as missing on the Garda Pulse system. So could some of them be found, if fresh thinking, new tools, or different investigative techniques were applied?
For 17 years Barry Coughlan's body rested in his car, upside down on the riverbed five metres from a pier in Crosshaven in county Cork.
The 23-year-old was last seen alive less than 100 metres from where his body lay hidden by water. His disappearance was totally out of character.
His sister Donna remembers a younger brother who was full of life.
"He was a trawlerman. He'd work for weeks and then he'd come home for a little break. But he spent most of his time at sea."
She said Barry was working hard and saving for a mortgage, "Barry was very easygoing. He loved socialising. He loved his job. His job was his life."
Donna was 18 months older than Barry. It was just the two of them growing up, with no other brothers or sisters, and she said he "was a massive massive part of my life."
"We were closer as adults. When Barry disappeared, I had two small children. I can't even explain what it's like. From 2004 my life was consumed by a missing person, from my twenties to my forties."
Donna Coughlan spoke to Prime Time in the wake of the recent cases of Tina Satchwell and Michael Gaine.
Each case struck a particular chord with the Coughlan family, given similarities with their anguish. Barry's body lay undiscovered for 17 years, just a stone's throw from where he was last sighted.
The search for Barry
Barry was last seen leaving the Moonduster Pub close to the harbour in Crosshaven on 30 April 2004. His Toyota Corolla vanished along with him.
The initial search for Barry and his car involved an extensive search of land in the area, and also a search of the water in the River Owenabue, where the river mouth opens up into the harbour in the village.
It was natural that searchers would explore the local waters, given Barry disappeared so close to the river.
There were a number of locations where a car might have entered the water. But despite searches in 2004, and subsequent searches down the years, no trace of Barry was found. That was until volunteers returned in 2021 with a new sonar to search waters they previously searched without success.
Donna says she is thankful to gardaí who also stuck with Barry's case down the years, but says there must be lessons from cases when missing persons are found in circumstances like her brother's.
"The guards came straight away. They did help us, but I just feel that they didn't have enough resources and they weren't experienced enough in a missing person case. They didn't know where to start, just like ourselves. We didn't know where to start."
The Coughlan family spent years following up leads. They visited every fishing port in Ireland, and they travelled to homeless shelters in the UK. People phoned in tips to the Garda Confidential Line as to where Barry might be, and the family and gardaí pursued the leads, but they led nowhere.
The Cork City Missing Persons Search and Recovery group were long aware of Barry's case. The team of 20 volunteers have recovered the bodies of a number of missing persons. They operate 365 days a year.
With a number of the volunteers having been touched by tragedy down the years, they are driven to find people, they are relentless. On the morning of 26 May 2021, a team of volunteers went searching in Crosshaven.
It was a good day to search as local fishermen had steamed up to Cork city to hold a protest about the EU Common Fisheries Policy. It meant the water in the Owenabue was more still than usual, and it meant the volunteers deploying a sonar into the water could be done quietly, with little fuss.
"We headed out west to Camden Fort Meagher and then deployed the sonar out there," said Christy O'Donovan, one of the volunteers.
Christy shows Prime Time the sonar, an orange-coloured piece of underwater kit which is about a foot long.
"It's a towed sonar, the Starfish 990 F. We put it out the back of the boat. It works best when about three metres from the bottom of the river or sea bed and it gives a scan twenty metres either direction," he told Prime Time.
"That day we were travelling slowly, we were crawling, going two or three knots. We were searching about an hour along the coastline, when we came along by Hugh Coveney Pier, and that's when I saw something on the screen. It was manmade, I felt it was a car."
The day of the sonar 'indication', and back on land and after studying the images over and over, a decision was made to send down a dive team with two volunteers – Dave Varian and Dave O'Leary – descending to the riverbed.
"They were down maybe three or four minutes and Dave Varian came up with a partial number plate - 98 C."
The divers went down again and retrieved a hubcap.
Back on the pier Barry's brother-in-law Kieran scraped away the dirt to reveal the hubcap came from a Toyota Carolla. That night the volunteers stayed on the pier, not wanting to leave Barry alone any longer.
"He was alone and missing for 17 years. We stayed on the pier, we lit a candle," said Christy.
It was the following day that the car was brought to the surface by the Garda Water Unit. Barry's remains were still inside the vehicle.
"I'm very sad, you know, that he wasn't found sooner. Because he was so close," Donna Coughlan told Prime Time.
Last November an inquest jury found that Barry's death by drowning was accidental.
Barry's case is not the first in county Cork where the body of a missing person was found in their car years after they disappeared.
In March 1990 Fermoy businessman William Fennessy disappeared. It wasn't until 2012 that his body was found by chance in his car which was located in the river Blackwater by members of a local volunteer Search and Rescue team conducting a routine dive.
And yet mystery still surrounds the whereabouts of a Toyota Cressida and its owners, Conor and Sheila Dwyer, a married couple who vanished from Fermoy in April 1991.
Given the lessons in the cases of William Fennessy and Barry Coughlan, it has long been considered possible that the Dwyers may rest in their vehicle, wherever it is.
In the meantime, while An Garda Síochána investigate - and have a lot of their own search equipment, including types of sonar - the access some search tools which have given families like the Coughlans answers after decades, comes through volunteers like Christy O'Donovan.
Tina Satchwell's case
Fermoy was also the location where now convicted murderer Richard Satchwell tried to pull the wool over the eyes of Gardaí. It was at the local Garda station, four days after he murdered his wife, that he reported Tina had left their home.
The recent trial, which led to his conviction, heard how the first search of the couple's home in Youghal in June 2017 had failed to find any trace of Tina.
The second search of the property, six years later, in October 2023, found Tina's body buried beneath concrete under the stairs.
The first search did not use a cadaver dog. An Garda Síochána does not have its own cadaver dog. For the second search detectives borrowed a dog – Fern – who travelled to county Cork with her handler from the PSNI.
Fern showed significant interest in the bottom steps of the stairs of the property, close to where Tina's body was later found.
Meeting Fern
At the PSNI training facility in County Antrim, five-year-old Fern and her handler Alan Ward, gave me a demonstration of her search capabilities.
Mr Ward hid two human teeth in amongst small stones and, after a few moments Fern found them, lay down quiet and still beside the teeth, not touching them, but leaning her nose right beside them.
She only released from that pose when Mr Ward gave a command, and she was then given a tennis ball to play with. It's both surreal and impressive that the important work that Fern does is rewarded simply by a play with a ball.
"Fern is five, she was five in March, and she was a rescue dog" said Alan as he walked alongside a very sprightly Fern.
"She's a little bit mad as all springers are. Mad keen to work."
Fern is trained to detect dead bodies, body parts and body fluids. Mr Ward and Fern gave me a second demonstration where she found a bloodied piece of gauze hidden beneath a couch.
Fern has assisted Gardaí on a number of recent searches for bodies of missing persons believed to have been murdered. Most recently she attended the scene of an unsuccessful search in Clondalkin in west Dublin where detectives were trying to find the body of Annie McCarrick who vanished in Dublin in 1993.
Calls to improve search methods
Now retired Chief Superintendent Christy Mangan, the man who headed up the newly established Garda Cold Case Unit in the 2000s, has a very clear view about the need to improve the investigative tools at the disposal of Gardaí.
"I would certainly believe that we should have our own cadaver dog within An Garda Síochána. We shouldn't have to be going to other police organisations," Mr Mangan told Prime Time.
"The PSNI are very giving, but we should have our own cadaver dog that could be utilised within 24 hours, have a dog available to the senior investigating officer."
There are cadaver dogs privately owned in the Republic of Ireland.
Such dogs have been utilised by Gardaí for certain missing person searches but it seems that when a crime is suspected in a missing persons case investigators prefer to have a 'police' dog.
As a result, Fern is getting more and more requests to travel to the Republic.
While cadaver dogs and sonar equipment are tools which have proven themselves invaluable in missing persons cases, Christy Mangan says that the human input is most important.
His view is the onus is on Gardaí, but also giving officers adequate resources.
"At a very early point there's always a golden hour in any investigation, and it's usually in the first 24 hours. And you get in amongst the people who know the person. It's about having an eye for detail and taking action very, very quickly, not waiting six, twelve months, or years," Mr Mangan said.
He said peer reviews such as those recently directed by the Garda Commissioner into the Tina Satchwell and Michael Gaine investigations is something to be welcomed.
"It's not a marking of your work by somebody else. It's somebody coming in and saying, listen, maybe you would do something differently here. A peer review is there to assist the senior investigating officer to bring the investigation to a conclusion. If somebody told me somebody was coming in to do a peer review of my work, I would be very welcoming of it."
In his career, Mr Mangan oversaw a number of missing persons cases and reclassified a number as murder investigations. This allowed for CCTV and phone records to be obtained, and for search warrants to be secured.
He says Garda management should look at changing procedures to ensure valuable leads aren't lost during missing persons cases in the early stages, due to how personnel are assigned.
"For missing persons cases to be treated with the urgency that they require and deserve, I would be suggesting that you would appoint a senior investigating officer from day one."
"That the person gone missing is not somebody who goes missing every day of the week there, that there's something in the background that has caused them to go missing - get the senior investigating officer in place."
"Hopefully the person turns up within a day or two, and then everybody goes back to normal. But if that's not done, missed opportunities happen, unfortunately."
An Garda Síochána told Prime Time that, as of this week, a total of 940 people were listed as missing on the Garda Pulse system.
A spokesperson said: "Missing person investigations are subject to ongoing review at Superintendent level, ensuring the risk associated with the investigation is assessed, all appropriate investigative actions are pursued, and the necessary resources are allocated as required."
"The Superintendent, or assigned Senior Investigating Officer, where appropriate, determines the direction of any investigation and requests whatever supports are deemed necessary."
Having lived through the long wait for answers, Donna Coughlan wants other families not to lose hope and investigators to treat the earliest hours of a disappearance as critical.
"More needs to be done at the beginning because you know that, that time is vital, and the majority of people that go missing are within a very close radius of where they go missing," Donna said.
"I just want to give hope to all the families that have long term missing people. Don't give up. I never expected that my brother would be found after 17 years, not in a million years."