Detective speaks of killer’s prayers which helped prove South Yorkshire barrel murder
Former butcher Christopher Wright, 73, was jailed at Sheffield Crown Court last week for life with a minimum term of 35 years for the 2019 murder of Richard Dyson
A farmer who shot his lodger then hid the body in a concrete-filled barrel was secretly recorded praying about the murder, a detective who helped catch him has said.
Former butcher Christopher Wright, 73, was jailed at Sheffield Crown Court last week for life with a minimum term of 35 years for the 2019 murder of Richard Dyson, 55.
Speaking of the lengthy and detailed police investigation, Detective Constable Tom Ryan, of South Yorkshire Police, said the killer must have thought he had got away with it as he had put the dismembered remains in a plastic barrel, filled it with concrete and put it in a cattle trailer, and they lay hidden for six years.
He had persuaded an innocent and unsuspecting farmer to store the trailer away from his own home in Hoyland, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, claiming his landlord wanted it off his site.
Mr Dyson’s daughter had reported him missing days after he disappeared and police suspected foul play, calling Wright in for questioning more than 10 times over the following years.
But proving Mr Dyson was murdered was difficult without a body.
The breakthrough came last July when Mr Ryan spoke to the innocent South Yorkshire farmer, Ian Ollerenshaw, who had remembered being asked to store the trailer – and had a diary entry to back up what he said.
Mr Ryan said he called at Mr Ollerenshaw’s farm – around a mile-and-a-half from Wright’s smallholding – as he knew from the suspect’s phone records that he had called him around the time of Mr Dyson’s disappearance.
Never expecting Mr Ollerenshaw to remember the call, the detective was stunned when he was told that he did recall it and pulled a leather-bound diary from a bookcase to back it up, saying Wright had asked to store an old trailer on his land.
At that point, Mr Ryan said he knew they would find Mr Dyson’s remains in the trailer – which is what happened when a specialist search team arrived and found human bones sticking out of the concrete in the barrel.
It was the crucial moment in the long inquiry which had seen officers spend countless hours searching Wright’s Parkside Cottage without finding any trace of Mr Dyson.
Mr Ryan told the Press Association: “I was pleased we could give the family some answers.”
The moment Mr Ollerenshaw produced his diary was “the greatest moment in my 23-year career”, the officer said.
A further breakthrough came when an ID card belonging to Wright was found among the junk in the rotting cattle trailer.
Years before the body was found, police interviewed Wright and his childhood friend Karl Schwalbe in 2021, and then secretly recorded them in a car park as they left Barnsley police station.
The two men had told police that Schwalbe had never visited Wright the night that Mr Dyson disappeared, but the killer was picked up on CCTV apologising to his accomplice and Schwalbe replying that he wished he had never gone up that night.
Further covert evidence was gathered last year after the pair were once again arrested following the discovery of Mr Dyson’s remains in the barrel.
With both suspects’ properties being searched, the men were put up in a Sheffield hotel which was bugged.
Wright, who had been a regular churchgoer, was recorded praying that police did not find his extensive collection of firearms.
And, Mr Ryan said, he later asked God to keep officers away from the trailer, and, referring to his lodger, added: “I only did what I had to do to survive – they bit the hand that fed them.”
Mr Dyson did odd-jobs for the farmer but the pair fell out after Wright, an antique firearm collector, suspected him of stealing from him and selling on possessions.
Speaking of how Wright dismembered his victim, Mr Justice Cotter, said: “You had worked as a butcher and were skilled enough to do such a terrible thing, something few ordinary people would have the stomach for.”
Mr Ryan had interviewed a number of elderly South Yorkshire butchers who remembered working with Wright in the 1970s, including one who spoke of him skilfully cutting up large carcasses into more manageable portions.
Despite helping to build such a strong case against Wright – indeed the judge praised the police’s dedicated investigation – Mr Ryan was not surprised that he pleaded not guilty.
The detective said: “If he pleaded guilty he was still going to probably spend the rest of his life in prison.
“I suppose he might have thought he might as well try.”
Mr Ryan was particularly satisfied at bringing justice for Mr Dyson’s family and for helping to convict someone who must have believed they had got away with murder.
He said: “One of the biggest tragedies was that Christopher Wright and Karl Schwalbe knew where Richard was for all those years and they knew the agony that Richard’s daughter, Bethany, was going through.
“They could have stepped in at any stage but they chose not to.
“You join the police to help people like Richard’s family, to bring them closure and justice, so they were able to lay him to rest, and the person responsible for this murder is in prison.”
Schwalbe, 72, was jailed for three years for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Wright was convicted of murder, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, preventing a lawful burial as well as firearms offences.