The covert recordings which helped catch "body in the barrel murderer" - including secret prayers
“Keep police away from my weapons which will make things really bad for me”
Covert recordings formed part of the evidence that helped to finally catch and convict the “body in the barrel” murderer, and the man who helped him cover it up.
Christopher Wright, aged 73, was found unanimously guilty this week of the murder of his lodger, Richard Dyson.
Richard’s “neatly severed” remains were found inside a barrel filled with concrete, located on a trailer on farmland close to Wright’s home in July 2025.
The court heard Wright formerly worked as a butcher.
Wright’s best friend, Karl Schwalbe, went on trial alongside him, with prosecutors describing the case as the “body in the barrel murder.”
The pair were both found guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, after Schwalbe, aged 72, helped Wright conceal the crime.
During their trial at Sheffield Crown Court trial, the jury was told of covert recordings taken by police, the first of which captured a conversation between the two defendants inside a car at Barnsley police station after being interviewed in March 2021.
During the conversation, Schwalbe tells Wright “I wish you hadn’t phoned me that night” and admits he thought “f***” when police showed him the CCTV video of his vehicle heading towards Wright’s home on the night of the murder.
In response, Wright apologised to Schwalbe, before telling him: “Wish you didn’t come up.”
The second covert recording captured Wright praying in a hotel room he was moved to as police searched his home in the days after Richard’s remains were discovered.
During one of the “prayers,” Wright asked for the police to “miss items” during their search.
A transcript shown to the jury reads: “In the name of the Lord protect me oh Lord. Guide me, allow me to go back to my house and my dog, my freedom. All the items that’s in there, I hope they miss the items, not search properly and miss everything so I can go back home…can’t stand it oh Lord.
“I do not want to be prosecuted further. May they not find anything, hopefully not.”
In a second apparent prayer made the same night, Wright asks the Lord to grant him “absolution” from the situation he finds himself in.
He continues: “Keep all my items safe my Lord. Keep police away from my weapons which will make things really bad for me. Oh Lord, keep me safe. keep me free. I only did what I had to survive oh lord, I had to survive. I’ve tried to help people. People who I helped have bit my hand.”
Prosecutor Peter Moulson KC suggested to jurors that a possible motive for the murder was the suggestion that Richard had stolen firearms from “weapons fanatic” Wright - after living on his land for several years .
He told them they may find Richard “bit the hand that fed or helped him, and thereafter was made to pay the ultimate price with his life.”
Wright, of Sheffield Road, Hoyland, Barnsley, was also found unanimously guilty of preventing a lawful burial and a number of weapons charges.
The two defendants are due to be sentenced next week.