Exclusive:Detective describes shocking moment he found body in barrel after chasing "game changing" evidence
“It’s not going to bring him back but I hope Richard’s daughter Bethany feels like she’s been able to get justice”
A detective in the murder investigation that has finally given a grieving family answers has described the moment he found the missing dad’s remains concealed within a barrel.
Detective Constable Thomas Ryan was assigned to the case of missing Richard Dyson in July 2025, almost six years after Richard was last seen.
By that point, Christopher Wright, the Barnsley farmer on whose land Richard had been lodging, had been interviewed by police 11 times. His home had also been searched by police multiple times.
But nothing had led to the breakthrough in the case police and Richard’s family were hoping for.
Then, DC Ryan chased up a brief phone call Wright had made to Ian Ollerenshaw, a childhood friend who owned a nearby farm.
The call was made on November 20, 2019, three days after the final sighting of Richard.
“I’m sat in their kitchen, thinking that when I asked Ian ‘do you remember this call from six years ago?’ he’d say ‘of course I don’t remember, are you joking?’”
Thankfully, not only did Ian remember, he had recorded the contents of their conversation in a leather-bound diary.
He explained Wright had called to ask him if he could store a trailer on his land for a “couple of weeks.” Ian agreed to the request, and Wright brought it up to the farm that same day.
Ian told DC Ryan that Wright “never came back” for the trailer, which was located a matter of yards from where the pair were then sitting.
“He said ‘do you want to go down to see the trailer?’ and I said ‘I definitely do’,” DC Ryan recalled.
“It was a game changer,” he said.
DC Ryan went straight to the trailer, and after moving junk aside, he found a blue barrel - which smelled strongly of ammonia - underneath a baby changing table. He moved the changing table aside.
“You could see concrete and human bones protruding out. I knew it would be Richard,” DC Ryan said.
That belief was confirmed around a week later, following the completion of Richard’s post-mortem examination, which confirmed he had been shot dead.
Wright was arrested a short time after Richard’s remains were found, and police once again searched his nearby property.
In addition to a personal armoury consisting of countless guns, axes, and knives, officers also found 10,000 rounds of ammunition as well as a tripwire at Wright’s home.
Wright, now 73, was charged with Richard’s murder, preventing his lawful burial, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, along with numerous weapons offences, all of which he was found guilty of in July 2026.
His co-accused, and best friend, Karl Schwalbe - who had been interviewed 13 times by the time Richard’s remains were found - was convicted of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice at the conclusion of the same trial.
Schwalbe, 72, helped Wright cover up the murder of Richard, aged 55.
Speaking ahead of the pair being sentenced, DC Ryan said: “It’s not going to bring him back but I hope Richard’s daughter Bethany feels like she’s been able to get justice.”
He added: “One of the most terrible aspects of this case is that Wright and Schwalbe could have brought her suffering to an end six years ago, but they kept lying and lying.”