A 73-year-old farmer was sentenced to 35 years in prison this week for the murder of his lodger, whose dismembered remains spent nearly six years inside a concrete-filled barrel on a farm near Barnsley, England.
Christopher Wright shot Richard Dyson, 55, in November 2019 after Dyson allegedly tried to steal a gun from him. Wright, a former butcher, then dismembered the body and concealed it with the help of his childhood friend Karl Schwalbe, 72. The remains were not discovered for almost six years.
The trial at Sheffield Crown Court heard that Wright was a weapons fanatic and collector who owned vintage firearms, old farm machinery, and musical instruments. Dyson had been living in his car outside Wright's cottage on Sheffield Road in Hoyland and often helped Wright with jobs such as cutting hedges, mending tractors, and driving him to appointments. Dyson's ex-partner recalled that months before his disappearance, Dyson had found a machine gun at Wright's farm and kept it because it was worth a lot of money. Prosecutors said Wright became greatly angered when he found out about the theft and killed Dyson with a shotgun immediately to hand.
The last call from Dyson's phone was made on November 17, 2019. Both Wright and Schwalbe were interviewed by police in the months that followed but denied knowing what had happened.
A breakthrough came in July 2025 when a review of mobile phone data uncovered that Wright had called the owner of a nearby farm three days after Dyson disappeared. Farmer Ian Ollerenshaw told the court Wright had asked if he could store a livestock trailer on his land while he was tidying up his own farm. Ollerenshaw noted the events in his diary. He said the trailer was towed onto his land by a Fordson vintage tractor, but that he did not look inside it once it was parked.
Last month, Wright was convicted of murder and Schwalbe was found guilty of perverting the course of justice. Wright was also convicted of conspiracy to pervert justice, preventing a lawful burial, and six firearms offences. At sentencing, Mr Justice Cotter addressed Wright directly. "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," he said. Schwalbe received a three-year sentence.
Dyson's daughter, Bethany Dainty, issued numerous appeals for help tracing her father during the years he was missing. In a victim impact statement read to the court, she said: "Someone watched me suffering for years and said nothing. That level of cruelty is impossible for me to understand."
