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A murder victim penned love letters calling a killer primary school teacher with a dark alter ego the \u201cperfect woman\u201d before she stabbed him in the neck and buried his body in their back garden.<\/p>\n
A court heard that Nick Billingham, 42, vowed \u201cmy body, my heart, my love has been yours since the day I met you and will be yours until the day I die\u201d as he tried to win back Fiona Beal following an affair.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are the most beautiful woman in the world,\u201d he gushed in letters read to the Old Bailey. \u201cYou are so kind-hearted in every single way and if there were more people like you around, the world would be a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple reconciled in 2020, but Beal, 50, murdered him \u201cin cold blood\u201d less two years later. His mummified body lay undiscovered in a \u201cde-facto coffin\u201d in their back garden for more than four months while she told friends and family her partner of 17 years had left her for another woman.<\/p>\n
Chilling photographs shown to the court revealed the makeshift grave where she entombed Mr Billingham in the side return of their home under layers of sheeting, badly mixed concrete, breeze blocks and compost.<\/p>\n
Nicholas Billingham\u2019s remains were found buried in the back garden of a Northampton house (PA)The Year 6 teacher\u00a0had initially pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter by reason of a loss of control, but denied murdering Mr Billingham between October 30 and November 10 2021 at their terraced home in Northampton.<\/p>\n
She changed her plea part way through a trial last month, admitting his murder.<\/p>\n
At a two-day sentencing hearing beginning on Wednesday, the court heard that Beal documented the \u201ccarefully planned domestic execution\u201d in sinister journal entries discovered by police.<\/p>\n
Promising sex after a bath, she lured him to bed and stabbed him in the neck, while he is thought to have been restrained with cable ties.<\/p>\n
She told colleagues and they had tested positive for Covid-19 and needed to self-isolate while she disposed of his body.<\/p>\n
The journal entries, written in a log cabin in Cumbria in March 2022 before she made an attempt on her own life, said:\u00a0\u201cI had smoked all day. I had a bath. I left the water in. He had been pushing for sex.<\/p>\n
\u201cI encouraged the bath with the incentive of sex afterwards. While he was in the bath I kept the knife in my dressing gown pocket and then I had it in the drawer next to the bed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI brought a chisel, bin bag and cable ties up too. I got him to wear an eye mask.\u201d<\/p>\n
The side return where primary school teacher Fiona Beal buried her partner (Northamptonshire Police )Prosecutor Hugh Davies KC told the court that the 6cm knife wound to Mr Billingham\u2019s neck \u2013 which severed his jugular vein \u2013 would not have killed him immediately.<\/p>\n
According to her journal, his final word was \u201cwhy\u201d as he eventually succumbed to blood loss.<\/p>\n
Over the following ten days, while pretending to be at home recovering from Covid-19, she buried his body in the back garden as \u201cif it was building waste\u201d before returning to work \u201cas if nothing had happened\u201d, Mr Davies told the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cColleagues noted her weight loss and good spirits,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He said her actions were the \u201ccontrolled execution\u201d and cover-up of the murder of a partner she no longer liked and probably suspected of having an affair, whose body she wrapped up and dragged downstairs – destroying the banister rail in the process. <\/p>\n
The makeshift grave where primary school teacher Fiona Beal concealed Nick Billingham\u2019s body was excavated by police (Northamptonshire Police )That Christmas, Mr Billingham\u2019s mother visited Beal at the home to drop off presents, thinking her son had left her for another woman.<\/p>\n
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Yvonne Valentine said Beal \u201cspun a web of cruel lies and deceit\u201d as she sent messages from Mr Billingham\u2019s phone pretending he was alive. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou sat in your front room with me, having a casual chat with me, having a Christmas drink with me and the whole time, you knew that you had killed my son and buried him only feet from where I was sat,\u201d she told the court.<\/p>\n
Forensic teams at the three-bed terraced home in Northampton (PA)The mother said it was \u201cdiabolical and disgusting\u201d that Beal had purchased the materials to bury Mr Billingham with his own money, adding: \u201cYou killed my son in the most heinous way. You made sure he was defenceless, then executed him and watched him bleed to death.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want you to spend the rest of your life going over what you did to Nick, the pain and suffering that you put him through when you killed him and the total disregarding for him as a human being when you buried him like he was a piece of rubbish in his own back garden.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court previously heard that Beal, who regularly used cannabis, had an alter ego she referred to as \u201cTulip 22\u201d, who was \u201ccapable of wholly different and darker conduct than her public persona of committed teacher\u201d.<\/p>\n
Beal\u2019s mental health started to deteriorate in late February 2022. The following month, police were called to a cabin in Cumbria, amid concerns for her welfare, where they discovered the journal entries.<\/p>\n
The hearing continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emailsSign up to our free breaking news emails A murder victim penned love letters calling a killer primary school teacher with a dark alter ego the \u201cperfect woman\u201d before she stabbed him in the neck and buried […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n