This is the chilling diary entry where a killer primary school teacher describes tricking her boyfriend into wearing a mask by promising sex – before stabbing him and burying the body in the garden.
Fiona Beal, 50, is being sentenced today and tomorrow for murdering 42-year-old builder Nick Billingham, whose partially mummified remains were discovered four months later at their home in Northampton.
Detectives who traced Beal to a cabin in Cumbria found a journal in which she had described her plan to lure Mr Billingham into the bath before killing him.
‘I left the water in,’ she wrote. ‘He had been pushing for sex. I 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 hid it in the drawer next to the bed.
‘I bought a chisel, bin bag and cable ties up too. I got him to wear an eye mask.’
The chilling diary entry where Fiona Beal describes tricking her boyfriend Nick Billingham into wearing a mask by promising sex – before stabbing him and burying the body in the garden
A police mugshot of Fiona Beal, who pleaded guilty in April during a retrial at the Old Bailey
Nick Billingham, 42, was stabbed to death by Beal who buried his body in their garden
After killing Mr Billingham, Beal wrapped his body up and dragged him down the stairs – destroying the banister rails in the process, her trial heard before she changed her plea to guilty.
The victim’s makeshift grave at the property comprised of concrete mixed by the killer and a ‘de facto coffin’ made of breeze blocks, timber and sheets, the court was told.
Beal’s horrifying diary entry continued: ‘It was harder than I thought it would be. Hiding a body was bad. Moving a body is much more difficult than it looks on TV.’
The journals also included reference to her having a split personality and an alter ego she called Tulip 22.
She went on: ‘My last words to him when he asked why was that he was not going to do to (another female) what he had done to me.’
In a journal entry dated February 12, she wrote: ‘I’m not a total monster. I know what I did.’
She also listed ‘memories, messages, confession, final farewell’, the court was told.
The journals triggered a police investigation, which soon established that Mr Billingham had not been seen or spoken to by telephone since the afternoon of November 1, 2021, the court heard.
Police officers who searched the home found a bloodstained mattress in the basement
The back garden of the property in Northampton where Nick Billingham was buried
Beal buried her boyfriend in a makeshift grave filled with compost and bags of Cotswold Stone
But shortly after the murder, Beal used Mr Billingham’s phone to text friends to say the pair had contracted Covid and needed to isolate, giving her time to hide the body.
She then invented a story about Mr Billingham running off with another woman. Beal wrote in her diary that she began to believe her own cover story.
‘But in the dark times or just random moments I would remember,’ she added. ‘Remember what I’ve done. Remember what I am.’
Officers who searched the home also found cable ties Beal used to bind the body, as well as a bloodstained mattress in the basement.
Billingham’s body was found in March 2022, four months after he first went missing.
Beal, a year six teacher, rented a cabin in Cumbria as her mental health started to deteriorate and sent unusual messages to family members prompting them to phone police to check on her.
While visiting the cabin, officers found the journal.
Beal has admitted the murder of Mr Billingham, whose partly mummified remains were discovered four-and-a-half months after he was last seen on November 1, 2021.
Police dug up the garden in Northampton and uncovered Nick Billingham’s mummified remains wrapped in sheeting in a makeshift grave filled with compost and Cotswold Stone
Police made the gruesome discovery in the garden of the property in Northampton
She pleaded guilty in April during a retrial at the Old Bailey, after her earlier trial at Northampton Crown Court collapsed on its 64th day when it emerged a key defence witness was a custody officer who conducted welfare checks on her in prison.
Today, she appeared at the Old Bailey for the start of her two-day sentencing by Judge Mark Lucraft KC.
During the hearing, prosecutor Hugh Davies KC read out a letter Mr Bellingham had written to Beal about him having an affair during their 17-year relationship.
In the letter, Mr Billingham accepted his faults and described Beal as ‘kind hearted’, ‘generous’ and ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’.
He wrote: ‘I promise to never again belittle you or make you feel rubbish again.
‘My body, my heart, my love has been yours since the day I met you and will be until the day I die. I love you with all my heart.’
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Billingham’s mother, Yvonne Valentine, described having a Christmas drink with Beal on December 23, 2021, not knowing that she was just feet from her son’s body.
An earlier trial of Fiona Beal (above) at Northampton Crown Court collapsed on its 64th day
At the time, she was feeling reassured by text messages from her son’s phone and concerned for Beal.
She wrote: ‘I shouldn’t have been bothered or concerned about you, should I!!
‘I remember that the house looked different; the furniture moved, new furniture and ornaments in the front room, which made it look nice.
‘But all of this was you covering up that you had killed my son! You moved the furniture to obscure views to the garden – why?? To stop anyone seeing where you had buried my son!
‘You 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.
‘I felt sad and embarrassed that my son had left you, but I shouldn’t have wasted my energy and concern on you, you had planned it all and at no point have you ever given me the same consideration or thought about the devastation you caused by killing my son.’
She branded Beal a ‘coward’ and ‘exceptionally evil and cruel’ to send her messages from her son’s phone to convince her he was safe and well.
She said: ‘You bought everything you used to bury him with his own money which I find diabolical and disgusting.
‘You buried him like he was a piece of rubbish in his own back yard.
‘I want you to remember he will always be loved and will always be missed. You are pure evil.’
Sister Holly Shore said: ‘As a primary school teacher you should have been caring but you were not caring to Nick and instead killed him.
‘I will never forgive you for Nick. I will never forget Nick.’
Forensic officers in Kingsley, Northampton, in March 2022 after the partly mummified remains of Mr Billingham were discovered at the home, four-and-a-half months after he was last seen
On the day of his death weeks earlier, Mr Billingham had worked on a house renovation before returning to the home he shared with Beal in Northampton.
That evening, she killed him in a ‘carefully planned domestic execution’, Mr Davies said.
Beal stabbed him in the neck and disposed of the body in the side return of their home like ‘building waste’, Mr Davies said.
She covered her tracks with a false story that they had Covid and needed to isolate.
Similar messages were sent from Mr Billingham’s phone from November 2 in which Beal pretended to be him.
On November 8, Beal sent messages to her sisters saying she and Mr Billingham had split up, with one message saying he left because he had had an affair with another woman.
On her return to work, she received sympathy from those who had heard about the apparent break-up.
Beal’s mental health started to deteriorate in late February 2022, the court was told.
By February 28, Beal had been signed off work with anxiety, stress, depression and low mood, the court heard.
CCTV of Fiona Beal at a B&Q in Northampton in November 2021, where she purchased ten 50 litre bags of compost, ten 22.5kg bags of Cotswold Stone and a grey plastic trough
Fiona Beal is seen leaving the B&Q in Northampton with her purchases in November 2021
The following month, she rented a cabin in Cumbria and sent messages to family members which gave them cause for concern over her wellbeing, prompting them to call police to check on her.
Beal was arrested in March 2022 after police discovered his body.
Summarising the evidence, Mr Davies said Beal ‘planned to execute’ Mr Billingham then ‘delivered a false narrative’ that he had an affair and had run off and stopped communications.
He said she ‘accepted sympathy’ which resulted from her ‘false narrative’ and ‘took elaborate and sustained steps over a period of weeks to conceal her crime’.
They included disposing of his body ‘as if it was building waste in her garden’, posing as him in communications with his friends, colleagues and family, and even manufactured arguments between him and her.
All this was done while she continued ‘to deliver high-quality teaching to Year 6 pupils as if nothing had happened’, Mr Davies said.
Beal even ‘actively lied’ to her partner’s mother when he was supposedly ‘off grid’ with another woman, he added.
The sentencing hearing continues and is expected to conclude tomorrow.
