A primary school teacher in the UK has admitted to burying his boyfriend’s body in their garden after luring him to their room for sex, and stabbing him in the neck while he was tied to the bed with cable ties.
Fiona Beal, 50, confessed mid-trial to killing her 42-year-old partner Nick Billingham in a planned attack. The gruesome crime unfolded in Northampton on November 1, 2021, with Beal taking elaborate steps to conceal her actions.
Beal, according to The Daily Mail, had detailed her intentions in a journal under her alter ego, ‘Tulip22’, before purchasing a knife and a chisel. After the murder, she informed friends that both she and Billingham had tested positive for Covid, ensuring she wouldn’t be disturbed while disposing of his body.
Billingham’s remains remained hidden in the garden for four months until police uncovered Beal’s journal, which contained chilling accounts of the crime. In it, she described how Billingham questioned her after being stabbed in the neck. The trial, which grabbed headlines in the UK, at a London criminal court revealed that Beal initially pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of manslaughter due to a loss of control but later changed her plea to guilty of murder.
“Central to the plan was knowing that after stabbing him, if she claimed she had Covid, she would have 10 days to bury him and cover up her crime,” said prosecutor Hugh Davies, KC. “And that’s exactly what happened. She was thinking about what time was best to do it, whether he would be snoring, but she knew or visualised it would be by stabbing him ‘left to right, down slight right’. And that’s what she did – she stabbed him in his jugular vein in his neck.”
UK prosecutors also highlighted Beal’s calculated actions, including purchasing cleaning supplies immediately after the murder and fabricating a positive Covid test to buy time to bury the body. She also sent messages to her sisters falsely claiming that Billingham had left her for another woman. Beal’s mental health began to deteriorate in late February 2022, leading her to rent a cabin in Cumbria.
Concerned family members contacted the police after receiving alarming messages from Beal, prompting officers to discover incriminating journals in the cabin. Detective Chief Inspector Adam Pendlebury from Northamptonshire Police expressed relief that Beal had finally admitted to the murder. Beal is scheduled to be sentenced on May 29 and 30 and will remain in custody until then.
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