A primary school teacher accused of stabbing her cheating boyfriend to death before burying his body in the garden also wrote a ‘chilling’ confession about her ‘dark side’ and ‘fearless’ alter ago, a court has heard.
Fiona Beal, 49, of Moore Street, Northampton, allegedly knifed 42-year-old Nicholas Billingham in the bedroom of their home on November 1, 2021 after finding out that he was cheating on her.
His partially mummified remains, were found in March 2022, four-and-a-half months after he was seen at a business meeting.
Prosecutor Steven Perian KC said Mr Billingham had cheated on Beal with other women during their 17-year relationship, detailing that he had ‘left’ Beal on a few occasions but ‘always returned to her and she accepted him’.
Mr Billingham was found by police shortly after police discovered a notebook with a ‘chilling’ confession inside following Beal’s suicide attempt in March 2022.
The journal allegedly reveals the teacher writing about her ‘alter ego’ Tulip22, who describes how she hid a knife in a bedside drawer and got Mr Billingham to wear an eye mask before his pre-planned murder.
Opening the prosecution’s case at the town’s crown court on Monday, Mr Perian said Beal had written that she believed Mr Billingham was cheating on her, and ‘had decided to kill him’ by October 2021.
Jurors were told the notebook contained a claim that Beal had been spat on and threatened during sex and subjected to cruel and belittling treatment.
Mr Perian told the court: ‘Nicholas Billingham whilst still in a relationship with the defendant had cheated on her with other women. She (Beal) believed he was cheating on her again.
‘One of the women he slept with became pregnant and gave birth to his child.’
But instead of leaving him Mr Perian said Beal formed a plan on how and when to kill him, where to conceal his body, how to cover up and explain his disappearance to others, and how to explain her own absence from work when she killed him.
‘The prosecution suggests from the evidence gathered it is very likely, she killed Nicholas Billingham during the evening of the 1st of November 2021 in their bedroom,’ Mr Perian added.
Having killed Mr Billingham, the Crown alleges, she tied up and wrapped his body, buried it in the garden, and painted and cleaned the bedroom where the killing had taken place.
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