Chilling diary confessions of killer primary school teacher: Murderer Fiona ... trends now

A primary school teacher who today pleaded guilty to murdering her 'cheating' partner planned the killing in her diary, where she wrote under about her 'alter-ego' Tulip22, a court heard.

Fiona Beal, 50, lured 42-year-old builder Nick Billingham to their room for sex before tying him to the bed with cable ties, stabbing him in the neck and burying his body in their garden.

Mr Billingham was found by police shortly after officers discovered a notebook with a 'chilling' confession inside following Beal's suicide attempt in March 2022. 

Beal is said to have wrote under the pseudonym before buying a knife and chisel and carrying out the plot. Friends have told how after the incident, Beal 'looked fabulous' and lost weight. 

After murdering him 'in cold blood' at their home in Northampton on November 1, 2021, the 'highly capable' teacher told friends they had both tested positive for Covid so she would not be disturbed while she buried him in the garden. 

Mr Billingham's body went undiscovered for four months before police found Beal's journal, in which she wrote how her lover asked 'why?' when she knifed him. 

They then dug up the garden and uncovered his mummified remains wrapped in sheeting in a makeshift grave filled with compost and ten 22.5kg bags of Cotswold Stone that she bought from B&Q especially for the purpose. 

Beal had initially pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter by reason of of a loss of control, but denied murdering Mr Billingham between October 30 and November 10 2021.

A jury at the Old Bailey heard today that she had changed her plea.

It can now be revealed that a notebook found by police revealed how Beal, writing as Tulip22, described hiding a knife in a bedside drawer and getting Mr Billingham to wear an eye mask before his pre-planned murder. 

It was also said the notebook contained a claim that Beal had been spat on and threatened during sex and subjected to cruel and belittling treatment. 

Beal's crimes were unravelled when she was found at a lodge near Kendal in Cumbria in March 2022 after suffering superficial wounds and writing 'what read like a suicide note'. She was then taken to the local hospital and detained under the Mental Health Act.

According to the initial trial, police officers recovered a notebook from the place where she had been renting that detailed a chilling account of how she had planned and killed someone, but it did not contain the name of the person she had killed.

The trial heard that Northamptonshire Police were then contacted and visited Beal's home to find a bloodstained mattress in the basement and an apparent blood stain on the bed frame in the master bedroom.

Judge Mark Lucraft told Beal on Friday: 'You have this morning pleaded guilty to murder, which as you have no doubt been told, carries a sentence of life imprisonment.'

As the jury left the courtroom, a tearful Beal wiped her eyes with a tissue.

After murdering her partner, Beal sent messages to friends claiming they were both ill with Covid and had to isolate. 

Beal murdered Mr Billingham in their bedroom late on November 1. 

An extract from her diary provided a detailed account from Tulip22 of the events leading up to the murder.

It read: 'Everything changed last year. There's a quote from 'Thelma and Louise' that feels appropriate, "Thelma: 'You be sweet to them, especially your wife. My husband wasn't sweet to me."

'I suppose I ought to explain what happened to get me to this point. My mental health had been deteriorating. Whenever he was cheating he would up the ante on belittling, moaning and criticising.'

'I have to confess. Ok here goes. October 2021. He spat on me and threatened me during sex. I thought about leaving but the things he said and did fuelled my dark side - I call her Tulip22, she's reckless, fearless and efficient. Ruthless.

'I started plotting as Tulip22 after he'd gone to bed. I could no longer sleep in the bed due to my breathing being too loud or I moved too much or I was snoring or etc etc.'

The court heard the notebook entry, which referred to 17 years of 'him' being argumentative, mean, cruel and belittling, continued: 'I knew I couldn't let him get away with it. Halloween sealed it. He was vile.

'That night I planned. Covid rules meant I had a guaranteed 10-day isolation period from positive symptoms.

'I called (Beal's headteacher) on the Monday and said we'd tested positive and had symptoms. He went to work. Tulip22 smoked and planned. I'd planned it mentally so many times before.

'I had a bath. I left the water in. 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 brought a chisel, bin bag and cable ties up too.

'I got him to wear an eye mask. 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.'

Prosecutor Hugh Davies, KC, told the Old Bailey: '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.

'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.'

Mr Davies continued: The clean-up started as early as 01.07am on 2 November. Using her dead partner's account, and then hers on Amazon, she bought multiple cleaning products, including for Venetian blinds, a new mop and bucket, ultra heavy duty bin bags, a new mattress, bedding, clothing, wall art and mirrors.

'This is considered, controlled, conduct that is on the one hand intrinsically practical, and on the other indulgent. On 1 November she manufactured a positive Covid test result-all you had to do was complete the NHS questionnaire online app self-report a positive test.

'There is no evidence she ever did a PCR test. Her actions in the next 10 days are wholly inconsistent with having the exhausting effects of Covid which she was claiming to be experiencing.'

Beal also sent messages to her sisters saying they had split up, with one message saying he left because he had had an affair with another woman.

The prosecution said the narrative that Mr Billingham had run off with another woman was 'completely false'. But jurors heard that Mr Billingham appeared to have cheated on Beal previously.

She returned to work 'fully discharging her considerable responsibilities as a teacher to Year 6

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