Elementary school teacher “stabbed loved one and buried body,” according to court

A primary school teacher stabbed her “cheating” boyfriend in the neck and buried his body in her garden after claiming she has Covid and needs to self-isolate, a court has heard.

Fiona Beal killed Nicholas Billingham by piercing his carotid artery in her bedroom at the start of a 12-day absence from work in November 2021, the jury was told.

After disposing of the body, she hid her blood-stained mattress in the basement and repainted the walls, prosecutors claim.

On her return to work, she told her principal, Billingham, that she had left her – and she used his phone to send messages to his friends and colleagues, giving the impression he was still alive, the court heard.

But in March last year, she was found by police after suffering superficial wounds and writing “what seemed like a suicide note,” they say. And the court heard that a notebook was found that detailed the killing of an unnamed person.

“While he was in the bathroom I kept the knife in my robe pocket and then hid it in the drawer by the bed,” read the notes read to the Northampton Crown Court.

“I also brought a chisel, garbage bag and zip ties. I made him wear an eye mask. It was harder than I thought. Hiding a body was bad. Moving a body is a lot harder than it looks on TV.”

After 49-year-old Beal was found at a lodge near Kendal in Cumbria, police searched her home in Northampton.

The partially mummified remains of Mr Billingham, 42, were found in the back garden four and a half months after he was last seen at a business meeting, prosecutor Steven Perian KC said.

He said Beal, who taught at Eastfield Academy in Northampton, “decided to kill him by October 2021”. “Nicholas Billingham had cheated on her with other women,” he said. “She thought he was cheating on her again.”

The notebook contained a claim that she had been spat on and threatened during sex and had been subjected to cruel and degrading treatment.

“I knew I couldn’t let him get away with it. Halloween sealed it. He was mean,” Beal reportedly wrote.

She denies murder. Her trial at Northampton Crown Court is continuing.

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