Fiona Beal: Diary revealed murderer's final words to partner she buried in Northamptonshire garden
A primary school teacher confessed to killing her boyfriend in a diary found by police, which revealed she told her victim "he was not going to do... what he had done to me" to another woman.
Fiona Beal has admitted murdering partner Nicholas Billingham before burying his body in the garden of the house they shared in Northamptonshire.
The body of the 42-year-old was finally discovered four months after he was last seen in November 2021.
Prosectors said Beal, of Moore Street, Northampton, had killed him in a "carefully planned domestic execution", stabbing him in the neck before disposing of him like "building waste in her garden".
On the first day of the teacher's sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey, prosecutor Hugh Davies KC told the hearing Beal had rented a cabin in Cumbria in late February 2022 after her mental health had begun to deteriorate.
Family members had become concerned for her welfare and police were called to check on her.
In the cabin, officers found Beal's journals containing a confession to the killing which triggered an investigation.
She wrote that, on the day of his death, she had encouraged Mr Billingham to take a bath, with the promise of sex afterwards.
"While he was in the bath, I kept the knife in my dressing gown pocket and then I had it in the drawer next to the bed," she went on.
"I brought a chisel, bin bag and cable ties up too. I got him to wear an eye mask."
The diary revealed that during their final conversation, Mr Billingham had asked "why?", to which Beal replied: "He was not going to do to [another female] what he had done to me".
Beal, 50, pleaded guilty to murder part-way through a retrial at the Old Bailey in April. An earlier trial at Northampton Crown Court collapsed after 64 days.
During Wednesday's sentencing hearing, Mr Davies also read out a letter Mr Billingham had written to his partner of 17 years after having an affair.
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."
After the killing, Beal had claimed she and Mr Billingham had Covid and needed to isolate. She used his phone to send similar messages to his contacts on 2 November 2021.
On 8 November, Beal sent a message to her sister saying the pair had broken up because he had had an affair with another woman.
A victim impact statement from Mr Billingham's mother, Yvonne Valentine, explained how she had met Beal for a Christmas drink in December 2021, not knowing she was just feet from her son's body.
"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," she said.
"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."
The sentencing hearing is expected to last two days.
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