Teacher who killed boyfriend made warped ‘shopping list’ of murder supplies

Cold-blooded killer Fiona Beal shopped in B&Q and on Tesco and Amazon for supplies to bury her boyfriend’s dead body.

The twisted primary school teacher, 50, was today jailed for life and handed a minimum term of 20 years for stabbing her partner, Nick Billingham, 42, to death on November 1, 2021. She lured him into their bedroom for sex before knifing him in the neck while he was tied up.

She attempted to cover her tracks and dumped his body inside a makeshift grave, which police uncovered after reading her confession in her diary, written under her chilling alter-ego ‘Tulip22’. Beal, from Northampton, then phoned in sick to work and staged her cover-up story.

Prosecutor Hugh Davies, KC, told the court: “She murdered him in their bedroom late on November 1. The clean-up started as early as 01.07am on November 2. 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.”

He continued: “Later that same day she changes a Tesco order, itself already containing multiple cleaning products, to add three rolls of duct tape. At 2.19pm she purchased heavy duty long gardening gloves, a stainless steel digging spade and a galvanised incinerator bin garden leaves wood burner. To state the obvious, this was not for burning leaves.

“There were further detailed and considered purchases on multiple other dates to continue and finish the job of cable-tying, wrapping and burying her partner in this makeshift tomb, as well as multiple purchases for her own comfort and indulgence by way of chocolates, scented candles, toiletries, soft furnishings and clothing. The way he was wrapped, with cables, hosepipes and plastic bags, building detritus afforded him no dignity in death.”

CCTV footage shown in court captured Beal entering and leaving B&Q in Northampton on November 13, where she purchased compost, decorative stones and bark chippings. In March 2022, police traced Beal to her holiday cottage in the Lake District and she was arrested. After a four-day search, investigators uncovered a ‘partially mummified’ body buried in the rear garden, covered with soil, slabs and bark.