These are the horrifying pictures that reveal the garden grave and grim lair where a primary school teacher murdered her cheating boyfriend before hiding his body for four months.
Fiona Beal, 50, is being sentenced today after pleading guilty to his muder in April. Diary entries written by Beal revealed how she tricked her boyfriend into wearing a mask by promising sex before stabbing him and burying the body in the garden.
Hours after murdering him, she then used his Amazon account to buy a sex toy, a herb grinder for cannabis and a large fleece blanket.
The hearing will conclude on Thursday.
On the day of his death, Nicholas had worked on a house renovation before returning to the home he shared with Beal in Northampton.
That evening, she killed him in a "carefully planned domestic execution", Mr Davies said.
Beal stabbed him in the neck and disposed of the body in the side return of their home like "building waste", Mr Davies said.
She covered her tracks with a false story that they had Covid and needed to isolate.
(Image: Northamptonshire Police)The partly mummified remains of 42-year-old Nicholas Billingham were found in Northampton in March 2022, more than four months after he was last seen alive.
She buried Nicholas's body in their garden after stabbing him in the neck.
Beal pretended to be her boyfriend by sending messages to family from his phone on November 2.
(Image: Northamptonshire Police)"I left the water in," she wrote. "He had been pushing for sex. 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 bought a chisel, bin bag and cable ties up too. I got him to wear an eye mask.
Beal's horrifying diary entry continued: "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."
The journals also included reference to her having a split personality and an alter ego she called Tulip 22.
She went on: "My last words to him when he asked why was that he was not going to do to (another female) what he had done to me."
In a journal entry dated February 12, she wrote: "I'm not a total monster. I know what I did."
(Image: PA)Mr Davies said Beal "planned to execute" Mr Billingham then "delivered a false narrative" so she could "conceal her crime".
All this was done while she continued "to deliver high-quality teaching to Year 6 pupils as if nothing had happened", Mr Davies said.
The trial has been shown a series of disturbing photos of the unmarked grave where Beal buried her boyfriend - and the basement where she dumped a blood-stained mattress from the bedroom where she had lured him to death.
(Image: PA)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."
Mr Billingham's mother Yvonne attended Wednesday's hearing, during which Beal appeared solemn and was looking down.
(Image: PA)The trial has been shown a series of disturbing photos of the unmarked grave where Beal buried her boyfriend - and the basement where she dumped a blood-stained mattress from the bedroom where she had lured him to death.
Officers who searched the home also found cable ties. Nicholas's body was found in March 2022, four months after he first went missing.
(Image: PA)Beal buried her boyfriend in a makeshift grave filled with compost and bags of Cotswold Stone.
On November 13, 2021 Beal hid Mr Billingham's van on a side street a mile from the home and went to B&Q to purchase items for a makeshift grave.
She then invented a story about Nicholas running off with another woman. Beal wrote in her diary that she began to believe her own cover story.
"But in the dark times or just random moments I would remember," she added. "Remember what I've done. Remember what I am."
On 8 November 2021 Beal texted her sister: "Well not only do I have Covid, I've split up with Nick. Isolation has brought out some very unpleasant truths and he's moved out. Fml xx."
(Image: PA)