Friends of body-in-the-garden murder victim Nicholas Billingham today told how they thought his twisted killer was completely incapable of cold-blooded murder.
Leslie Oldham's son, Luke, grew up with Mr Billingham after the pair met at Headlands Primary School in Northampton in 1984. Leslie met Fiona Beal shortly after Mr Billingham began seeing her in 2004 - 17 years before she stabbed him in the neck and buried him in the garden. Today she was jailed for life with a minimum term of 20 years.
“I thought she was really nice," Leslie recalled. “They weren’t holding hands or all over each other but they looked happy enough. Nick brought her round for a cup of tea and she was really polite and chatty. Nick was always a bit of a ladies' man and enjoyed female attention so you never knew how long a relationship was going to last.
"Luke, my son, took his daughter to a barbecue at Nick’s and she even offered to help her with some maths for school which we thought was really kind.” Widow Leslie, 68, said she never suspected anything untoward when Nick suddenly disappeared. “I was one of the people Fiona sent a text to, pretending it was Nick,” says Leslie.
Nicholas Beal's body was found in the backyard of the house (Northamptonshire Police / SWNS)
Friends of Mr Billingham said Beal appeared "nice" (PA)"I sent out Happy New Year texts to friends and got one back from Nick. I still can’t believe she’d killed him and buried him in their garden when we all thought he was alive. The fact that she managed to kill him and drag him tied up into the garden doesn’t bear thinking about. I’ve spoken to Nick’s mum and she’s utterly devastated. The whole family is. It’s just such a shock.”
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The Old Bailey has heard Beal lured Mr Billingham to the bedroom for sex in November 2021 then used cable ties to restrain him before knifing him in the neck. Once she had murdered him "in cold blood", the monster wrapped his body up and buried him in the garden of her two-bed terrace home, in Moore Street, Northants, like "building waste".
She then pretended to be her boyfriend in messages sent from his phone in a move that was "as heartless as it was self-serving". The Year 6 teacher also bought a large fleece blanket, a sex toy and a herb grinder for cannabis on Mr Billingham's Amazon account the night of the killing.
The backyard where the body was foundBeal was today told she will serve a minimum of 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to murdering her partner of 17 years. After stabbing Mr Billingham to death she left his body to mummify for more than four months. In March 2022 police were called to a holiday cabin she had rented in Cumbria amid concerns for her welfare.
Officers discovered journals where Beal outlined her plans under her alter ego "Tulip 22", which showed a "wholly different side to her personality". The court was told Mr Billingham met Beal in 2004 but he had begged for forgiveness after a brief affair, telling Beal: "I will love you until the day I die."
Neighbours living in Moore Street, Northants, believe the three-bed terraced property where Fiona and Mr Billingham lived has remained empty since Fiona’s arrest. “It hasn’t been marketed as a rental place or changed hands since the police forensics finished working there,” said one resident. “Someone occasionally comes there, presumably to keep an eye on the place, but I think people around here think it’ll go on the market when she’s been sentenced.”
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