How Helen Bailey’s evil fiance Ian Stewart turned from middle-aged IT expert to devious killer after hatching chilling plot to seduce her via bereavement dating site and kill her for £3.3m estate
THE fiance of murdered millionaire Helen Bailey has been found guilty of a greed-fuelled plot to heartlessly seduce the author before drugging her and dumping her body into a cesspit below her home.
Ian Stewart now faces life behind bars after a jury found he wooed the vulnerable author and earned her trust - now exposed as part of an elaborate plan to get his hands on her multi-million pound estate.
The 56-year-old had preyed on the wealthy widow, who was still grieving over the sudden drowning death of her husband, "love-bombing" her by showering her with compliments.
The pair became secretly engaged just a year after meeting through an internet group for bereaved widows and widowers - but their relationship had been orchestrated from the very beginning, with the Cambridge-educated software engineer playing "the long game" to get her almost £4million estate.
The plot, which prosecutors said had a "beginning, middle and end", then began to unfold, as Stewart, branded as "wicked" and a "full-blown liar", secretly plied his besotted lover with sleeping pills - police believing he may have snuck them into the scrambled eggs he made his fiancee in the mornings.
The pair had met on a Facebook group for the bereaved, starting a relationship within a year of Ms Bailey's first husband drowning while on holiday.
Stewart and Bailey had been emailing until the "cunning" Stewart drove to Royston unannounced, telling police: "That night became referred to as ‘fruit case Friday’ because I was a nutter for driving up there and she was a nutter for letting an unknown man in her house."
But as the relationship progressed, Stewart's plan unfolded as he slowly drugged the children's author over several months.
Stewart had stood to gain £1.8m from her investment portfolio, plus her properties in Royston and Kent.
But duped Bailey, who had nicknamed her fiance "GGHW" - Gorgeous Grey Haired Widower - had slowly begun to realise something was wrong, searching on the Internet reasons why she was struggling to stay awake, even unable to recognise her own hands.
Typing on her computer "why am I falling asleep in the day?" and "can't stop falling asleep", the Electra Brown author also told her mum about having to take five hour naps.
Stewart knew it would only be a matter of time before Helen went to her GP with her concerns and no doubt be given a blood test which would reveal the tell-tale presence of Zopiclone in her system.
The drug had never been prescribed to her - but it had been to Stewart - the man she trusted most and who she had named as the main beneficiary to her will.
Police say the plan came to a head on April 11.
Stewart is said to have smothered Helen, using a duvet to drag her body out to the garage and dumping the body of the woman he had promised to marry in the human excrement.
To complete the plot, he also threw in the body of Helen's beloved dachshund Boris - with the author never having gone anywhere without the pet.
With the existence of the cesspit known only to a few people, and Stewart planning to park his car over the entrance to ensure it was hidden, all he had to do was call the police and act as the bereaved fiance.
Calling police four days after she went missing, he was quickly interviewed by officers.
Holding his head in his hands, he told police he couldn't remember when he found the note that she had apparently left him, saying that she wanted to be left alone for a few days and that she would be staying at her holiday home in Broadstairs.
He had sent her text messages and called her, pleading for her to come home.
He told police he never stopped loving her.
Desperate to help, he gave cops advice, even telling them there was little point in searching the garage.
For three months, his plan worked.
Police launched appeal after appeal for the author, searching the area and checking her final movements online.
Three months after Helen went missing, police struck.
Putting together the clues, including that money was being transferred out of Helen's account into their shared account where Stewart would have access to it, they arrested the 56-year-old.
Arriving on his doorstep at the crack of dawn, Stewart could only note "the garage door is open" before being informed he was under arrest.
Dressed just in a dressing gown, he was left to gape "you're joking".
Four days later, on July 15, officers checked the cesspit.
Opening up the hole below the Royston home, they found Helen's arm sticking out of the excrement.
Stewart, who had already slipped up beforehand, accidentally speaking about Ms Bailey in the past tense, was charged with murder and remanded in Bedford Prison to await his trial.
Presented with the evidence against him, Stewart sat in prison, slowly concocting another story to explain everything away.
On December 12 last year, five months after the discovery of Helen's body, the Crown Prosecution Service finally received the defence case statement in which Stewart said two mysterious men he named only "Joe" and "Nick" had murdered Helen Bailey and disposed of her body in the cesspit
But more holes appeared in his story.
Stewart had claimed that Helen had taken her phone with her when she went missing.
It was why he had sent her text messages pleading with her to come back or at least contact him.
He could back up his story by showing officers the messages he had texted. Surely the police would see here was a desperate man worried sick for the welfare of his missing partner.
On April 16 Stewart, playing the role of the anxious partner desperate for news, had gone to the cottage in Broadstairs supposedly to check the property himself.
But while Stewart had removed the phone's SIM card, ensuring it wouldn't connect to the phone network, it was revealed that the phone had connected to a wireless router at Helen's Broadstairs property that same day.
When police tried to examine the router again - they found it was no longer there - and was instead at the Royston home - with all the information found earlier gone.
LIVING IN FANTASY LAND: How Helen Bailey's deceitful IT expert fiance tried to pin her death on two blokes called 'Nick and Joe' before his web of lies slowly unravelled to reveal sinister truth
Ian Stewart faces a lifetime behind bars for the murder of Helen Bailey. But protesting his innocence til the very end, Stewart had to come up with a plausible explanation for why his fiancee's body was found underneath their Royston home, three months after he reported her missing. Sitting in jail, awaiting his trial, Stewart knew he had to think of an excuse. So, five months after she disappeared, he told this story to police: Ian Stewart told police that Helen Bailey had been kidnapped by former business associates of her dead husband, John Sinfield. Identifying the men only as "Joe" and "Nick", he said that the pair had called around to the Royston home in February 2016, demanding to speak to Helen about some paperwork. It was during one of their mysterious visits that the men saw the cesspit, being inspected by Helen and Stewart, with Nick, described as a big man with tattoos on his neck, even helping to slide the manhole cover back into place. The men visited the home again, with Stewart claiming Helen said: "Please go away and leave me alone" with Joe simply whispering back "Just think about it". Later that day, Helen disappeared and Stewart was confronted by the thug Nick, who punched him in the stomach. Painting himself as the victim, Stewart said he ended up on the floor and was told: "Helen and Boris are with us. She is helping us solve a problem. Don't tell anyone where Helen is." It wasn't until Friday that he heard from Helen, with Nick handing him a phone with Helen on the other end. Stewart said: "She said 'I love you, sorry about everything.' I said 'It's not your fault, I love you too'." Months later, in June, the pair visited again, forcing him to let them drive their car into their home. It was then, Stewart claimed, they must have stashed Helen's body in the cesspit without him knowing. In June of last year Stewart claimed he was told by the kidnappers he would have to come up with half-a-million pounds in "compensation." Stewart claimed he hadn't told the police about the kidnapping for fear that harm would come to Helen and his sons. Even on remand in Bedford Prison, Stewart claimed the kidnappers managed to warn him against talking to the police. He said he was attacked by another inmate who told him "Don't snitch." It was since revealed in court that there were, in fact, two men who resembled the mysterious abductors. Joe Cippullo and Nick Cook were men known to him from when he lived in Bassingbourne. Joe Cippullo went bowling with him and Nick Cook was his former next door neighbour. The real life Nick and Joe were presented to the jury while Stewart was being cross-examined. " You recognise them, do you, Mr Stewart?" asked Mr Trimmer. "Yes, it's Nick and Joe," he replied.
They were little clues.
The phone, the sleeping pills, Stewart's lack of emotion, the loving husband already speaking of Helen in the past tense.
But they were all the clues that police needed to act.
John Bailey, Helen's brother, revealed the true cost of the final judgment, saying: "Despite this victory for justice, there can be no celebration.
"Our families have been devastated and nothing can ever bring Helen back to us, or truly right this wrong.
"A long shadow of loss has been cast over the lives of so many who will always remember Helen with enduring love and affection."
For now, Stewart now faces a lifetime behind bars.
For now, Helen may rest in peace.
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