A primary school teacher who murdered her boyfriend before burying him in their garden has been jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years.
Fiona Beal, 50, from Northampton, stabbed Nicholas Billingham, 42, to death sometime between October and November 2021.
After previously pleading guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter by reason of loss of control, Beal last month pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Billingham.
The Old Bailey heard she killed him in "cold blood" before burying his body in their back garden.
Mr Billingham's partly-mummified remains were discovered four-and-a-half months after he was last seen on 1 November, 2021.
On Wednesday, she appeared in court for the start of her two-day sentencing by Judge Mark Lucraft KC.
Handing her a life sentence on Thursday, Mr Lucraft said: "Having moved and buried the body in the garden you then lied to his mother, numerous friends, all his family and yours as to what you had done and where he was."
Beal had her head down as she left court.
During her sentencing hearing on Wednesday, the prosecution read out a letter Mr Billingham wrote to Beal after he had an affair during their 17-year relationship.
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."
On the day of his death, Mr Billingham had worked on a house renovation before returning to the home he shared with Beal in Northampton.
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That evening, she killed him in a "carefully planned domestic execution", the prosecution said.
Beal stabbed him in the neck and disposed of the body in a shallow grave at the side of their home like "building waste".
She covered her tracks with a false story that they had COVID and needed to isolate.
Mr Billingham's mother Yvonne Valentine last month told Sky News how she had visited the couple's home in the days after the killing.
She said: "I walked into the house, in the living room, and the first thing I thought was, 'oh, have you had a turn round of furniture? It all looks different'.
"Fiona offered me a Christmas drink and we sat there... but it always gets to me, because I think Nick was buried in the garden, just a few feet away and I didn't know he was there."
In a victim impact statement, Ms Valentine branded Beal a "coward" and "exceptionally evil and cruel" to send her messages from her son's phone to convince her he was safe and well.
Days after Mr Billingham went missing, Beal sent messages to her sisters saying they had split up, with one message saying he left because he had had an affair with another woman.
On her return to work, she received sympathy from those who had heard about the apparent break-up.
Beal's mental health started to deteriorate in late February 2022.
In a journal entry from that month, she wrote: "I'm not a total monster. I know what I did."
She also listed "memories, messages, confession, final farewell", the prosecution said.
In February, Beal had been signed off work with anxiety, stress, depression and low mood.
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Tap hereThe following month, she rented a cabin in Cumbria and sent messages to family members which gave them cause for concern over her wellbeing, prompting them to call police to check on her.
In the cabin, police found Beal's journals containing a confession to the killing.
They also included reference to her having a split personality and an alter ego she called Tulip 22.
She wrote: "I had smoked all day. I had a bath, I left the water in. 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 I had it in the drawer next to the bed.
"I brought a chisel, bin bag and cable ties up too. I got him to wear an eye mask."
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."
The journals triggered a police investigation and Beal was arrested in March 2022 after Mr Billingham's body was discovered.
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