The murder of Helen Bailey

Ian Stewart, the fiance of Helen Bailey, has been found guilty of her murder, and has been sentenced for 34 years.

Has anyone else followed this story and/or the trial? I find it quite horrendous. Was Ian Stewart really playing the "long game", or did he decide to murder her later? Is there any possibility that he didn't do it and that his story about two men kidnapping her was true?

Ian Stewart, 56, was convicted of secretly drugging and suffocating Ms Bailey in a plot to inherit her near-£4m fortune.

Her body was found under their home in Royston, Hertfordshire, last July.

Judge Andrew Bright QC said it was "difficult to imagine a more heinous crime".

After the sentencing, the family of Stewart's late wife, Diane, said they supported a police re-investigation into her sudden death in 2010.

Stewart reported Ms Bailey missing three months before her body was found in the "foul-smelling" cesspit alongside the corpse of her dachshund Boris.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-39064218

What puzzles me a bit is the motive. Helen had made a Will in his favour, but without a body he wouldn't have been able to inherit anything for years.

It was said that he was drugging her for a while with his own sleeping pills - for what purpose? Apparently, he had Power of Attorney. Maybe he just wanted her to be ill and tired so that she was more compliant and he could take more control over the money?

Why then did he decide to kill her? Perhaps he didn't. It's not known how she died, although it's thought he probably suffocated her. Perhaps he gave her too much of the drug and she died, and then he had her body on his hands. He couldn't risk calling the police or an ambulance because they would have discovered the presence of the drug, so he decided to say that she had disappeared.

Then there was the problem of the little dog, Boris. Helen wouldn't have left Boris, so he had to be killed as well.

Why put them in the septic tank/cesspit though? Those things have to be cleared out regularly don't they?

Rags I'm moving this to criminology as I'd like to look at this when I have time.

Haven't been following it Raggs... but maybe money wasn't the motive...

Raggamuffin wrote:What puzzles me a bit is the motive. Helen had made a Will in his favour, but without a body he wouldn't have been able to inherit anything for years.

It was said that he was drugging her for a while with his own sleeping pills - for what purpose? Apparently, he had Power of Attorney. Maybe he just wanted her to be ill and tired so that she was more compliant and he could take more control over the money?

Why then did he decide to kill her? Perhaps he didn't. It's not known how she died, although it's thought he probably suffocated her. Perhaps he gave her too much of the drug and she died, and then he had her body on his hands. He couldn't risk calling the police or an ambulance because they would have discovered the presence of the drug, so he decided to say that she had disappeared.  

Then there was the problem of the little dog, Boris. Helen wouldn't have left Boris, so he had to be killed as well.

Why put them in the septic tank/cesspit though? Those things have to be cleared out regularly don't they?

I read she might have been alive when he stuffed in the cess pit. And you can bet your life he chucked the dog in there alive as well.

Raggamuffin wrote:What puzzles me a bit is the motive. Helen had made a Will in his favour, but without a body he wouldn't have been able to inherit anything for years.

It was said that he was drugging her for a while with his own sleeping pills - for what purpose? Apparently, he had Power of Attorney. Maybe he just wanted her to be ill and tired so that she was more compliant and he could take more control over the money?

Why then did he decide to kill her? Perhaps he didn't. It's not known how she died, although it's thought he probably suffocated her. Perhaps he gave her too much of the drug and she died, and then he had her body on his hands. He couldn't risk calling the police or an ambulance because they would have discovered the presence of the drug, so he decided to say that she had disappeared.  

Then there was the problem of the little dog, Boris. Helen wouldn't have left Boris, so he had to be killed as well.

Why put them in the septic tank/cesspit though? Those things have to be cleared out regularly don't they?

And have you seen the cut of him? She must have been desperate to want to wake up to that every morning.

HoratioTarr wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:What puzzles me a bit is the motive. Helen had made a Will in his favour, but without a body he wouldn't have been able to inherit anything for years.

It was said that he was drugging her for a while with his own sleeping pills - for what purpose? Apparently, he had Power of Attorney. Maybe he just wanted her to be ill and tired so that she was more compliant and he could take more control over the money?

Why then did he decide to kill her? Perhaps he didn't. It's not known how she died, although it's thought he probably suffocated her. Perhaps he gave her too much of the drug and she died, and then he had her body on his hands. He couldn't risk calling the police or an ambulance because they would have discovered the presence of the drug, so he decided to say that she had disappeared.  

Then there was the problem of the little dog, Boris. Helen wouldn't have left Boris, so he had to be killed as well.

Why put them in the septic tank/cesspit though? Those things have to be cleared out regularly don't they?

And have you seen the cut of him?   She must have been desperate to want to wake up to that every morning.

Well you can't account for what attracts people to each other really.

I just find this case quite incredible. The opinion of the judge seems to be that he planned this all along, and there have been several articles in the press about men preying on vulnerable women like Helen. However, I don't think this was a case of a conman planning to meet a rich woman in order to bump her off. I think that something happened to make him change his mind about her. I find it quite awful that he didn't just walk away though. He might even have killed her by accident, but the death of the little dog was not an accident, and the fact that he chucked them both into a septic tank and then just carried on as normal shows the mind of someone who is without any kind of remorse at all.

I have considered the possibility that this "Nick" and "Joe" story might be true. It seems that these men do exist and were mentioned in the diary of John Sinfield, Helen's husband. However, I don't see why they would murder her and put her in the septic tank along with her dog. Even if it was done to frame Ian Stewart, they probably wouldn't have known of the existence of the tank.