Author’s killer investigated over death of his first wife

DETECTIVES have questioned the killer of Helen Bailey, the children’s author, over the death of his first wife eight years ago.

Police announced yesterday that a 57-year-old man from Bedford had been arrested earlier this week and questioned on suspicion of the murder of Diane Stewart, 47, who was found dead in the garden of her large country home in Bassingbourn, Cambs, in June 2010, before being released under investigation.

At the time she was married to Ian Stewart, who was jailed for life in 2017 for the murder of Mrs Bailey in 2016 at the £1.5 million home in Royston, Herts, that they shared together.

Mavis Drake, a former neighbour of Mrs Bailey’s, told The Daily Telegraph last night said: “I can’t even imagine how Diane’s family are feeling right now. It’s going to bring up so many sad memories and open up many wounds.

“I’d say I’m shocked by the news, but I’m not surprised. He [Stewart] wasn’t an emotional man, always quiet, never showed any public displays of affection. I’m pleased police are reinvestigating her death, but I feel for Ian’s family – especially his sons and his mother. How you deal with something like this I don’t know.”

Stewart went on to meet Mrs Bailey, the millionaire author of the teenage hit series, Electra Brown, and they eventually moved in together.

But in 2016 he began slowly and secretly drugging Mrs Bailey, who was his fiancée, with a sleeping drug before killing her in April of that year. He hid her body, together with her dog Boris, in the cesspit below their garage.