Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Man is quizzed over ‘murder’ of the cesspit killer’s 1st wife
Probe into mystery death 8 years ago
DETECTIVES have quizzed a man on suspicion of murdering the first wife of cesspit killer Ian Stewart.
Stewart, 57, drugged author Helen Bailey, 51, before murdering her and dumping the body in a sewage tank beneath their £1.5million home.
Last year, detectives announced they were re-examining the mystery death of his first wife Diane in 2010.
Stewart found the lifelong epilepsy sufferer, 47, collapsed in their back garden and a coroner later ruled the death was due to natural causes.
The couple were married for 24 years and had sons Jamie, 25, and Oliver, 22.
This week a man, aged 57, was arrested and questioned on suspicion of Diane’s murder.
Police refused to confirm his identity, releasing only his age, gender and location as “Bedford”. The suspect has been “released under investigation” and Diane’s family has been informed.
Diane’s relatives previously released a statement, which said: “We are fully aware of the re-examination of Diane’s death and support the police in their actions.”
Stewart, who is serving a minimum of 34 years in prison for Helen’s murder, met Diane at Salford University. He was married to the school secretary for 24 years when she died at their home in Bassingbourn, Herts, on June 25, 2010.
The following year, he met Helen through a bereavement site. Her husband John, 65, had drowned in Barbados in 2011. Helen, who penned the Electra Brown books for teenagers, described Stewart on her Planet Grief blog as her “Gorgeous Grey-haired Widower” and they bought a mansion in Royston, Herts.
The author dedicated her memoir When Bad Things Happen in Good Bikinis to him, saying: “I love you. You are my happy ending.”
But computer expert Stewart began plotting murder after she changed her will so he would inherit £3million. He drugged her in the weeks leading up to the killing by adding the sedative Zopiclone to her food.
Stewart is then believed to have suffocated Helen with a pillow on April 11, 2016, before dumping her body in a cesspit beneath their garage.
For the next three months the cynical killer lied to police, family and friends, claiming his fiancee had left a note saying she wanted some “time alone”.
He even issued an appeal for her to come home, saying: “You not only mended my heart five years ago but made it bigger, stronger and kinder. Now it feels like my heart doesn’t even exist.”
The sick charade continued until he was arrested after the discovery of Helen’s body in July that year.
Stewart, who had not worked in 20 years, was convicted of murder, fraud, preventing a lawful burial and perverting the course of justice.
He was jailed for life at St Albans crown court in February last year.