[gentle music]
♪ A thousand ways to die ♪
[Operator Voiceover] Hertfordshire Police, how can I help?
[Ian Voiceover] Hello there, my partner has been missing since Monday...
[narrator] On April 15th, 2016,
Ian Stewart calls the police to report that his fiancée Helen is missing.
[Ian voiceover] She said, "I need space and time alone.
Please don't contact me in any way."
I've never done one of these videos before.
I thought I'd try it because it would be a fun, new thing to do.
Helen didn't choose Ian, he chose Helen.
I thought at that stage, she was just walking the dog
or with the neighbors.
♪ Cast me into the sky ♪
[narrator] Six years earlier, Ian Stewart had made another 999 call,
saying his wife, Diane, has collapsed.
[Ian Voiceover] My wife's had a fit. I think she, she's in the garden.
[Operator Voiceover] Okay, right, you need to slow down.
I just thought it was a terrible tragedy.
[Ian Voiceover] She's unconscious.
[narrator] Ian Stewart appears to have been
tragically unlucky in love.
[detective] You're the last person to see her alive.
[Beep] what a load of [beep].
[narrator] But is it something other than luck?
[gentle upbeat music]
♪ Make me hold your eyes ♪
♪ Cripple me inside ♪
[ominous music]
[dramatic music]
[birds chirping]
[gentle music]
[narrator] It's a postcard perfect village of Middle England,
the quiet click of bowls on the village green.
In the pretty village of Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire,
Ian Stewart and his family have become key members
of the village team.
[man] Well, they looked like a model family.
I would've thought, perfect, you know,
they didn't seem to have any money worries that I knew of.
They got a beautiful house, which they'd sort of partly built themselves,
opposite the church in Bassingbourn.
So I was the club captain.
[dramatic music]
We were pretty short of members and we had a new member come along.
It was Ian Stewart, and duly joined the club
and got heavily involved
and ended up, in no short order of time,
being the actual treasurer of the club.
[dramatic music]
Shortly after that, his wife Diane came along.
She was playing a bit,
but also being there and helping
with doing the food preparations and whatever for matches.
And then obviously they got the two young boys at the time.
And it was probably before the year 2000
that the whole family was involved,
which we desperately needed,
'cause like all the village clubs we were short of membership.
So they were a pretty close-knit unit.
[narrator] Ian is soon known as someone who prepares meticulously.
He was also a really keen bowler.
I mean, when he started bowling,
he would be up there practicing and his lads would be up there with him,
when they were available as well, because the club,
there's nobody using it all day, every day virtually.
So it was unlimited practice if you're keen enough to want to do it.
But yeah, Ian didn't take any persuading.
[gentle upbeat music]
Within a year or two, he was obviously a first choice pick
for the top team in the club.
[Narrator] Crown green bowling looks like a gentle game,
but the new treasurer can display a steely side
to his personality.
[dramatic music]
[Bill] When you're playing at a reasonable level,
you're playing to win.
Ferocious competitor, he really played to win
and he expected his boys and his wife to do the same.
[Narrator] Ian's wife is also a popular and active member of the club.
Fellow members have no reason to think
that Diane has any problems with her health.
[dramatic music]
That's why Bill Manley is so shocked
when he hears terrible news.
[dramatic music]
"Diane Stewart dropped down dead today."
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] The village can barely believe it
when they hear how Ian Stewart
has found Diane collapsed in their garden.
[dramatic music]
It was an epileptic seizure, which at the time, again,
we just thought this is just one of those things
that comes along and smacks you in the mouth
when you think life's all nice and sorted and it's perfect,
and this, something like this comes along.
And nobody had any knowledge that was anything wrong with her.
So it was a complete bombshell.
[dramatic music]
[birds chirping]
[gentle music]
[Narrator] In February, 2011,
Helen Bailey, a successful children's author
is about to find her life torn apart by tragedy.
She has been with her husband John for 22 years.
One day Helen will meet Mavis Drake.
Helen was effervescent, bright, breezy,
slim, tall, attractive, full of talk.
[gentle music]
[Narrator] Helen and John married in 1996.
The couple don't have children.
She dotes on the couple's little dog, Boris.
[Mavis] She was wary about bringing Boris to the house.
And I said, no, it's fine, I've had a dog.
So very, very thoughtful about other people.
And she'd just pop in whenever she felt like it.
We'd been out walking Boris, coming back from the town.
And so it was a lovely, easy friendship.
[gentle music]
Boris was the nearest thing to a human child
that she could have,
and particularly because he wasn't a great big dog,
he's a small little Dachshund.
And so she could pick it up and cuddle it.
[gentle music]
[Narrator] Successful as a writer,
devoted to her dog, living the good life with John.
Her marriage was incredibly successful, happy.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] Then without warning, Helen's world changes forever.
[dramatic music]
Helen loses her husband, John.
[dramatic music]
They were on holiday in Barbados
and he gets taken out by a riptide.
He went into the sea for a swim, against my advice,
and he got caught in a rip current and drowned.
[Jill] She started off breakfast as a wife,
and by lunch time she was a widow.
And she lost her husband in tragic, tragic circumstances.
[waves crashing]
The absolute shock of that, being abroad as well,
when you're dealing with that,
I can't imagine the trauma that that would've affected her.
I think it really impacted Helen,
who was a very kind and compassionate
and happy, gregarious person.
And suddenly to find herself on her own,
she really missed her husband
and she really missed the role that he had in her life.
[Narrator] In an attempt to ease her grief,
Helen writes, what will become a bestseller,
"When Bad Things Happen In Good Bikinis."
About what it's like to lose the person
you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with,
quite so suddenly.
[waves crashing]
Helen was a writer and that was the way that she expressed herself.
And so it was a kind of natural
that she would start writing about
how she was feeling about the death of her husband.
[Narrator] In an attempt to come to terms with her loss,
Helen also begins to reach out online
to others who have gone through similar experiences.
And I found myself completely
and utterly shut down with grief, I couldn't write anything.
So I turned to blogging.
[dramatic music]
That put her in contact with lots of other people
and she was in a group, a community of people
who were bereaved
and were perhaps looking for new friendships.
And within the blog, she was talking about the grieving process
and she gave quite clear examples
of how much she was grieving and missed her husband.
Buying a single scotch egg,
pulling the wheelie bin out at night on my own,
going to parties as a single person,
that I hadn't done for 25 years.
And it was on this blog where she met Ian.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] Helen discovers that Ian has also lost a partner unexpectedly.
Ian, who lost his wife, who had an epileptic seizure
whilst out in the garden.
That was sudden, that was quick.
So again, you've got some similarities, some bonding.
[gentle music]
You've got people who've lost their partners
very suddenly, very quickly, very unexpectedly.
So there's a real bond there between Ian and Helen at that point.
Both tragic, quick, unexpected incidents
that leaves both the people
they leave behind bereft, grieving and suffering.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] Their mutual loss brings the two together.
Seven months after Helen loses her husband,
she begins telling friends online about Ian,
the new man she calls her gorgeous gray-haired widower.
[dramatic music]
He came across as an incredibly nice man
and passionate and kind.
And he had told her that he had been bereaved.
They shared that and they started talking.
[dramatic music]
[Jill] She immediately describes him to her friends.
"He's this great guy."
Within quite a short period of time of losing her first husband.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] At first, Ian and Helen only talk online,
but Ian soon shows how keen he is to meet her in person.
[car engines revving]
Ian was the only one who found out where she lived
and went to her house.
He must have had a certain charisma for women
because he didn't seem to have any trouble attracting the women.
Like Diane, his first wife.
[gentle music]
Helen said to me that it wasn't on the rebound at all,
that Ian made her laugh.
[gentle music]
[waves crashing]
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] The romance takes off
as Ian offers to drive Helen down to her holiday home
on the Kent coast.
They went down to Broadstairs
and she said she got to know him on the car drive
and he made her laugh.
And she does like people who laugh.
[dramatic music]
[Jane] She was at a point in her life
where she was lonely, she was vulnerable.
And bearing in mind as well
that Helen had had a very happy marriage,
she hadn't had that kind of marriage
where she would be looking out for these red flags
and thinking, "I've got to be careful."
[dramatic music]
[Jill] "I've fallen for you and I wanna know so much about you.
I admire you.
You've made your own wealth, you're clever.
Tell me all about your life. I can't believe I've met you.
I cannot believe you are my perfect woman."
And actually imagine being told that,
especially, you know, you've recently been bereaved.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] Ian also confides in Helen
that he's had to learn to live with a serious long-term illness.
He suffered from a condition called Myasthenia gravis,
which is a muscle condition that makes his muscles weak.
[dramatic music]
[Bill] And if you stood him in a lineup with his former self,
you would not recognize him.
If there was five or six people there, you wouldn't know it's the same man.
Unbelievable, the way it changed his,
it sort of bloated his face.
It was quite a shock to see him like it.
I mean, I don't think you,
nobody's putting that on,
you know, it's really, really nasty.
[Narrator] Ian tells Helen
that his chronic medical condition means that he can no longer work.
So whilst he's been this strong man,
he's also telling her that he's also vulnerable.
And from what we know about Helen,
a kind, warm, lovely woman, she would want to help,
she would want to look after
and perhaps nurture that for Ian.
[Narrator] Two years after they first meet
Helen and Ian agree to set up home together.
I saw Helen and Stewart.
They were looking at the house
and they actually had their arms around each other.
[Narrator] Ian and his two sons, from his marriage to Diane,
move into Helen's beautiful house in a gated community called Heathfield,
with its own tennis court and swimming pool.
[dramatic music]
Well, the residents in Heathfield are absolutely wonderful people,
and we are a very close knit community.
[Narrator] Helen's property also has a large garage.
And he bought this sports car, which I think was a bit tatty,
but he must have thought it was special.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] Ian starts to park his red sports car
in the garage on top of a trap door
leading to an outdoor septic tank.
Helen is a popular figure in the community.
Her new partner is more of an acquired taste.
When Mavis calls around for a chat with Helen,
Ian often makes himself scarce.
So he'd opened the front door, show you into the room.
But he never joined in the conversation, he didn't stay in the room.
And I think he was sort of trying to make out he was busy,
but I don't think he did anything.
[Narrator] Despite having fallen in love with Ian,
Helen admits on her blog, Planet Grief,
that there are some challenges in the new relationship.
Even though Ian's muscle weakening disease
means he can't work, he does still have a steady income.
He was the director of a computer firm.
And the directors took out an insurance policy
if any of them were ill,
so they'd get paid a fee every month, forever.
[Narrator] Financially secure, living in a beautiful home,
in a peaceful pretty village,
life for Helen Bailey and Ian Stewart
seems set for continued happiness.
Once he's ill, doesn't work anymore, time on his hands,
he wasn't a gardener.
I don't believe he had any hobbies at all.
[Narrator] With hours to fill every day,
Ian starts to immerse himself in a fictional world
of mystery and murder.
He used to go to the library and take out 12 books at a time,
and they were all of one genre,
thrillers.
[dramatic music]
Thriller after thriller after thriller.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] Helen Bailey's success as a writer
means that she is comfortably off.
[dramatic music]
She never flaunted her wealth, but when you knew her lifestyle,
you could think that she moved in the the right circles,
the publishing world, the film world,
all that kind of world, and had designer clothes.
But she never flaunted any of that at all.
She didn't flash jewelry around or anything like that.
[Narrator] Helen and Ian, her partner of two years,
enjoy their lifestyle.
But after losing her first husband in a tragic, drowning accident,
Helen knows just how fickle life can be.
I think that her financial advisor
told her that she must have a will in place,
once she moved here with Ian and in case anything happened to her.
[narrator] After her husband John died,
Helen had made a will leaving her estate to her relatives.
But now she asks her neighbor to witness a new version of the will.
And so we signed this temporary will
because she hadn't decided how to leave her estate.
She'd got stepchildren, she got her brother
and she'd got her mother and father alive.
She did sort of let out that, as a temporary basis,
it was all going to Ian.
And I remember thinking, oh, you know,
is that really wise to do that?
[gentle upbeat music]
She told me that they wanted to get married.
She told me she was starting to look at venues
and asked me if I knew any places around
and she was starting the planning process.
[gentle upbeat music]
She wanted to get married, she wanted a big wedding
with all the trimmings.
And he seemed not the slightest bit interested.
[narrator] Ever scarred by how fragile life can be,
Helen takes measures to ensure that Ian,
unable to work now because of his condition,
will be looked after.
She then takes out an insurance policy
for up to £1.25 million because she doesn't want Ian
to be financially vulnerable should anything happen to her.
[narrator] In fact, it is Ian who shows signs of frailty.
In January, 2016, he tells his doctor
that he's having trouble sleeping.
He is prescribed a powerful sedative.
But then a month later, Helen notices a disturbing change
in how she's feeling.
She's commented to friends and family
that she's feeling sleepy, she doesn't feel well.
"Why do I feel so tired? Why do I feel like this?"
[narrator] Her new and inexplicable sleepiness
even begins to affect Helen's ability
to look after her beloved dog, Boris.
When she's out for a regular walk on the beach,
she forgets to bring Boris home.
She loved that dog.
And yet here's a woman who, for some unknown reason,
leaves her dog behind when she went out one day.
Imagine how she's feeling right now.
This fit, healthy woman is suddenly starting to feel unwell.
How scared is she?
And who's she gonna turn to for support and ask,
"I don't feel well, I feel rubbish, what's happening to me?"
It's gonna be her partner, it's going to be Ian.
She's gonna be turning to him and say, "Why do I feel so unwell?"
What's he likely to be saying?
"Oh, don't worry, I'll look after you, I'll take care of you."
How's he feeling at that point?
He's feeling like his power is there.
She's vulnerable, she's scared, he's there.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] But on April 15th, 2016, she wasn't there.
Ian Stewart calls the police
to report that Helen has been missing for four days.
[Ian Voiceover] Hello there, my partner has been missing since Monday...
She left her car here.
She did take her dog with her, she's got a little Dachshund.
I knew on the Friday before anybody else in Royston did,
because I saw the police cars come to the house.
Very unusual happening.
And a policeman came over and told me that she was missing.
And the first thing I said, "Oh, my God, has she been abducted?
It was my first thought that somebody had taken her away
because she's famous.
It was her brother who insisted that he call the police
because he was trying to intimate
that she'd gone off to Broadstairs
and wanted to write a book, and she wanted peace and quiet.
[Narrator] Ian tells the police
that Helen has left a note asking for some space.
Why would she need space?
She's in a what we know to be a happy, healthy relationship with a man
that she said she's gonna be with for the rest of her life.
And yet one day, out of the blue,
she's got up and left the house, saying she needs space.
[Narrator] Ian says he thinks that Helen has gone with Boris
down to their holiday cottage in Broadstairs.
But no one has seen Helen or her dog there or anywhere else.
The police visit Ian to ask about the day that she went missing.
[birds chirping]
[Policeman] We'd like you to take us through
what happened that day.
This is where I can't remember very well. I'll tell you what I can remember.
[Narrator] Stewart explains that he'd been unwell
and struggles to remember what he did
the day that Helen disappeared.
And then I don't remember much until I woke up in the chair in my office.
And then, I'm not sure if this is right, I'm not sure this is right.
At some point I saw the mail on my desk from Helen.
[Narrator] Stewart tells the police that he has now thrown away the note.
I'm pretty sure Helen waved goodbye to me.
But when I think back, I'm not so sure. So maybe she did, maybe she didn't.
[Narrator] Helen is normally an active presence
on social media.
But the police can find no sign of her online
since her disappearance.
And her mobile phone has been turned off.
I can't believe it's been a month since my sister Helen disappeared.
[Narrator] It is May 11th, 2016, four weeks after Ian reported her missing.
Helen's brother John Bailey issues a public appeal for help.
And as more time passes, since she was last seen,
the more concerned we become.
As you know, there is little information for the police to work on.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] Mavis Drake is desperate for news.
She wants to know where her friend is and asks Ian what's happening.
Yes, I think I saw him over the fence
and just said, "Any news? We're all rooting for you, Ian."
You know, hoping for the best.
[Narrator] Ian Stewart pays for flyers
asking for information about Helen and her dog, Boris.
And he posts a public loving message to Helen online.
[dramatic music]
♪ I'll be your opponent ♪
♪ If you'll let me take all your pieces apart ♪
♪ It's dangerous playing with the heart of a woman ♪
[Narrator] But the police are beginning to pick up some clues
which make them question Ian's version of events.
They find that on April 11th, 2016,
the same day that Ian says Helen disappeared,
a monthly standing order from Helen's personal bank account
to the account she shares with Ian
is raised from £600 to £4,000.
And when the police ask if they can examine his phone,
Ian tells them it's disappeared.
[Policeman] Any the new visitors,
anyone introducing themselves into your life,
either by telephone, or turning up at the house in person?
Hmm, no one springs to mind at all, no.
[Narrator] When Ian is questioned a second time,
he continues to struggle to offer any information
that might help.
And then Stewart decides
to stop cooperating with the police altogether.
The police want to go and execute
a further search warrant for the property and he refuses.
I wonder why he's refusing.
Maybe that was the first time he thought,
"Oh, this isn't going the way I planned."
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] The police discover Ian Stewart
has left the country for a two-week holiday to Spain.
[dramatic music]
That's the sign for me that the real Ian is starting to show.
That mask of being the perfect guy, just all starting to slip down now.
We're actually seeing the real Ian, the real Ian at work.
[Narrator] Detectives' suspicions are hardened
by the lack of any evidence that Helen is still alive.
If you go missing, you tend to show signs of activity.
Mobile phones, bank cards, CCTV.
The world is a place now that it's really hard to disappear.
So we've got her go missing on the 11th of April
and she has literally disappeared.
[dramatic music]
[car engines revving]
And as the investigation's continued,
there isn't any apparent signs of Helen being anywhere.
You can see why this change
from being a missing person's investigation
to murder investigation.
[dramatic music]
I'm arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Helen Bailey.
You're joking!
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] There's a problem with the decision to arrest Ian Stewart.
If Helen has been murdered, where is her body?
Why? I don't understand.
What's happened?
Have you found Helen?
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] Might she be alive?
[dramatic music]
[Detective] You're the last person to see her alive.
You wait four days to report her missing.
[Narrator] Ian Stewart has been arrested
for the suspected murder of his fiancé, Helen Bailey.
But the police have a problem.
Despite extensive searches, they still can't find her body.
And Ian Stewart isn't talking.
[Detective] You're vague about your movements on 11th,
at best vague.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] But by now the village is alive with gossip.
Since Helen's disappearance,
there have been no sightings of her or her dog, Boris,
which normally never leaves her side.
Police carry out an extensive search of a local Heath
in the surrounding countryside.
[dramatic music]
Neighbor Mavis Drake, a close friend of Helen's
is desperate for news.
That was the obvious thought that she could have fallen down in a crevice,
in the woods or something like that.
And so people would look in the woods.
And also they started to look for Boris, a dog missing.
Again on the Heath, everybody started talking about it.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] The police continue to question Stewart.
He's not being cooperative.
But they now find what they believe could be
his motive for murder.
[Detective] There is transactions where it clearly shows, from what I've seen,
that you have taken money or someone has taking money,
which I believe to be you,
from her account into your joint account,
which you have, obviously, access to.
You will have benefited from her death, is that correct?
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] But without a confession and no evidence that Helen has been murdered,
the police have to release Ian Stewart on bail.
They had searched everywhere else,
appeared to be searching the Heath everywhere.
They had sniffer dogs and all dressed up
in their white forensic outfits and things.
[Narrator] The police can still find no trace of Helen
and begin to scale down their search.
[dramatic music]
Then her neighbor Mavis, decides to intervene
to make sure that they've checked the property properly.
It was a stroke of fortune
that I decided to go to the police
and interfere with their search, really,
to say to them, "You know about the well?"
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] The police hadn't realized
that there is a second cesspit or a well
which can only be accessed
through a hidden trap door in the garage.
They had no idea
that there was a bricked up well inside the garage,
which had been covered over
and Ian Stewart's red sports car was on top of it.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] Acting on Mavis tip-off, the police move Ian's sports car
and lift the hidden trap door.
[dramatic music]
They find Helen's body.
Dumped beside her is the body of Boris, her much loved little dog.
A pillow slip, a dog's toy and two bin bags
are also found in the cesspit.
[dramatic music]
The cesspit in the house that Ian lives in,
it shows you that Ian did not care, had no thought.
It was about Ian getting his needs met.
That was the priority, that was the focus.
It didn't matter about Helen, she wasn't important.
That was just a byproduct of him getting what he wanted.
[dramatic music]
From the garden, we could hear a big clap
after Helen had been found and taken away,
not while she was there, but afterwards,
to thank the team for their work in discovering Helen
and what they'd had to go through to see her.
And I don't think that it would occur to anybody
that anybody could put a human person and a dog
in a world like that.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] The forensic examination of Helen's body
finds traces of sleeping tablets.
But Helen hadn't been prescribed sleeping tablets.
In January, 2016,
four months before he reported Helen missing,
it was Stewart who went to his doctor
and was prescribed the same type of tablets
now found in Helen's body.
[dramatic music]
So if you start giving somebody sleeping tablets
and similar type drugs, over a period of four months,
how are they feeling by month four?
It's that drip, drip, drip effect
of just wearing somebody down,
giving them less room, giving them less voice,
giving them less power, giving them less autonomy.
[Narrator] The police discovered that in the weeks before she disappeared,
Helen Bailey was searching desperately on the internet
asking, "Why do I keep falling asleep? I'm so tired."
His plan to get control of Helen
would've started on day one.
The point at which he started seriously planning the murder,
he already had control over her,
is when he started drugging her.
[Narrator] Forensics also established the cause of death.
Helen has been suffocated or strangled.
The fact that she had been drugged with sleeping tablets
may have left her unable to defend herself.
If he's got this muscle condition, actually, is he a strong man?
[dramatic music]
If his method is to smother,
then if a woman puts up a fight, he could actually lose.
[Narrator] The police also have CCTV, captured the day that Helen disappeared,
of Ian dumping a white duvet.
They believe he's used the duvet to move Helen's body.
Confronted with all of this new evidence,
Ian Stewart comes up with a new story.
Two men, a month before Helen went missing,
came into the house unattended, uninvited
and were threatening towards her,
over some business transaction.
All completely incredible, non-believable.
But again, a sense perhaps of Ian's thinking
that he can tell lies, everybody will believe him.
Because let's face it, he's told lies previously.
How did he get Helen convinced
that he was the perfect man? He told lies.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] One of those men implicated
was a member of the Bassingbourn Bowls Club.
[dramatic music]
He maintained, these two men came to the door,
he described them in great detail to the police
who did sort of photo fits.
And then people duly recognized
that one was a near neighbor of his.
And the other one was a very close acquaintance
that he'd bowled with for 10 or 12 years.
So both these people got called to give evidence to say,
"Well, we didn't go to his house, we weren't there."
And etcetera, etcetera.
So he tried to, obviously, fabricate this story
that these two strangers had come
and then Helen had disappeared.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] Detectives disprove Stewart's story
and he is charged with Helen Bailey's murder.
On January 10th, 2017 at St Albans Crown Court,
his trial begins.
I attended the trial on the day
that his defense barrister was summing up.
And Ian would look over
at the public gallery a lot.
[dramatic music]
He was there sitting, looking,
actually looking very confident, not looking worried.
[narrator] It was Helen's neighbor Mavis,
who had directed the police
to where Ian Stewart had dumped Helen's body.
And I thought, he's gonna get away with this.
There's no way that they're going to find him guilty.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] Ian Stewart's confidence is misplaced.
On February 22nd, 2017, he is convicted of Helen's murder
and given a whole life tariff.
Once again, Ian Stewart is headline news.
[dramatic music]
There was coercive control,
but it was the kind of control
that wasn't playing out through, you know, visible violence.
And that can be the most difficult control
to identify or recognize, even for the victim.
Helen, unfortunately, again, was on a countdown
the day she met him.
[narrator] News of Stewart's conviction reaches his former bowls buddies.
[dramatic music]
[Bill] We were sitting out there on the patio one Sunday afternoon
and had the radio on and the news report came on,
and we just both looked at each other, sort of stunned like that and went,
and my wife said, "He's done them both."
[dramatic music]
[narrator] Bill Manley is not alone in thinking
the death of Ian Stewart's wife Diane is suspicious.
I said, well surely it's too much of coincidence
that Diane has died of natural causes
or something unconnected and now
he's being prosecuted for murder.
There's no way that can be unconnected, is there?
So we thought it was gonna be a matter of time
before they obviously reinvestigated Diane,
but we didn't realize that anything could be done
because we thought that she was just cremated and that was it.
[Narrator] Diane Stewart had been an active,
healthy 47-year-old mother of two.
It was on June 25th, 2010, when everything changed.
[Bill] Yeah, it was on a Friday, I think, I went to the green.
There was a match being played up there.
I went up there to check on something
or put some notices up or whatever and saw the air ambulance
and saw it going down up the other end,
'cause I live the opposite end of the village.
Saw the air ambulance going down,
I thought, oh God, it looks like it's landing at the school,
something's happened to one of the children.
[Narrator] In fact, it was Diane who had died,
apparently of an epileptic seizure.
After that, Ian stopped going to the bowls club.
Ian sort of made it like he didn't wanna play bowls anymore at the club,
it was too many memories for him.
[dramatic music]
I saw him several times after that and obviously saw him at the funeral.
Well, I've never seen a funeral like it,
but you know, he was like greeting people at the door.
The boys and Ian were there and saying, "Thanks for coming." And shaking hands.
Which I'd never been to a funeral like that before.
But he really distanced himself from the club.
Like in no short order at all, he was gone, you know,
he wasn't available, he wasn't answering his phone.
He almost sort of disappeared in, you know,
no short order, you know, weeks almost,
he was unavailable, type of thing.
[Narrator] In 2021, Ian Stewart's friends tell detectives
as they reexamined the case,
how he had tried to keep things normal for himself and his family.
[Bill] You just think, it's the Englishman, stiff upper lip,
putting a brave front on it
and doing their grieving in private, if you like.
[Narrator] However, locals did notice something
which gave them pause.
[Bill] Short time after that,
he was seen with at least two different women,
you know, in weeks, if not months after Diane passing.
[dramatic music]
Definitely running around with women.
[Narrator] Others were suspicious.
[dramatic music]
We know that Diane's, his first wife's, sister
raised concerns about the sudden unexpected death
of her sister Diane,
who was married to Ian previously.
And raised these concerns with the coroner.
And this then prompted an investigation into Diane's death.
This was going on whilst he was in prison for the murder of Helen.
[Narrator] Detectives revisit all of the evidence
collected after his first wife's death.
[Operator Voiceover] Is she breathing?
[Ian Voiceover] I don't think so.
I think she has had a fit.
[Narrator] Proving that Diane had been murdered,
given that her body had been cremated,
poses a real challenge for the police.
Ian Stewart's trial for the murder of his fiancé, Helen Bailey, is over.
But his trials are far from over.
[Detective] Mr. Stewart, I'm arresting you on suspicion
of the murder of your late wife.
[Narrator] It is 18 months
after being convicted of murdering Helen Bailey
that Stewart is charged with the murder of his wife, Diane.
You're joking, [beep] you're digging desperate.
[Detective] Friday the 25th of June.
[Beep] what a load of [beep].
Have you got nothing better to do than make things up?
[Narrator] Stewart once again refuses to answer questions.
He is again confident that the police
will struggle to get a conviction
because Diane's body has been cremated.
[dramatic music]
But he's in for a surprise.
Stewart doesn't know that in the event of her death,
Diane had asked that her brain be kept for medical research.
Remarkably, six years after her death,
the police are able to track down
where her brain has been stored
and it is reexamined.
And this scientist was dissecting her brain
and said that the way she'd passed
wasn't conducive with what was showing in this brain.
[dramatic music]
And actually this was the very thing
that allowed people to investigate her death.
Diane didn't die of the epileptic fit
that everybody believed and Ian reported had happened.
She died by murder, she died at the hands of somebody else.
And that person was her husband, Ian.
[Narrator] The forensic examination of Diane's brain
turns up that there was only a one in 100,000 chance
that she had actually died from an epileptic fit.
And that's where the whole case,
I believe that's what he was convicted on for Diane.
[Narrator] The evidence proved that just like Helen Bailey,
Diane had been strangled or suffocated.
That death wasn't quick. Her death wasn't painless.
There's no doubt Ian was a predator.
I mean, we talk about the phrase, hiding in plain sight.
A man like Ian does hide in plain sight.
[dramatic music]
The perfect guy, the perfect dad,
the perfect husband, the perfect work colleague.
That's the mask, that's the one he chooses to wear.
[dramatic music]
A lot of women who die at the hands of their abusive partners,
strangulation, choking is a really common MO
because it goes to the very heart of control.
[dramatic music]
Stopping somebody's airway
or blocking somebody's ability to breathe,
that's about power, that's about control,
that is about physically having somebody's life in your hands.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] In January, 2022, Ian Stewart stands trial
at Huntington Crown Court for the murder of his wife, Diane.
Bill Manley is called as a witness for the prosecution.
I've never been to court before.
I got all the briefing from various agencies that do it.
And you know, I went and obviously they said,
"You read your statement through."
Which I'd written years before, I think read it through about six times.
"Just say what's on there.
Don't deviate from it.
They might have a pop at you and try and try and bend your words,
but just stick with it."
But he did say, he said, "Well, I put it to you that is all a lie."
And I said, well, it's not a lie, it's what happened.
And it's absolutely the truth from my statement it's true.
Didn't ever see Diane, never even saw her with a cold,
put it that way so, never mind anything serious.
[Narrator] In February, 2022,
Ian Stewart is convicted for Diane's murder,
having already been convicted for the murder of Helen Bailey.
He is given a whole life sentence.
[Operator Voiceover] You think she's had a fit?
[Ian Voiceover] Well, I think so. She does have epilepsy.
Well, I say it's nice to be proven.
It's not nice, it's the wrong word for it really,
but it's good that it's put to rest.
Now we are all pleased.
[gentle music]
The people that, you know, love Diane as well
were pleased that he's got his just desserts for it.
It's as simple as that really.
'Cause how he could do it in the first place.
I mean, he would've got away with it
without any shadow of a doubt if he hadn't murdered Helen.
That almost certainly would never have, have come out.
You know, as the judge said,
"Doing something as cold and calculated as you've done,
and all the time, still to this day, maintaining your innocence.
You know, I think you're a fantastic actor and yeah, you should never be released."
You never think, going through your life, that you'll ever meet anybody
that's committed a serious crime, God forbid a murder,
and then two of them.
Well, it's just staggering, really that, yeah, unbelievable, I would've said.
[dramatic music]
He absolutely had every confidence in himself
that he was gonna get away with this.
He'd have had that confidence when he killed his first wife.
And having succeeded with that and got this impression of himself
that he'd pulled the wool over everyone's eyes.
"How stupid is everyone else? I can do this again."
[dramatic music]
[Jill] If you are a perpetrator of domestic abuse,
coercive control, your needs are above everybody.
They're above your children, your partner, your colleagues.
It's all about getting your needs met.
And what you tend to find with men like Ian Stewart is,
we talk about the mask.
So when people meet Ian, they're not seeing the real Ian,
they're seeing the guy he wants to portray.
[dramatic music]
They're seeing this kind, nice family guy.
He's predatory, he's hunting, he's looking,
he's looking for the next person to get his needs met.
[Narrator] Those who know him believe that his motive for murder is financial.
The more and more you think about it,
the whole motive is money, money, money, money.
And he had enough.
But money seems to corrupt.
The more you have, the more you seem to want.
[gentle music]
[Narrator] Was Stewart influenced by his favorite hobby,
reading murder mysteries?
Had he not been caught, absolutely sure he would've gone on
and did similar to his next victim, without a shadow of a doubt.
It worked for him, it's a tried and tested method.
This time, thankfully he got caught.
[dramatic music]
[Narrator] On July 29th, 2022,
Ian Stewart's whole life sentence was reduced on appeal.
He will now serve 34 years in prison
and not be released until he is in his 90s.
And given the age of Ian now,
thankfully I'm relieved that he will never and should never be released.
Clearly I would say even that length of time in prison,
he still poses a high risk of harm to women.
[dramatic music]
But he obviously believed, he truly believed,
that he had got away with a perfect murder.
I still think of it every day.
I still think of Helen.
And she was on the brink of a new life.
And to have it cut short at that age
is a tragedy beyond words.
[dramatic music]
♪ I wanted you to see ♪
♪ The damage that you've done to me ♪
♪ The truth can't deny ♪
♪ The enemy I just can't hide ♪
♪ Don't turn off the light ♪