The Murder of Helen Bailey Part 2

Three months after Helen Bailey vanished, a search team lowered themselves into a hidden cesspit beneath her luxury home. What they found there ended a twelve-week missing-person search — and led to Ian Stewart being exposed as a calculating, money-driven killer who had drugged his fiancée with his own sleeping tablets, dumped her body, and then spun a defence about phantom blackmailers. In the conclusion of this story, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes follows Stewart’s trial, conviction and sentence – then rewinds to 2010 as police begin investigating the mystery of his first wife’s death. Listen now to The Profiler with Kerry Daynes

Key psychological themes

This episode explores: psychopathy and the absence of empathy • the financial motive and the 'serial widower' pattern • the construction and collapse of an alibi • coercive control culminating in homicide • the role of forensic preservation in cold-case justice

Contributors featured in this episode

• Kerry Daynes — Forensic psychologist, presenter, and author

• Colin Sutton — Former Senior Investigating Officer, Metropolitan Police

• Jack Hardy — Press Association journalist who covered both the Helen Bailey and Diane Stewart trials

• Kate Bradbrook — Journalist who covered the 2022 trial for the murder of Diane Stewart.

• Mavis Drake — Helen Bailey's neighbour in Royston, whose intervention proved crucial.

What you'll learn in this episode

• What was found in the converted well beneath the garage at the Royston house — and how a 48-hour excavation finally ended the search for Helen.

• How Hertfordshire Police pieced together Stewart's 'phantom blackmailers' defence and demonstrated that it could not be true

• The forensic significance of Zopiclone in Helen's hair — and how it linked her, chemically, to her killer's own prescription

• Why police were drawn back to the death of Stewart's first wife, Diane — and what one hospital had quietly preserved that made a second prosecution possible

• The 999 call from June 2010 that’s been described as 'a complete sham from start to finish'

• Kerry's psychological assessment of why the label 'psychopath' — so often over-used in true-crime — applies to Ian Stewart with unusual precision

Relevant links and further reading

• Kerry Daynes — Dark Side of the Mind (Endeavour, 2019)

• Kerry Daynes — What Lies Buried (Endeavour, 2021)

• Faking It: Tears of a Crime (Warner Bros. Discovery) — some interviews in this episode were originally featured in the series. Watch on discoveryplus.com.

• https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/16/ian-stewart-guilty-of-murdering-first-wife-diane-stewart — The Guardian: 'Ian Stewart found guilty of murdering first wife Diane Stewart'

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-60413716 — BBC News: full coverage of the Diane Stewart trial and verdict

• https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/what-happened-helen-baileys-beloved-12646909 — Cambridge News: aftermath of the Helen Bailey case

• Support for those bereaved by homicide — Victim Support • AAFDA (Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse)

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Credits

• Presented by Kerry Daynes

• Produced by Shearwater Media

• Executive producers: Jeff Anderson and Steve Anderson

• Editing & Music: Rob Warner

Content note

This episode contains descriptions of homicide, references to the discovery of human remains, and the re-investigation of a previous suspected death. Listener discretion is advised. If you have been affected by the issues raised, support is available from Victim Support (0808 168 9111), AAFDA (0207 186 8270), and the Samaritans (116 123).

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