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LONDON (AP) — The partner of children’s author Helen Bailey has been sentenced to at least 34 years in prison for murdering her and dumping her body in a cesspool at their home.
Judge Andrew Bright told Ian Stewart it was “difficult to imagine a more heinous crime.” The judge said Thursday that Stewart posed a “real danger” to women.
Stewart, 56, was convicted Wednesday of murdering Bailey, hiding her body in a cesspool and then reporting her missing.
Prosecutors say Stewart poisoned the 51-year-old writer with prescription sedatives then smothered her to gain her 3.3 million-pound ($4.1 million) estate.
Bailey created the Electra Brown and Daisy Davenport series of novels for teenagers, and wrote a blog called Planet Grief after her husband of 22 years drowned during a Caribbean holiday in 2011.
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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