Cecil the lion was the undisputed king of his part part of the Zimbabwe savanna in July 2015.
He was one of two male lions in the area, and his friend Jericho could be heard calling out for him after he was cruelly shot dead by hunters.
And the beautiful beast's passing wasn't quick or painless, and his death at the hands of American dentist Walter Palmer is believed to have taken 12 hours.
Palmer, from Minnesota, paid £35,000 to hunt and kill Cecil, who was well known in the area and being studied by experts at Oxford University.
Among them was Andrew Loveridge, who had been following the lion for eight years and was heartbroken by his sickening early death.
In his book Lion Hearted: The Life and Death of Cecil and the Future of Africa’s Iconic Cats, Loveridge recalls the final moments of Cecil's life based on information from his electronic tag and statements from the people involved.
Palmer hired guides who were professional Zimbabwean hunters to help him kill the beast, and he had a permit which means he didn't break the law.
A week before, another hunter had shot an elephant and parts of the carcass still remained - which they decided to use as bait.
They located the deceased animal's body and dragged it - probably on the back of a 4x4 - to a better hunting location for a lion about 300m away.
They then built a makeshift shelter which overlooked the elephant's body where they would wait.
The following morning the hunters returned to say they had shot Cecil with a bow and arrow.
However, there are differing accounts of whether Cecil had actually been hit.
National Geographic reports that they could "hear [him] struggling to breathe".
Data from his collar support the theory that he was hit, as Cecil only moved 80m in two hours after the shot was fired - between 9pm and 11pm.
The following morning, his collar showed he had only managed to move 160m by 7am.
Palmer and his guide later went back out to find the lion, and the dentist fired the fatal shot.
Bronkhorst reportedly told Palmer to "finish the lion off" at about 9am that morning.
Six days later, the research team following him noticed that Cecil's satellite collar hadn't given off any signals for days but they believed it had just malfunctioned.
But the following day they started to hear rumours that a lion had been shot by hunters and began to worry.
Palmer insists he hired local professional guides and acquired all necessary permits for a legal big-game hunting trip.
