Sadie Hartley was a much-loved mum, friend and a successful businesswoman when she was stabbed to death by a bitter 'bunny boiler' love rival in her own home.
Sarah Williams was obsessed with Sadie's partner, Ian Johnston, a man who she had a brief affair with, and recruited her twisted pal, Katrina Walsh, to help her carry out what she thought was the perfect murder.
For 18 months, Williams plotted how she would butcher Sadie, but despite her meticulous planning, Williams scheme had one chilling flaw and she will now spend the next three decades behind bars.
Sadie was "savagely and brutally" stabbed to death in the doorway to her own home, shortly after she had returned home from a day horse riding.
It took a lengthy and painstaking police investigation before the pair were finally caught and brought to justice.
Sadie was home alone - Ian was away skiing - when the pair carried out their gruesome plan.
At 8pm, her doorbell went and Sadie thought nothing of answering, totally unaware of the horror waiting on the other side of the door.
Instantly, she was stunned with a cattle prod by Williams who then stabbed her 41 times in what has been described as an "orgy of violence".
The 35-year-old believed that with Sadie out of the way she would be able to win back her former lover Ian.
He had ended their relationship after she became "difficult and possessive" and moved on to a new life with Sadie, 60.
Ian thought he would never have to deal with Williams again but she began to plot how she could get rid the woman she viewed as her love rival and win back the person she thought belonged to her.
For the next 18 months, Willams meticulously planned how she would carry out her horrific crime.
Initially, she sent Sadie a cruel poison pen letter in the hope it would remove her from the picture and clear the path to Ian.
In it, she claimed to have had "unbelievably fantastic sex" behind her back - but Sadie didn't believe her and she and Ian maintained their relationship.
It was then that Williams, who described herself as a "she devil" and a "little psycho", turned her thoughts to murder to get Sadie out of Ian's life for good.
She and Walsh first bought a tracker, which they attached to Ian's car so they could keep tabs on him at all times and find out where he lived.
When they had his address the pair went on several reconnaissance missions to the area where he lived with Sadie but had bought a second-hand car with false number plates so they could hide their tracks.
Then Williams and Walsh stepped up their plotting by travelling all the way to Germany so they could buy the stun gun they used to paralyse Sadie.
The pair also bought boots several sizes too big so they could cover their tracks.
Their final sinister move was deliver flowers to Sadie a week before the gruesome murder so Williams could identify the woman she was to kill.
On the night of the attack, the murder was carried out with such savagery it shocked even the most hardened police officer.
Sentencing Williams and Walsh, Mr Justice Turner said Sadie had been "slaughtered like an animal".
He added: "Doubtless, the features of secret agent-style intrigue carried with them elements of fantasy but this was no harmless world of make-believe," he said.
"It was a game of death.
"Let no one believe this was a crime of passion. This was a crime of obsession, arrogance, barbarity and pure evil."
But even after Sadie had been killed, there was still work for Williams and Walsh to do to cover their tracks.
Walsh helped to hide the evidence, including the knife used to stab Sadie and the stun gun, at a nearby farm.
Police found Sadie's mutilated body the following day when one of her concerned employees reported her missing.
Straight away, officers suspected Williams and she was arrested at her home in Chester on January 17 - three days after she had killed Sadie.
Walsh was arrested a day later - but there was still a mountain to climb when it came to proving the pair were guilty.
Detectives had hoped to find a wealth of forensic evidence inside Williams' home but instead found it had been scrubbed "top to bottom" with bleach.
Initially Williams remained "cool, calm and collected" as she was grilled by officers but when she was told her mobile phone hd placed her near the scene of the murder she went "into her shell" and would only answer with "no comment".
Walsh claimed she had memory difficulties but when her diaries were found it was the breakthough officers needed.
Contained in the pages was the first mention of the plot to kill Sadie, which rubbished her claims that she suffered from short-term memory loss.
It also proved just how much planning had gone into the pair's gruesome crime.
Despite the lengthy prison sentences handed down to Sadie's killers, for her family it can never make up for the huge hole in their lives.
Her daughter, Charlotte, said: "My mum was a very fun loving person. She didn’t judge anyone. She literally didn’t have anything bad to say about anybody.
"She was my hero in some respects. There’s nothing I could fault with her whatsoever. She was looking to retire.
"She was really looking forward to me and Robert having children, and spending a lot more time with us.
"I just want her to be remembered for the happy lovely lady she was; this wasn’t supposed to happen to her.
"The fact that someone has taken her life for no reason whatsoever is disgusting.
"She’s got two children; she’s got her whole family that loves her. It’s just numbing. I feel strongly that it ruined me and my brother’s life."
