It was the toxic 30-year marriage between a 'manipulative' horse whisper and her foul-tempered pensioner husband that ended in murder.
Christine Rawle, 70, now faces life in prison after she slaughtered her partner, Ian Rawle, by plunging a knife between his shoulders at the £800,000 home in Devon.
Fatally wounded, 72-year-old Mr Rawle then followed his wife into a field with the knife still stuck in his back 'imploring her to pull it out' before he collapsed and died.
It was the murderous end to a tumultuous relationship, plagued by blazing rows, name calling and petty squabbling - revealed today in shocking detail by secretly recorded video footage.
So unhappy was the relationship, the pair of pensioners were likened to the bickering couple in Roald Dahl's book, The Twits, who 'delighted in making each other's lives as miserable as possible'.
Before she plunged the blade into him, Rawle said her husband had made her life a misery - hitting her with a shovel, damaging her car, taking her keys, putting sugar in the fuel tank and pushing her through a bay window. He even kicked her with steel toecap boots and called her 'Fat, Fatso, and fat pig'.
Videos giving an insight into the couple's relationship have now been released - which were recorded by Rawle herself. Pictured is Ian Rawle
Christine Rawle, 70, plunged a knife between the shoulders of her husband when he walked past after they talked about mucking out the horses
Their unhappy 30-year marriage was likened to the bickering couple depicted in the Roald Dahl book The Twits, who 'delighted in making each other's lives as miserable as possible'
Mr Rawle was reportedly so rage-filled he would 'scream, shout, salivate, spit and be red in the face', and was branded 'bossy, overpowering, belittling and liked to be in control'.
But his wife was said to have been just as bad, putting Viagra in her husband's tea, chilli powder in his underpants, wiped her backside with his ties and called him 'Dick' and 'dickhead'.
Rawle now faces a life behind bars after being convicted of murdering her husband
On another occasion she reportedly ran a hosepipe through the sunroof of her husband's car and filled it up with water.
Now, as she was today convicted of murder, secretly recorded videos - captured by Rawle herself - revealed just how the dysfunctional marriage ended in tragedy.
In one of the clips, shared by the Crown Prosecution Service, the couple are seen furiously squabbling behind closed doors about money, horses and day-to-day living.
A furious Mr Rawle is heard lambasting his wife, raging: 'Why have I got to go to work? Why? Why don't you? Why?
'Why have I got to do it all. Why have I got to do the horses. You're too lazy to f***ing get anything to eat.'
'That's not very pleasant,' Rawle mutters back, as her husband retorts: 'It's true though, isn't it.'
Mr Rawle is seen drinking 'ginger beer' as his wife accused him of being an alcoholic in one of the clips
The argument, recorded at about 9pm, was captured on a mobile phone as Rawle was in bed at the home in Braunton, Devon.
As the war of words continues, Mr Rawle accuses his wife of being a 'f***ing liar', before again rounding on her and demanding to know why he has to go to work.
'You go to work because you want to go to work,' mother-of-three Rawle is heard telling her husband, before he shouts back: 'No - to keep us afloat. What do I get out of it?
'I've been doing it for years to keep you doing what you want to do... spending thousands of pounds, paying for your f***ing eye operation – where's your eye operation money coming from?'
The argument then moves on to Mr Rawle grilling his murderous lover about what she has done to help with the horses before she refuses to continue being questioned.
'Why have I got to go to work every day, getting up every morning at 5.30am. Why? For this s***? So you can do this?' Mr Rawle spits back, as he resumes his verbal onslaught.
'This is just your nutty behaviour.'
The argument continues, with Rawle lashing out and telling her husband: 'You've had plenty of money off me – what about the bathroom?'
'What's that got to do with it? What's that got to do with it? Nothing. You didn't work for it. You just got it off your parents,' he spits back.
'What about the barn? What about f***ing everything? What about the car and everyday living. Where are you then? Nowhere.'
The couple were living on separate parts of their land in Devon at the time of his death in August 2022 and Exeter Crown Court heard the pair would be constantly arguing
Ian Rawle, 72, then followed his wife into a field with the knife still stuck in his back 'imploring her to pull it out' before collapsing, the court heard
Christine Rawle is filmed on police bodycam moments after being arrested for the suspected murder of her husband Ian Rawle
In another video before the killing, Rawle is heard issuing a chilling warning to her husband, telling him: 'You've got one hell of a shock coming to you.'
She added in one clip: 'I am entitled, I've lived here all these years. You are not deciding what goes on in my life.'
In another clip, Rawle tells her husband: 'Leave me alone, I am led here on the sofa you are watching tv.'
They continue to bicker, before he tells her: 'What did you prepare? (for dinner)- nothing - what did you prepare for lunch? - nothing.
'What did you prepare yesterday? - nothing. You didn't do anything.'
After Rawle told him she has an 'entitlement' to the land, adding: 'I'm ill, I need help and we haven't got any spare money.
'It's the end of my life and I am not suffering with it.'
Later, the pair are seen arguing about their drinking habits - with Mr Rawle accusing his wife of being an 'alcoholic' who 'passed out' during a family get together after binging on booze at Christmas.
'You're a sick woman, a sick woman,' Mr Rawle is heard telling his wife, before adding: 'You just want to bankrupt everybody.'
In another clip, Mr Rawle claimed: 'Day after day there is something new. You are the one showing nutty behaviour.'
She responded: 'You are a liar and a narcissist and I'll tell you one more time, leave me alone.'
She also told him: 'You've got a record of harassing me' and then talks about guns previously being taken from him and being threatened.
This is the moment Rawle sobs, telling cops her husband was 'such a cruel b****d'
Pictured are police officers at the scene in August 2022 as Rawle was arrested
You cause f***ing mayhem. why did you have a fit?' he adds.
'Why have I got to put up with this s**t every day?'
She is also accused by him of 'playing with horses for five hours' and responds: 'I don't belong to you. This is the narcissist in you.'
Rawle eventually stabbed her husband to death on August 21, 2022.
During the trial, the court heard Mr Rawle had come to help his wife with mucking out her horses as she was suffering with a bad shoulder.
But she plunged the blade into his neck as he pushed a wheelbarrow of manure towards the muck heap, Exeter Crown Court heard.
Prosecuting, Sean Brunton KC said the killing was 'as clear a case of murder as you are likely to find', with the pensioner attacking her husband in a 'fit of temper' during an argument about land at their £800,000 home.
Rawle did not give evidence during her trial but her legal team insisted she had been a victim of coercive and controlling behaviour from her husband, and stabbed him in self-defence.
The trial previously heard Rawle, who had picked the knife up to cut some cord to tie up the gates as her husband had asked, was on the phone to her daughter when she dealt the fatal blow.
In police bodyworn footage, released by Devon and Cornwall Police, Rawle is taken in custody and fights back tears as she tells cops: 'How can someone be so cruel? He is narcissistic.
'How could you love someone and they are so calculatingly nasty to you.
And the jury heard she told her daughter on the phone on August 21, 2022: 'I've stabbed him'
'Even my dog and my horses. He will come and get me, he will kill me.'
When told she was being arrested for his murder, Rawle was heard on camera saying: 'Oh god, why couldn't have someone stopped him keep doing this to me.
'I've tried that many times - I tried the other day to phone the police and it takes forever for them to pick up.
'You can't do a 999 call and say he's just shouting at me can you?'
Later, Rawle is shown as she was being interviewed by police following the killing.
In it, the killer 'horse whisper' tells detectives in a trembling voice how she couldn't 'put up' with the way her husband was treating her and that she had wanted to divorce him.
'You can't have someone do these things to you,' she told cops. 'You can't live as a second-class citizen; you can't be told that you've got no rights, you can't be told that someone's going to kill you because you want to be free.'
But an investigator cuts her short, saying: 'I'm not trying to stop you telling us all this – you will get your opportunity to – we need to bring you back again. We need to understand where it happened and how it happened.'
Determined to dig deeper into Rawle's version of events, and how she came to using the knife to slaughter her husband, the officer is heard saying: 'We need to understand which way you were stood – you talked about being in a position where you remember holding the knife in your right hand.'
It was here that Rawle gave a damning admission to police.
Later, Rawle is shown as she was being interviewed by police following the killing.
'I don't remember actually holding it,' she says, leaning forward. 'But the fact is, I was the only person there and he didn't stab himself, did he.
'I had the knife because I was cutting through the stuff with it but that's the only explanation because he didn't go like this, did he,' as Rawle, in a grey jumper, does a stabbing motion to the back of her neck.
'But I don't remember any of it. I was absolutely petrified.'
During her trial, the jury rejected Rawle's account of events and convicted her of murder following three hours and seven minutes of deliberations.
In his closing speech to the jury, Sean Brunton KC, prosecuting, described Rawle as 'almost compulsively manipulative'.
He told the jury: 'The issue of self-defence doesn't arise. It is a non-issue.
'He is walking away from her, pushing the wheelbarrow after 30 years of marriage. What was she threatened by? By nothing.'
Mr Brunton said Rawle had 'unfettered access to money' from her husband, with the couple living with 'no debts, a lovely house, and plenty of money'.
The court heard Rawle, who referred to her husband as 'Dick', had been on the phone to her adult daughter at the time of the murder.
Her daughter rang police after hearing Rawle say 'I've stabbed him, I've stabbed him'. A call operator for the ambulance service then rang Rawle to help her administer first aid.
But instead, Rawle could be heard telling her husband: 'Dick you bastard, you've been such a bastard to me', and said to the operator: 'He was on and on at me, I am watching him die in front of me'.
Rawl being filmed by Christine Rawle, who is charged with killing him by stabbing him in the back with a knife
When police arrived at the scene, and during police interview, Rawle claimed she had been subjected to years of psychological and physical violence from her husband.
The defendant, who has been diagnosed with depression and complex post-traumatic stress disorder, insisted she believed he was going to kill her when she attacked him.
Witnesses gave differing accounts of Rawle and her husband, with one neighbour describing Mr Rawle as 'vindictive' and unpleasant to his wife.
Rawle's son Thomas told the jury how Mr Rawle had subjected his mother to years of abuse, and tried to control her by hiding her car keys - describing her as a 'fat pig'.
A friend of Rawle said she waited on her husband 'hand and foot' but he would accuse her of being lazy and useless, with Rawle confiding that she wanted a divorce.
However, one work colleague of Mr Rawle told the court she was concerned he was the victim of domestic abuse and tried to find him a support service.
She described seeing Mr Rawle with a black eye, which he said was caused by his wife. On one occasion, Rawle rang the workplace and told the witness: 'Tell Ian to look in the mirror because he isn't Kevin Costner'.
A mechanic who knew Mr Rawle since the 1980s told how Rawle would describe her husband as lazy, and when he asked why she called him Dick, she replied 'because he's a f****** dickhead'.
On the morning of the murder, Rawle texted a friend: 'I hope the c*** dies'.
Rawle, who remains in custody, will be sentenced at Exeter Crown Court on Friday afternoon.
