The decision by a jury to convict John Diver of murder could stem from the evidence laid before the court that suggested that he had acted in a calculated fashion before, during and after his wife's murder.
Diver was an immediate suspect in the case, as he had a motive - his wife was leaving him for a much younger man; and opportunity - on the night of the murder he was away from his home without explanation for sufficient time to carry out the crime.
When gardai found the body and went to the Diver home they found he had been drinking and appeared to be drunk.
However, the garda who went to the house to inform him of his wife's death formed the opinion Diver was feigning drunkenness.
There were witnesses who said he telephoned his wife at her workplace in the Coombe Hospital on the evening of the murder. Two neighbours said they saw him in the back of the car while his wife was driving.
A lorry driver said he saw a man and woman in the car at the place where the murder took place.
On the day after Ms Diver was buried the gardai arrested Diver and took him to Lucan station for questioning.
Diver strongly contested the alleged admission he made in the station. On his release gardai decided to keep a watch on him to see if there was anything that would point to his guilt or innocence.
After some weeks it became clear he knew he was being followed.
On one subsequent day he went to the Jervis Shopping Centre in Dublin and went to the Tie Rack stall in the Mezzanine. Holding a tie he turned to the two gardai following him and asked did they think it suited him.
This was a clear taunt, referring to the tie which had been used in his wife's murder.
Diver (60) presented himself as a wronged, innocent man during his evidence. He said the breakdown of his marriage was "amicable". He denied that he knew of his wife's affair with 27-year-old Mr Ray Roche, who worked at the bacon counter in Superquinn at the Crumlin Shopping Centre.
The jury heard that she had met Mr Roche in September 1996 and began a sexual relationship with him. Mr Roche said he and Ms Diver, who was 42, planned to buy a house and to have a baby together.
It is believed Ms Diver told her husband of her plans shortly before he killed her.
Diver claimed he knew nothing of an attempt by his wife, shortly before her murder, to change the terms of a draft separation agreement. This would have dramatically altered the favourable terms she had first offered.
His trial heard that in a first draft agreement Ms Diver was to leave without the children.
After reconsideration, Ms Diver announced she wanted the children to leave with her.
She also wanted the house the couple shared at Kilnamanagh Road to be sold and the proceeds to be divided equally. It was these new demands - and his wife's infidelity, it seems - that drove Diver to murder.
Gardai were suspicious of Diver from the outset. His son and daughter, then aged nine and 13, told detectives their father had gone out on the night their mother was murdered and that he seemed to be away for a long time.
In fact, he had gone out twice: the first time to buy the children chips for their dinner and the second time to kill his wife.
Diver claimed he had gone out twice, for short periods, to get food for the children from a takeaway near their home.
The jury heard the boy say that after his mother's death his father brought him to the take-away one day and questioned him about how long it took to get there when they arrived.
The jury heard that the children had been living with their father since their mother's death.
Diver, a former British soldier, strangled his wife with his hands from behind. He had brought along a tie to use as a ligature, but pathological evidence by the State Pathologist, Dr John Harbison, suggested she was dead before the ligature was tied around her neck.
It was clear Diver had put some considerable thought into planning the murder and how to avoid arrest. He tried to make it look as though the murder had followed an attempted rape. After strangling his wife he removed her upper clothing, leaving her breasts exposed.