Rachael Evans was always said to be the ring leader in the strangling murder of Colleen Deborah Ayers following days of sex and drug-taking.
Micheal John Duffy, meanwhile, was painted as someone who got caught up in his sadistic lover's "twisted desire to kill" and was left watching the horror unfold.
On Monday, after just over two days of deliberations, a Supreme Court jury found Duffy not guilty of murder, but guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
It comes after the trial heard how Ms Ayers only met her eventual murderer Evans at a pub on May 8, 2012 - around 48 hours before her death.
But by that night, she had joined Evans and a 16-year-old girl, who cannot be named, at a Picton hotel room Duffy had rented in order to "indulge" in drugs.
Evans donned a black dress and boots, put make-up on and directed the teenager who was with them to film her, Ms Ayers and Duffy having a threesome.
"Seems to me like she (Evans) thought she was the boss," Duffy would later say, adding that Evans had previously expressed an interest in burning people with cigarettes during sex.
The next morning, the group spent hours taking more drugs before Ms Ayers invited the trio plus another man, Scott Derbridge, to her parents' Picton property in Sydney's southwest as they were away on holidays.
On arrival, the small party built a fire and began drinking and taking more drugs.
Various versions emerged at the trial of what happened next.
According to the teenager, Evans "lost the plot" when she heard Duffy and Ms Ayers having sex.
Evans, meanwhile, claimed she walked into the bedroom and whispered to Duffy while he was on Ms Ayers, "We are going to smash her."
She then grabbed a belt and put it around Ms Ayers' neck before Duffy joined in.
Duffy, however, claimed he "didn't know what was happening" when his lover burst in and just stood there watching and "freaking out".
With the help of Derbridge, Duffy later used the light from his phone's torch to dig a hole on the property and bury Ms Ayers under five centimetres of soil.
Ms Ayers, who had a history of drug abuse, was reported missing on May 25 after her father, Bryon "Pat" Green, and stepmother Judith Green returned from holidays. Her body was found on May 31.
Although the jury heard Evans had been given a discount on her sentence for murdering Ms Ayers in exchange for her evidence against Duffy, what they didn't hear was her psychiatric history.
During her sentence hearing, the court was told she had in excess of a hundred relationships, "countless sexual partners", and had been diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder, substance abuse disorder and sadomasochism - meaning she felt sexually aroused when inflicting pain on others.
In a 2014 report, psychiatrist Dr Richard Furst said there was also evidence of arousal from autoerotic asphyxiation.
After Ms Ayers death, Duffy's trial heard Evans was jovial and joking with the taxi driver that drove the group from the property, saying her night had been "very exhilarating".
Duffy is due to return to court for sentencing proceedings in August.
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