A slaughterhouse worker has been jailed for life after killing a woman with a cattle gun after she rejected him on Facebook.
John McFarlane, from Suffolk in east England, had been stalking Mary Griffiths and making repeated advances towards her when she messaged him saying he was "delusional".
McFarlane, 40, took his brutal revenge on the night of May 6 this year, the Daily Mail reports.
He diverted local police by reporting a bogus burglary at the farm where he worked, and then went to Ms Griffiths' home at about 2.45am.
He disconnected the power to the house and then smashed his way inside using an axe.
He ran up the stairs and burst into the 38-year-old fitness instructor's bedroom where she was sleeping with her 10-year-old daughter.
Ms Griffiths' other daughter, 13, was also woken by the commotion and also tried in vain to fight McFarlane off as he wrestled with their mother and threw her down the stairs.
All four ended up in the backyard as the older daughter pleaded with the intruder.
McFarlane then shot Ms Griffiths once in the shoulder and twice in the chest with his bolt gun in front of her screaming daughters.
A neighbour later described the murder as "clinical, deliberate and like an execution".
He then fled and slashed his arms in what is believed to have been a failed suicide attempt.
The murder weapon features a retractable steel bolt that is commonly used to kill cattle at abattoirs.
It is the same deadly weapon used by the hitman character Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) in the 2007 Oscar-winning film No Country For Old Men.
McFarlane had posted a chilling Facebook status update just over two hours before the horrific killing.
"They say there's nothing worse than a woman scorned, well watch this space," McFarlane wrote.
"If someone rips out your heart and stamps on it then they deserve the same."
Adding to the family's pain is the fact that Ms Griffiths had phoned police just hours before her death, claiming that McFarlane was stalking her.
Officers were due to visit her that night, but rescheduled their meeting for the following day.
"John McFarlane murdered a defenceless young mother," Mary's sister Louise Scannell said outside court, the Daily Mail reported.
"He is, in our eyes, the devil incarnate."
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