Daniel Billings' floods of texts and calls to Molly Ticehurst swing wildly from affectionate requests for cuddles to threats like, "I will come in the middle of the night and cut your head off".
After Ticehurst ended their relationship in June 2023, Billings took her dachshund puppy to a truck stop and beat it to death with a hammer.
When the mine worker asked to meet her for "closure" after a final break-up in December, he instead smashed her car window.
His rage spiralled further when she reported this abuse on April 5, 2024, leading to several charges of sexual assault.
Ticehurst never had the chance to testify in court.
Billings was on bail a fortnight later when he smashed through her bedroom window in Forbes, central western NSW, and stabbed her 15 times as she lay in her pyjamas.
Despite this extreme and escalating violence, Billings has long considered himself a victim.
Documents released by the NSW Supreme Court reveal glimpses of the 31-year-old's pattern of self-aggrandising before and after his cold-blooded crime.
Billings' behaviour is the archetype of coercive control, with many high-risk features for homicide, Monash University's Gender and Family Violence Prevention Hub researcher Bridget Harris said.
"There is a lot of what seems to be image management," Harris told AAP.
"We see people using violence, trying to control the narrative, trying to discredit a victim-survivor."
A series of disturbing videos played to court showed Billings raving about perceived injustice in the hours before the murder.
He became particularly fixated on claims police tossed his Queensland State of Origin boxing team singlet in the dirt.
This sense of victimhood is a known feature of escalating abuse, in which perpetrators realise they are losing control of the victim or police, Harris said.
"You can't separate it from the broader coercive control we see in the relationship."
Billings appeared "jubilant" in videos recorded as he drove away from her house, the court was told.
"I was getting accused of rape. I did not f***ing rape her," he said, while covered in his victim's blood.
Then as soon as Billings was charged with Ticehurst's murder, his defence team began 18 months of legal negotiations.
When Billings finally pleaded guilty to murder in November 2025, prosecutors dropped the sexual assault charges that so incensed him.
Harris said his dogged pursuit to clear his name as a rapist aligned with behaviours of perpetrators who try to manage their image and narrative of relationships.
"It's really key for the image he has of himself," she said.
"He cannot acknowledge what has happened ... or he doesn't believe that's happened."
That appears to be reflected in a letter from a Goulburn jail chaplain who spent time with Billings.
Just one month before Billings admitted to murder, he was still ruminating on injustice, the letter said.
"Dan lives with unanswered questions of 'why the person I trusted betrayed me and made false accusations against me and what snapped within me'."
Billings stood calm and expressionless as he was sentenced to at least 20 years in jail in the NSW Supreme Court in Orange on Friday morning.
He will be eligible for parole in April 2044.
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