Helen Meads had made up her mind it was time to move on.
After 10 years of marriage to a Matamata horse breeder, with whom she had a daughter and a successful stud farm, Mrs Meads told him she was leaving.
But within days, her husband, upset by text messages he had read on her phone, confronted her and shot her in the throat.
Yesterday, horse-breeding identity Gregory Howard Meads, 55, appeared in the High Court at Hamilton charged with murdering Mrs Meads at their Matamata home on September 23 last year.
The court heard that Mrs Meads, 42, told him four days earlier that she wanted to move out and move on with her life.
Addressing a jury of eight men and four women, Crown prosecutor Ross Douch said Meads began checking his wife's text messages, forwarding more than 100 of them to his cellphone and then to his computer as she slept.
Mr Douch said some texts could be "construed as not complimentary" towards Greg Meads.
Next day, Meads took his step-daughter Kimberley, 18, and his daughter from his marriage to Mrs Meads, Samantha, 10, to school.
Mr Douch said Meads was gripped by "fear, bitterness, anger and rage" when he walked into a stable where his wife was on her mobile phone talking to a friend.
Meads had later told a detective: "She finished on the phone, I picked up the gun and shot her."
In his opening address, defence lawyer Murray McKechnie said Meads never meant to kill his wife. Mr McKechnie, who is seeking a manslaughter conviction, said Meads was stressed and had not slept for days.
Meads is a successful figure in the horse-racing industry.
He and his former wife were partners in the Willow Park Stud.
The trial is expected to run until early next week.
Murder trial for horse breeder
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