A millionaire farmer’s wife and her lover were yesterday found guilty of his murder after exchanging warped messages about making love in the victim’s blood.

Sex-obsessed Angela Taylor and Paul Cannon wrote 28,000 lurid WhatsApp messages to each other over 148 days as they plotted the killing which was ‘fuelled by venom, hatred and greed.’

William 'Bill' Taylor, the owner of a vast farming estate in Hertfordshire, went missing days before his 70th birthday in June last year.

Eight months later, in February, a fisherman found his decomposed body on a riverbank outside Gosmore, Hitchin. The body was so decomposed that determining a cause of death was impossible.

Mr Taylor's wife Angela, 53, and her lover Paul Cannon, 54, who are said to have had a 'venomous hatred' for Mr Taylor, were charged with his murder.

The trial was told there was a lack of forensic evidence, but jurors were read lurid texts the two killers exchanged in the build-up to the murder.

Angela Taylor (left) has been found guilty of murdering her farmer husband William Taylor with her lover Paul Cannon (right)

Two days before the farmer disappeared, Cannon wrote to Taylor saying she wanted to 'make love to you on his kitchen table... soaked in blood, with him [William] tied to a chair so he had to watch. Then send him to hell'.

Taylor replied: 'Think that would kill him, last thing he saw was us making love xxxxxx'

In another exchange they joked about watching the film Kill Bill.

The killers sent 28,000 messages to each other over 148 days, believed their WhatsApp messages were safe, secure and could not be read.

Digger driver Cannon had deleted them, but a police officer found them stored on the iPhone's memory.

Mr Taylor's wife Angela (left), 53, and her lover are said to have had a 'venomous hatred' for Mr Taylor (right)

St Albans Crown Court heard the lovers would also shout abuse and drive cars at Mr Taylor, and had set his Land Rover on fire.

Grey-haired and burly Cannon, wearing a dark suit, shook his head as the verdicts were returned, while Taylor did not react.

The court heard the farmer's wife and her lover 'loathed' him and set fire to his Land Rover in the run-up to the killing

Judge Michael Kay QC told the killers they would be given life sentences when he return to court on Friday to hear their minimum prison terms.

The Taylors met in 1992, married in 1997 and had three children together.

But they had long been separated by the time of Mr Taylor's disappearance, and his wife had been was seeking a divorce.

She began a relationship with Cannon, a farm labourer, in late 2017 while he was living rent-free at her husband's Harkness Hall.

The farmer became 'angered and distressed' when he suspected the affair and was 'shocked and very upset' when his wife served divorce proceedings on him in March 2018, prosecutor John Price QC said.

His opposition to granting a divorce caused 'bitter resentments' in Taylor and had a 'similar effect' on Cannon, the prosecutor added.

Police during the investigation at Mr Taylor's farms near Hitchin in Hertfordshire

Police carried out a huge search for Mr Taylor after he disappeared in the summer of 2018

In February, a fisherman found his decomposed body on a riverbank outside Gosmore, Hitchin

The pair allegedly began threatening and harassing Mr Taylor, with Cannon telling him he would 'get it' after the farmer confronted him about the affair, jurors heard.

Taylor first filed for divorce in April 2014 and had acquired, debt-free, two nearby farms, Dog Kennel Farm and Mill Farm, as part of a financial settlement, the court was told.

Opening the case in September, prosecutor Mr Price said: 'Mr Taylor was a very wealthy man by measurement of the value of the land that he owned. Despite settling [his wife's] financial claims, he was not reconciled to the idea of a divorce and would not agree to it. He made it clear he wanted her back. She was not interested.'

Mr Taylor was last seen alive at his home of Harkness Hall at around 9pm on June 3 by his grandson Ben, who had taken him for a Sunday roast.

In the following days Cannon sold a Suzuki 4x4 for cash before the vehicle ended up in Bulgaria, while Taylor got rid of her mobile phone, the trial heard.

Mr Taylor was found eight months later. By the body was a bottle of Baileys liqueur, a tea cup from Harkness Hall, the remnants of a corn on the cob and a plastic bag that related to Bill's tinnitus clinic.

How the farmer died remains unexplained. Forensic pathologist Dr Charlotte Randall found there was no sign of blunt force injuries, no gunshot or stab wounds, and no evidence of toxic substances ingested.

But there was a 'possible fracture' to the hyoid bone, a delicate neck structure, raising the possibility of compression of the neck prior to death, the prosecutor told the court.

Cannon's work colleague, Gwyn Griffiths, 60, of Folkestone, Kent, who the court heard had so-called 'people-pleasing' psychological traits, was cleared of conspiracy to murder after being accused of discussing hiring a hitman with Cannon.