It was, on the face of it, a fairytale wedding and a dream honeymoon.
Handsome Shrien Dewani married his stunning bride Anni Hindocha at a lavish ceremony in India, whisking her off to South Africa for a romantic holiday afterwards.
But a photo of the couple in their traditional wedding regalia, smiling happily at the camera, soon became a haunting snapshot of their brief time together as husband and wife.
When the new Mrs Dewani was shot dead in the back of a cab as the couple drove through the dangerous township of Gugulethu, two lives were ruined.
The 28-year-old's body was found the next day, November 14 2010, in the back of the abandoned vehicle.
Her husband managed to get away after he was, his supporters say, forcibly ejected by the car-jackers who had ambushed the newly-weds.
Prosecutors have a different theory about what happened, alleging it was more than just a lucky escape that left him unharmed.
Dewani, they claim, had in fact ordered the attack, paying the men involved to stage the incident, drive his bride away and kill her.
It is an accusation that has hung over the head of the wealthy Bristol care home owner almost from the start and, combined with his bereavement, has apparently left him suffering severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
His family and friends are adamant he had nothing to do with his wife's death, which they say has brought him only devastation.
"In his words, he has been robbed of his entire life," a family spokesman said as the rumours about his involvement started to swirl.
In a bid to quash speculation about cracks in the pair's relationship, the family released a video of them sharing their first dance as a married couple.
Dewani was torn apart after losing "the woman of his dreams", his family said.
"He's completely traumatised, he can't sleep, he can't eat, he keeps getting flashbacks," said the spokesman.
It was a picture at odds with the allegations made against him by taxi driver Zola Tongo, whose claims that Dewani had paid for a hit on his wife won him a reduction in his jail sentence for his own part in the crime.
The family rubbished reports that Dewani was having an affair with a gay rent boy and also dismissed the idea that he stood to gain from his wife's life insurance policy.
There was no pre-nuptial agreement, no dowry and no pressure from the family, they said.
The couple had dated for 18 months, decided they wanted to marry and arranged their own wedding. Dewani wanted to have a family with his new wife and to plan a future with her, they insisted.
But as Tongo was jailed in South Africa on December 7, Dewani was arrested in Bristol on suspicion of conspiring to murder his wife, marking the start of the South African authorities' battle to extradite him.
Following his arrest, a brief spell in custody and his subsequent release on bail under stringent conditions, his mental health appeared to deteriorate.
On February 20 he took an overdose of his medication, prompting prosecutors to label him a suicide risk although his lawyers claimed he had not been trying to kill himself.
Two weeks later he checked into the Priory Hospital in Bristol, only to leave the following month after an alleged bout of aggressive and disruptive behaviour.
On April 20, he was compulsorily detained under the Mental Health Act at Fromeside Clinic, a secure mental health hospital in Bristol.
Dewani has since been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and severe depression.
His time on bail at home and within the confines of various hospitals was interspersed with court appearances attended by large media packs following every development in the perplexing case.
Sitting in the dock, usually dressed in casual sportswear, he cut a wretched figure, mumbling, rocking and sometimes crying as he listened to the lawyers' arguments.
As he fights extradition, his fate now lays in the hands of others, his life torn apart by the death of his bride on their honeymoon.