Housekeepers, gardeners, pool cleaners and other workers have been left grappling with a loss of income and grief for longtime employers they considered family.

They provided jobs to an untold number of nannies, gardeners, housekeepers, plumbers, pool cleaners and other service workers, many of whom are grieving alongside their employers for all that was lost.

Jurors heard Ms Dawes had reported landscape gardener Wellings for breaching his bail conditions by contacting her after he had been arrested for attacking her two weeks before she died.

Gone also are thousands of yards that had gardeners.

He had a gardener who nurtured the deodar cedars along a part of Santa Rosa that became known as Christmas Tree Lane.