Martin Vernarsky lavished his life savings on 34-year-old Ildiko Dohany including £5,000 towards an Audi car and cash for a deposit on a house she was planning to buy.
He even bought a ring for the warehouse supervisor but she saw him only as a friend and turned down his offer of marriage and started a relationship with a man she met on an internet dating site.
When obsessive Vernarsky, 24, learned his love rival was due to fly out to Hungary for her sister's wedding he hacked into Miss Dohany's emails 800 times in three days and repeatedly viewed explicit sexual messages she had received from her current and former boyfriends.
His frustration boiled over and he strangled Miss Dohany. In sentencing Vernarsky at Sheffield Crown Court, Mr Justice Cranston said: "She saw him as a close friend and did not intend to take the relationship further.
When he learned of her relationships there was an element of obsession on his part and he repeatedly accessed the emails she exchanged with other men in the few days before her death.
"We do not know what happened exactly on that evening but he strangled her. He was much stronger than she and he did this in the street outside the place where he stayed."
When arrested by police Vernarsky said their relationship was "something special and secret" and her nude glamour modelling career was "not a problem" to him and it was "art rather than pornography".
Vernarsky, a Czech national, of Claywood Road, Norfolk Park, worked with Miss Dohany at a logistics firm in Attercliffe, Sheffield.
He was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by a jury following a two-week trial. T
The victim, a Hungarian national, worked as an au pair in Kent then moved to Sheffield where she was quickly promoted at work and lived just 25 minutes walk from Vernarsky's home.
Vernarsky raised the alarm on Friday, September 9 last year claiming he had found Ildiko dead in her car. Paramedics found him trying to resuscitate the victim but there was no sign of life. Vernarsky was arrested on suspicion of murder and told police he had been in a sexual relationship with Miss Dohany since May, 2010 and was due to travel to Hungary with her for he sister's wedding a few days later. He claimed he had a 30-minute sex romp with her at his flat on the evening before her death and she returned home to get her suitcase. When she did not turn up he walked to her flat but could get no reply so went home and found her car in the middle of the road with her body inside. But it was all a pack of lies. The doors to the Audi were locked, there were no drag marks and undisturbed items were on the seat where he claimed he found Miss Dohany suggesting he had killed her there. Mobile phone records also placed him at the scene. Although Vernarsky claimed he had been in a sexual relationship with the victim, her friends said they were not "boyfriend and girlfriend". Scientific analysis revealed the pair did not have sex and whereas Miss Dohany had exchanged explicit messages and photos with her boyfriends, her messages to Vernarsky were businesslike and unaffectionate. "Their friendship was no more than that and not the sexual relationship which the defendant wanted and about which he could only fantasise," said Nicholas Clarke, QC, prosecuting. At the time he claimed he was having sex with the victim he was actually on his computer hacking into her emails, repeatedly viewing private messages of a graphically sexual natur between her and her current boyfriend and ex-partner. He accessed her emails more than 800 times in the three days before her death, even sending an email after he killed her to her mobile saying: "Are you OK, is everything OK?" Mr Clarke said: "He was completely infatuated with the deceased. He was in daily contact with her, but by the beginning of September he realised she did not want to marry him as he hoped and he began cyberstalking her." After the jury delivered its verdict, Alistair MacDonald, QC, for Vernarsky said: "This was a man who was deeply in love with the deceased but something catastrophic as far as his devotion to her occurred in a very short period which caused him to behave in a manner completely out of character." He added: "All the evidence tends to suggest he was devoted to her and as a friend she to him. For a disastrous and tragic short period he behaved in a way he will have to live with for the rest of his life." Afterwards Det Insp Robin Pearson who led the police inquiry said: "We respect the manslaughter verdict of the jury following what has been a lengthy investigation."
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