Killer Mark Numms calmly walked into the offices of the Oxford Mail and boasted of how he had "found" his young victim's body.

In a cruel and cynical attempt to throw police off the scent, he put himself forward as an innocent party who came across the body of Richard Jackson by chance.

But it was Numms himself who had strangled the homeless teenager before phoning police and the Mail at the start of his attempted deception.

Numms denied murder at Oxford Crown Court but this morning a jury of seven women and five men found him guilty after almost three hours of deliberation.

Judge Francis Allen told him: "You will, on the verdict of the jury, be sentenced to life imprisonment."

It was Numms's bragging nature that proved his downfall as detectives tightened the net. The Mail's then deputy news editor Steve Hartley interviewed Numms that first day, only hours after he had spoken to police about the macabre find.

Numms had phoned police from a call-box after the killing on January 29 last year. He immediately became a suspect, but officers did not have enough evidence to hold him and he was released.

On Saturday January 30, the Mail was told of the body in Angel Meadow. When Numms presented himself at our offices later that morning, it was an ideal opportunity to get more information about a possible murder, which police were still in the early stages of investigating. Mr Hartley told the trial last week that Numms was agitated and stammering when he met him. He was wearing muddy trainers and jeans.

Mr Hartley said Numms described the victim, Richard Jackson, as a "shy, quiet lad who wouldn't hurt a fly", and added that he had found the youth with his jeans and underpants pulled half down.

When police read our interview with Numms, they asked for copies of this photograph of him to see if he matched the description of a man seen in Angel Meadow at the time of the murder. Detectives also wanted to re-interview Numms because of discrepancies between his interviews to police and to the paper. By claiming he found Richard Jackson's body, Numms placed himself at the scene of the murder. Now the prime suspect, he was arrested days later in Wales.

Numms and his victim spent the afternoon of Friday, January 29 last year drinking in Angel Meadow, just off the Plain - which has a reputation as a gay haunt.

It was here that Richard was killed later the same evening by Numms, who claimed he left Richard to get something to eat and found the body when he returned.

The teenager had been strangled from behind with a neck grip. Numms was well-known at the Bridge for showing off his strangleholds, even practising them on fellow residents. One said he once saw Numms grab Richard in a stranglehold until he was gasping for breath.

Numms's boastful streak was what eventually led to his downfall. As well as his pride in his physical appearance, he bragged to several residents that he was going to kill the youngster.

He even took two men, Matthew Oxslade and Anthony Waldron, to see the body, saying he was "buzzing" at the feeling of what he had done.

Numms had lived in homeless hostels for years and was described in court as a Walter Mitty character who fantasised about joining the French Foreign Legion. Although he tried to throw police off the scent by destroying the clothes he wore at the time of the murder, and by coming forward so promptly to say he had found the body, detectives were soon suspicious. He matched exactly the description of a man seen leaving the murder scene, and when he left Oxford to stay with friends in Cardiff, suspicion mounted.

He was arrested on February 4. He had told his friends he was on the run for murder.

In a phone call to his mother the day after the murder, Numms said Richard had died from strangulation. But at that stage, the police did not know that for sure because a post-mortem had proved inconclusive.

Numms's mother - called as a witness for the prosecution - gave the damning evidence against her son in court.

After the verdict, Det Chief Insp Euan Read, of Thames Valley Police's major crime team, said he was relieved because he regarded Numms as a significant threat to the public. He added: "This was a very sad case of a young lad being preyed upon and murdered in what can only be described as horrible circumstances."

He said he believed Numms was a sexual deviant and the murder had been sexually motivated.

"I believe he wanted Richard to get into some sort of sexual activity which Richard rebuffed."

And he praised the Oxford Mail for pushing forward the police investigation.

Story date: Tuesday 15 February

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