A Bulgarian immigrant has been found guilty of murdering a man who befriended him and gave him a home.
Nikola Zhulev bludgeoned Perthshire jeweller Alan Gardner to death with a heavy frying pan and stole from him, the High Court at Livingston heard.
He then cocooned the body in a duvet in Mr Gardner’s Balbeggie bungalow, bought a spade from Homebase in Perth and dug a makeshift grave in the woods.
At the end of a 17-day trial the jury took just 90 minutes to return unanimous verdicts finding him guilty of murder and of attempting to defeat the ends of justice.
Judge Lady Rae called for background reports and deferred sentence until 5 May.
She told the 31-year-old pizza chef: “This was on any view a cold, calculated killing of a vulnerable man, a man who gave you accommodation because you had nowhere to go.
“All you did was take advantage of him and then, when he was going to go to the police, you killed him. There can only be one sentence and that will be life when I deal with you.”
She called for social work background reports and deferred sentence until May 5.
Detective Inspector Brian Geddes of the Major Investigation Team said: “Today’s conviction of Nikola Zhulev, for the murder of Alan Gardner, is the culmination of a challenging and complex investigation, which involved utilising a diverse range of specialist services and officers from within Police Scotland and our partners in forensic services.
“The information and assistance provided by witnesses who came forward, particularly those from the local community, proved vital in building a compelling case against Zhulev.
“My thoughts are with the family of Alan Gardner, and those who were closest to him, and I hope they can now begin to put their ordeal behind them.”
The prosecution case was that Zhulev carried out the elaborately planned attack to rob Mr Gardner of money and valuables to pay for his £300 a week heroin habit.
The weekend Mr Gardner is thought to have been killed, he searched for ‘A hit on the head with blunt object.’ And phrases like ‘How dangerous is a hit to the head?’
He was staying at Mr Gardner’s home at 4 Croft Park, Balbeggie, when he made the sinister searches in the early hours of the morning, despite the fact he had rented a bedsit in Perth the a few days earlier.
The almost daily telephone contact between the two men ended on Sunday 19th April. The prosecution said Mr Gardner was probably killed on Sunday 19 or Monday 20 April.
Police found his body on Friday 24 April in a relaxed sleeping position in bed with a wound on his forehead imprinted with the pattern from the base of a 1.5 kilo frying pan recovered from the kitchen.
The Crown said Mr. Zhulev could have struck the deceased when he was in no position to offer any resistance because he was asleep.
He then locked the house and put the landline handset and Mr Gardner’s mobile phones in a storage box in the garden so that even if Mr. Gardner roused he couldn’t call for help.
He later bought a spade from Homebase and dug ashallow grave in nearby woods to hide the body, but police found it first after the self employed jeweler was reported missing by his worried family.
Zhulev confessed to a friend that he’d killed the father of one “in a panic” because Mr Gardner had found out he’d stolen £50 from him and threatened to call the police.
He also pawned jewellery taken from the house, tried to sell his victim’s Toyota 4×4 for cash and used his credit cards to fraudulently order takeaway meals.
Zhulev’s palm prints and Mr. Gardner’s DNA were recovered from frying pan the handle of which had been bent with the force of the blow, proving it was the murder weapon.