Pickering, who admitted raping and killing 14-year-old girl in 1972, is convicted of another rape a few weeks earlier

A notorious murderer convicted 46 years ago of raping and killing a teenager has been found guilty of violently raping another 18-year-old woman a few weeks earlier.

Peter Pickering, now 80, has been locked up in psychiatric hospitals since 1972, when he admitted the manslaughter of schoolgirl Shirley Boldy in South Yorkshire.

He became known as the Beast of Wombwell following the attack in the Barnsley suburb. He stabbed the 14-year-old while wearing yellow washing-up gloves – a detail that gave rise to his other tabloid nickname, the “maniac in the marigolds”.

Pickering found himself on trial once more at Leeds crown court this week after detectives working on another investigation found boxes of his possessions in a secure garage in Sheffield, which had apparently been untouched since his incarceration.

Police believe Pickering had somehow been paying rent on the storage unit over the decades, preserving exercise books, documents, letters and diaries, as well as a pair of handcuffs. The material suggested he had a long-held desire to commit violent offences against young girls.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Handcuffs found by police in Peter Pickering’s storage garage in Sheffield. Photograph: pest Yorkshire Police/PA

It led officers to a woman, now in her 60s, who they believed had been raped by Pickering in 1972, just three or four weeks before he killed Shirley Boldy.

She told the jury how she thought she was going to be killed when she was violently raped by Pickering in his minivan near Stocksbridge, a town north of Sheffield on the edge of the Peak District.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, described how she was walking to work early on a Sunday morning when Pickering, who told her he was called Peter, stopped and asked for directions. Though initially friendly, he tricked her into putting on handcuffs and then raped her, before burning her with a cigarette.

She survived but never told anyone close to her what had happened. Then in 2016 she received a call from an police officer. As soon as they said they were from the South Yorkshire force, she said: “Is it about Peter?”

Detectives had found a letter in the Sheffield lock-up written by Pickering to his mother, in which described meeting the woman when she was 18. In the letter he claimed they had consensual sex but that he gave her £1 afterwards to compensate her for the money she had missed out on by not going to work that day.

Giving evidence behind a screen, the woman said she was terrified throughout the ordeal. Afterwards, Pickering said he was going to have to kill her, but first he wanted to know if he had taken her virginity, she told the jury. She said she managed to distract him and he eventually set her free, dropping her off at a friend’s house.

Within four weeks of the rape, Pickering was arrested for killing Boldy, whom he had picked up in the same minivan while she was returning to school after the lunch break.

She was bundled into the van and driven to a secluded area, where Pickering tied her hands behind her back and raped her.

He then drove to Barnburgh Crags near Doncaster, where he first attempted to strangle her and then he stabbed her to the chest with a knife he had in the van. The final stages of the attack and killing were witnessed by some walkers.

Pickering, who declined to give evidence in his trial, was found guilty by a jury after two hours of deliberations.

The judge, Mr Justice Goss, said he would not sentence Pickering on Tuesday because he needed new reports on his mental state to be prepared.

The judge told Pickering, who appeared by video-link and was seen leaning on a walking stick, that he would be subject to his continuing hospital order until he was sentenced at a date to be fixed.

Pickering’s barrister, Sasha Wass QC, asked the judge if her client could be sentenced in Reading or Swindon crown court - nearer to where he is being held at a hospital in Berkshire.

Det Supt Nick Wallen, the senior investigating officer in the case, said: “We are delighted he has been brought to justice today for an offence he committed more than 46 years ago.

“His victim has had to live a lifetime of knowing that Pickering, while not at large, had not answered for the dreadful and terrifying ordeal he put her through on that evening. I hope that the conviction of Pickering will be of some comfort to the victim, who has lived with the impact of his crime for the majority of her life.”