DENIED KILLING: Jeremy McLaughlin said he did not kill Jade Bayliss, but admitted burglary and arson of her family home.

The man found guilty today of murdering a Christchurch school girl and then torching her family's home has killed before.

Jeremy George McLaughlin, 35, was this afternoon found guilty of murdering Jade Bayliss, 13, in the Barrington St house in November 2011.

Jade, who was home sick from school, was found dead in her mother's torched house. She had been strangled with a cord and had a sock shoved into her mouth.

VICTIM: Jade Bayliss, 13, died at her family's home on November 10, 2011.

McLaughlin had denied killing her, though admitted burglary and arson.

The jury did not accept his claim that he had the ultimate ill fortune to have burgled and then set fire to a Somerfield house where someone else had murdered Jade.

The jury was not told that McLaughlin had been convicted of killing another child, Australian Phillip Vidot in Perth in November 1995, because the right to a fair trial prevents it.

Supplied KILLED: Phillip Vidot, 14, was bashed with a cricket bat, run over by a car and then robbed of clothing and money.

Phillip, 14, and his friend Tyron Williams had gone shopping with a friend, but never made it home. Instead, the pair were bashed with a cricket bat, run over by a car and then robbed.

Vidot died hours later while his mate Tyron Williams was in a coma for eight days and still has brain damage.

McLaughlin, Craig Brian Wood and another young man were charged over the attack. McLaughlin and Wood were charged with murder. McLaughlin admitted wielding the cricket bat and Wood admitted running over the pair.

In a verdict two years later that sparked protest and calls for legislative change the jury acquitted the pair of murder, but found them guilty of manslaughter.

The pair and the other young man, whose name was suppressed, were also found guilty of causing Williams' grievous bodily harm.

McLaughlin was sentenced to 12 years in jail. He was deported back to New Zealand in 2001. New Zealand police were told the details of his manslaughter conviction in 2001.

Phillip's mother Marriya Vidot, 60, said she was shocked when she heard McLaughlin had killed again.

''People in his country should know what he's done,'' she said.

''How many lives does he have to take?''

COINCIDENCES OVERWHELMED CLAIMS OF INNOCENCE

In the end, the mounting coincidences in the Bayliss case simply overwhelmed Jeremy George Edward McLaughlin's protestations of innocence.

The jury deliberated for about three hours to find him guilty, on the ninth day of the trial before Justice Graham Panckhurst and a jury in the High Court at Christchurch.

When the guilty-of-murder verdict was announced by the jury foreman, there was clapping and cries of “Yes!” from the public gallery, and Jade Bayliss' mother Tina Bayliss shouted: “Bastard!”

Justice Panckhurst told the jury that he agreed entirely with their verdict.

Outside court the head of the police investigation, Detective Senior Sergeant John Rae, fought back tears as he commented on the verdict.

‘‘The police are pleased this case is over, it’s taken a long time to get to this stage, Rae said.

‘‘The shock of this case is not just that someone has been killed, not just that a wee girl has been killed, but the fact that she was killed in her own home where we all expect our kids to be safe.’’

The trial had a remarkable amount of detail about McLaughlin, 35, and his movements on the day of Jade's death.

Some of it was ordinary stuff - shopping, paying his rent - but also selling some of the gear from the burglary at pawn shops.

The most telling point from the defence was that his actions did not accord with someone who had just committed the crime of murdering a teenage girl. He was described by witnesses during the day as being calm and relaxed, not upset or agitated - even "chatty".

Justice Panckhurst also pointed out that his actions were also "not very helpful" for someone who had just committed a burglary - which he has admitted carrying out.

He was certainly not in the flight mode of a desperate killer on the run. How many desperados would pause to pay the rent on their flat?

He left a trail that the Crown and the police unravelled with a meticulous gathering of evidence.

He gave his correct name at the pawn shop. He and his car were on surveillance cameras in the streets, or in a service station, or shopping centre.

And that is where the coincidences undid him, finally.

McLaughlin did not take the remote controls for the televisions he stole from the Bayliss family home, the house of Tina Bayliss, Jade's mother with whom he had previously been in a relationship.

The pawn shop wanted remotes to clinch the deal, so he went to Dick Smith Electronics in Westfield Mall, Riccarton, to buy some universal remotes that he could deliver back to the dealers.

It seems that while he was there he used some notes he had taken from Jade's wallet, and the Crown contended that he then tossed the wallet away, beneath a parked car.

The wallet was quickly retrieved by a shopper and handed over to the police.

But McLaughlin could not admit to having had the wallet if he was going to stick to his story.

He had claimed that Jade was not at home when he burgled the house that morning. He also claimed he had not seen her body in her room when he returned to the house a few hours later to pour petrol through the house and set it alight.

The wallet meant that he had some contact with Jade, that she had not been out as he said, and that he must have been surprised to find her at home sick from school while he was burgling the house.

He had to explain the coincidence of it turning up on the rooftop carpark at Westfield just after the records showed he had been there. He could offer no explanation, even when he gave his own evidence at the trial.

He was left simply trying to convince the jury that he knew nothing of the murder and some other intruder must have entered the house in the time between his two visits and strangled the teenager.

The idea was just not feasible, especially when the Crown provided effective alibi evidence clearing the only other potential suspect, Jolon Erin Scott Sweeney, 42, who McLaughlin claimed to have planned the burglary with.

Cellphone and computer evidence put Sweeney elsewhere. There was no forensic evidence to tie him to the house in Barrington Street that day, November 10, 2011.

But there was plenty of evidence linking McLaughlin to the address. Faced with all that, he had decided to own up to the burglary and arson on the first day of the trial.

And the Crown also had evidence of his DNA being found under one of Jade's fingernails as though she had scratched her attacker. McLaughlin did have a scratch on his wrist, but the trial also heard evidence of him injuring his arm in an accident on a demolition site.

The defence said it could have been indirect transfer, from handling an item of clothing that day, that McLaughlin had left behind at the house when he was in a relationship with Jade Bayliss' mother.

The Crown said it amounted to a compelling case, while the defence said it did not reach the required standard.

McLaughlin will remain in custody until sentencing on June 13 having been caught out and convicted by scientific evidence and the huge "footprint" that we now leave behind on electronic records and security footage wherever we go.