James Watson will finally face justice for the brutal murder of schoolboy Rikki Neave nearly three decades ago..
He was found guilty at the Old Bailey of the 1994 murder of six-year-old Rikki Neave near Peterborough.
Neave's helpless body was found naked and in a star-shaped position and showed signs of strangulation.
The court heard Watson stripped Rikki and used the child to fulfil a "morbid" fantasy told to his mother three days before the killing.
Watson, now 41, was 13 at the time of the murder and evaded justice for over 27 years, after Rikki was killed following his disappearance on November 28, 1994.
The Crown Prosecution Service's (CPS) Clare Forsdike said: "Ultimately a combination of evidence from DNA, post-mortem, soil samples, eyewitness testimony, and his changing accounts proved overwhelming.
"Only James Watson knows why he did it. He remained silent for two decades and then put Rikki's family through the agony of a trial."
Watson will now await sentencing.
How did James Watson get away with the murder of Rikki Neave?
James Watson got away with the murder of Rikki Neave until the cold case was investigated for "a number of lines of inquiry which were outstanding".
In 1996, Rikki's mother Ruth Neave was acquitted of the murder, but pleaded guilty to five charges of child cruelty for which she was given a seven-year sentence.
Sightings proved she could not have been the one to kill her son, but her acquittal left open the question of who had really done the heinous crime.
Ruth later claimed to have been "bullied" into admitting the child cruelty charges.
Former Assistant Chief Constable Fullwood, who came out of retirement to see out the case, said: "I thought the original hypothesis around her [Ruth] being responsible was fanciful at best and then the more I looked at it, the more I was convinced actually we needed to look into it further."
A cold case was set up and it was discovered Watson's name had come up in the 1994 investigation when witnesses said he had been playing with Rikki, which Watson denied.
The team also disproved Watson's claim he might have helped his victim see over a fence by lifting him up, and that the murderer also touched a five-year-old in an inappropriate and sexual manner. A previous partner alleged Watson had strangled her during sex.
Further evidence included indications that "he had killed a bird and laid it out spread-eagled in a manner" and photocopied the front page of the Peterborough Evening Telegraph.
When reviewing the case, police came across the DNA of Watson in an envelope that contained samples of Rikki's clothing.
Watson was arrested on suspicion of murder in April 2016, but fled to Portugal three months later.
What happened to Rikki Neave?
Rikki Neave was a six-year-old schoolboy murdered in 1994. His naked body was found laid in a star shape after he was strangled to death.
The court heard how his uniform was dumped in a wheelie bin close to where his body was found and that he was strangled by an anorak collar or some sort of ligature.
Prosecutors claimed Watson was guilty of "exhibiting" Rikki's body near a children's woodland den.
Police believe that while there were no signs of sexual assault, the six-year-old was murdered for Watson's "sexual gratification".
Rochelle Neave, Rikki's sister, is now 30 and said: "He [Watson] thought he'd got away with it for that many years and thought we were just going to go away and roll under the table. We weren't."
Sheradyn Neave, 27, added: "I think we were let down by the police at the time, we were let down by social services, we were let down by everyone who was in our lives who was meant to care."
