Here's what we know from the the Greater Manchester Police Department: Daniel Kurmelovs, who is 18, met 53 year-old Frank Lennon at at Manchester's Gay Village last summer.
A Manchester jury heard evidence in the case that commenced on January 21st, that Lennon had asked Kurmelovs to strangle him for “masochistic pleasure,” the Manchester Evening News reports.
Kurmelovs claims that it went too far and he accidentally murdered him.
Police have constructed a counter-narrative based primarily on Facebook posts and the fact that Kurmelovs was found with £900 in cash, watches, jewelery, and hundreds of cigarettes identified as being Lennon's property.
Kurmelovs, said police, squirted Lennon's body with cleaning products–before shaving his head and posed in front of a mirror during a trip to London, where he boasted of having a “sick night.”
Kurmelovs was arrested an hour later on suspicion of murder after confessing to his crimes, telling a woman he had “killed someone” for cigarettes.
Two days later he was charged with Mr. Lennon's murder.
Following his trial last week, Kurmelovs confessed to manslaughter maintaining his claim that the death was an accident.
A jury convicted him of murder after less than an hour of deliberations.
