A BRUTAL killer has been found guilty of the murder of Hampshire scientist Helena Green-wood with help of the DNA evidence she helped to pioneer.

David Frediani remained at large for 15 years until the ground-breaking technology that Dr Greenwood helped develop finally brought him to justice.

He is expected to be sentenced to life in prison without parole at a hearing on March 9.

Yesterday, after a day of deliberations, a jury in Vista Superior Court, California found Frediani, 46, guilty of murder. He had denied the charge.

Key to his conviction was the DNA evidence Dr Greenwood helped pioneer.

This technology proved Frediani beat and strangled her in the garden of the luxury home she shared with husband Roger Franklin in 1985.

Brilliant scientist Dr Greenwood and her husband moved to San Francisco in 1977.

Her sharp mind meant she rose rapidly through the ranks in the new science of DNA analysis - which back in the early 1980s was still in its embryonic phase.

Her father Sydney, 88, who lives in Lymington, said: "She'd won a series of awards and often talked about how DNA would in the future, lead to massive databases built up by police forces all over the world that could place suspects at murder scenes or identify rapists."

In 1984, while Mr Franklin was away on business, Frediani broke into the couple's home and sexually assaulted the former Southampton Grammar School for Girls pupil at gunpoint.

Dr Greenwood testified against him at a preliminary hearing and was due to give evidence against him at a full hearing 21 days after her death.

After the sexual assault, Dr Greenwood was head-hunted by one of California's leading biotech companies Gen-Probe of San Diego.

Frediani tracked Dr Greenwood to her new home in Del Mar, near San Diego, and on August 22, 1985 he pounced.

Dr Greenwood's written testimony got Frediani six years for the sexual assault, but her murder remained unsolved until San Diego detectives began using the scientific breakthroughs pioneered by Dr Greenwood and her colleagues.

Scrapings collected from under Dr Greenwood's fingernails on the day she died were tested for DNA. Days later Frediani was arrested.

After Dr Greenwood's death, Roger Franklin remarried but continued to fight for justice until his death in 1999.

His parents Don and Pearl live in Southampton. They remain close friends with Sydney who is fighting his own battle with cancer.

Now, Sydney, a former vice- principal at Southampton College of Art, needs constant round-the-clock care and ill health stopped him travelling to America to witness justice catch up with Frediani.

Sydney told The Daily Echo: "People ask me all the time how I have survived these 15 years and the answer is simple. Helena deserved justice.

"It is wonderful that justice is being done at last."