A 19-year-old man stabbed a drug dealer in the head before hiding his body in a plastic dumpster and trying to dissolve it with acid after taking inspiration from the television show Breaking Bad.

© Kent Police George Knights will be sentenced at a later date after being found guilty of murder.

George Knights has been found guilty of the murder of Stephen Chapman in Rochester, South-East England, on Friday, October 23 of last year.

During a three-week trial, a court heard how Knights and Chapman were known to each other and agreed to meet that night to discuss the sale of cocaine.

Chapman was reported missing the next day and was never seen alive again.

During its investigation, Kent Police established that Knights was one of the last people to see him before he went missing and had talked to him on the phone.

The defendant told police on Saturday that he only met up with Chapman briefly to collect drugs from him and that the victim could have easily met someone else afterwards.

On the Sunday, Knights called Kent Police to report a group of people were attempting to break into his home.

The group were a search party looking for Chapman, who contacted Kent Police after they saw Knights run away from the property.

When officers searched Knights' home, they found items including blood-stained clothing, a significant quantity of class A and B drugs and Chapman's iPhone and bank card.

Knight was initially arrested on suspicion of drug offenses and told police he was unable to account for the blood-stained clothing or Chapman's belongings.

Officers continued to search the property and found Chapman's body stuffed inside a wheeled plastic dumpster, with four empty bottles of sulfuric acid located nearby.

In light of the discovery, Knights was additionally arrested on suspicion of murder. Knights denied murder, Kent Online reported.

He claimed he and Chapman fell out over a drugs deal, and Chapman "blew up and became intimidating."

Knights said he took a hunting knife which had been upstairs in his property, when he went to collect money to buy cocaine. When he went downstairs, he said the pair began got into a physical altercation and Chapman spotted the knife. Knights claimed Chapman then tried to stab him with it, and the blade came within an inch of his head.

"I grabbed it with my left hand and pulled him towards me and the knife went into his head," he told the court.

Speaking during the trial at Maidstone Crown Court, Knights said he wanted to get rid of Chapman's body because he was worried his friends or associates would come after him.

He said he attempted to dissolve the body with acid in an attempt to mimic something he saw on the popular TV show Breaking Bad.

"I watched Breaking Bad and in my madness I thought that was the way of getting rid of him and doing what was done in that film. It was the only thing I could think of," Knights said, Kent Online reported.

"I looked on my computer what acid it was. It was sulfuric acid which is what I used in my attempts at making amphetamines, and what kind of plastic you have to put it in. The wheelie bin was the right plastic."

In their evidence, police said Knights had a tattoo with a snake wrapped around a knife, similar to the murder weapon, etched onto his neck in the week prior to Chapman's killing.

Surveillance footage also showed Knights pulling the dumpster from another property to his address on the night Chapman was killed.

A video on Knights' later phone showed him at the party with a package of cocaine, where he also bragged about killing someone.

Knights is due to be sentenced at a later date.

Kent Police Detective Chief Inspector Gavin Moss, the senior investigating officer for the case, said in a statement: "Knights is a callous killer who has robbed Stephen Chapman of his life and deprived his family of a future with him.

"He has shown an appalling disregard for life and, on top of this, his efforts to dispose of the body deprived Mr Chapman's family of an opportunity to see him for a final time. His lack of remorse is clearly demonstrated by his decision to attend a party shortly after committing the offense and is further aggravated by the fact he chose to make Mr Chapman's loved ones go through the ordeal of a trial.

"He is a clear and obvious danger to the public and I am pleased that our investigation has led to him being convicted. Nothing is ever going to undo the harm Knights has caused, but I sincerely hope Mr Chapman's family can feel a sense of reassurance from this result.