A MAN who knifed a Bournemouth teenager in the heart before attempting to bury her body under a pile of leaves has been found guilty of murder.

Alvin Jay Santos stabbed 16- year-old Linda Lietaviete seven times in the chest at Horseshoe Common late at night on December 12 last year.

He removed some of her clothes and then moved her body twice, first dragging her into shadows close to the flyover and then covering her with leaves.

'She was such a happy person' - mum pays tribute to tragic Linda.

The 26-year-old attempted to get rid of his victim’s blood-stained clothing by dumping it in a wheelie bin close to his home in Wimborne Road, Bournemouth.

But soon after arriving back at the property he shared with his sister, he broke down and told her he had stabbed “a lady” in “Horseshoe Park”. Paramedics searching for Miss Lietaviete on the common discovered the teenager’s body partially concealed under leaves.

They had spotted a pool of blood close to the flyover and followed “drag marks” before making the discovery.

A jury at Winchester Crown Court were told that Santos and Miss Lietaviete had been friends for around three years, and that the two had been seen drinking together in the hours before the murder.

Linda Lietaviete captured on CCTV with Alvin Santos as they walked through Bournemouth town centre before he murdered her on Horseshoe Common

The defendant – who had admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but denied murder – claimed he suffered black-outs in the wake of an assault against him in December 2011.

He alleged that Miss Lietaviete had told him she was behind the attack on him on the evening of her death, leading to him blacking out before “coming to” with a knife in his hand and her body at his feet.

“I was very angry,” he told the court.

“I was very drunk at that time and I did try to remember [what I had done] but I cannot.”

But prosecutor Kerry Maylin said: “You took the knife out of the waistband of your trousers.

“You stabbed Linda seven times. You wanted to kill her, didn’t you?”

Santos will be sentenced at the court on Monday.