Peter Carroll has been found guilty of murder in the Christchurch High Court on Thursday.
Carroll, who was on trial for the killing of Marcus Tucker, accepted he caused the death of Mr Tucker but argued he had no intention of killing him.
It took the jury less than three hours to come to their decision after the Crown alleged Carroll murdered Mr Tucker by striking him repeatedly with a wheel lock while he slept at an Addington house in April last year.
The 36-year-old's body was found burnt, hands tied behind his back, wrapped in carpet and dumped near the shores of Lake Ellesmere south of Christchurch on Anzac Day.
The Crown says the fatal bashing was retribution for a drugs robbery that Mr Carroll believed Mr Tucker, whose nickname was Ruckus, had committed.
"Unfortunately for him he was not the Ruckus involved in the burglary," Crown prosecutor Claire Boshier told the court earlier in the trial.
Newshub.
