A man who wanted to become a serial killer was convicted yesterday of the murder of two young women. Derek Brown, 47, is believed to be the first person in living memory found guilty of two murders in the absence of bodies.

Brown, a delivery driver, borrowed a book, Killers: The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time, from his local library and bought the components of a DIY murder kit from B&Q before embarking on his killing spree. It included a heavy-duty bow saw, a waterproof sheet, industrial-strength clingfilm, gloves and gaffer tape.

He told a former friend last summer: “I am going to be famous.” Then he began to hunt for victims on the streets of Whitechapel, in the East End of London. Detectives charged him with the murders of Xiao Mei Guo, 29, an illegal immigrant DVD seller who was in Britain with her husband, and Bonnie Barrett, 24, a prostitute, even though, despite a big search, their bodies have not been found. Brian Altman, QC, for the prosecution, told the Old Bailey: “Both women were street workers and both were soft targets for a predatory killer.”

Police believe the murders were the start of a killing spree that Brown had promised his friend would bring him notoriety. The friend told police: “He had threatened me with making himself famous in an unpleasant way.”

The book he borrowed included information on killers including Peter Sutcliffe, the “Yorkshire Ripper”, who murdered 13 women between 1975 and 1980, and Dennis Nilsen, who killed at least 15 men and boys in five years in North London.

Police believe that Brown, a father of seven children by four women, may have deliberately chosen Whitechapel so he could be compared to “Jack the Ripper”, who claimed five prostitute victims there in the autumn of 1888.

Detectives have linked Brown, who has a conviction for rape in 1989 in his home town of Preston, and numerous convictions for dishonesty and burglary, to at least six other serious sexual assaults and will be circulating his modus operandi and his picture to all forces across the country.

Despite the absence of bodies to provide scientific evidence, what officers did have was an abundance of blood from the two women in Brown’s flat in Rotherhithe, southeast London. They found blood in every room of the flat, despite his attempts to clean up.

When police entered the flat the walls had been stripped, the carpet taken up and there was a bucket of water ready to be used. The concentration of blood stains in the bathroom suggest he may have dismembered the bodies in the bath.

When he was arrested by officers he did not deny knowing Mrs Guo, but said that he had sex with her regularly and was willing to chat. However, when forensic science officers found her blood sprayed around his flat he refused to answer any more questions.

Closed-circuit television footage shows the pair disappearing into Whitechapel Tube station together, in East London, on the way to his flat, where he was supposedly going to check the quality of her DVDs. It seems that Mrs Guo, who has two children in China, may have tried to escape once in his home and was murdered in his hall.

Further examination of the flat found the blood of Ms Barrett, a single mother of a seven-year-old boy. It appears that she tried to escape his murderous attack by wedging herself under the kitchen work surface and next to the washing machine.

Brown is believed to have cut up the bodies and disposed of them in the bins at the flat or in the Thames. He will be sentenced at a later date.

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