FACEBOOK killer Peter Chapman prowled the streets of Newbury weeks before murdering teenager Ashleigh Hall, it was revealed this week.
The dramatic revelations come from a local woman who befriended the pervert.
He repaid the kindness of the 33-year-old mother of three who asked not to be named, by torching her friend’s flat.
Evil Chapman then vanished - and, weeks later, murdered 17-year-old Miss Hall who he met on the social networking site.
As he began a life sentencing on Monday for the killing in Sedgefield, County Durham on October 25 last year, his horrified former friend told Newburytoday.co.uk's sister publication, the Newbury Weekly News, that she first came across Chapman in 1997 when he wrote to her while serving a seven-year sentence for attacking two teenage prostitutes.
She said he spotted her name and address in the personal columns of a magazine looking for innocent friendship.
The woman said he lied about his conviction and added: “He seemed like a genuine, nice person.”
As their friendship developed, Chapman would visit her in Newbury.
She added: “He said that he wanted a relationship with me and once asked me to marry him but I said no. We were just friends."
He would often take off into the night, she said, never saying where he was going, returning in the early hours without a word.
On other evenings he would spend hours on her computer, said the woman.
Chillingly, Chapman lured Miss Hall to her death by posing as a teenage boy on Facebook.
The friendship came to an abrupt end when Chapman disappeared after setting light to the Newbury house of her friend Emma Monk.
Miss Monk has signed a deal with a national newspaper and declined to comment when approached by the NWN.
The 33-year-old, a lifelong Newbury resident, told how Chapman would drive her on shopping trips and added: “He was obviously a very good liar because he seemed like a genuine and nice person. I thought he was a normal person. I feel mad at myself for not seeing it. I usually have a sixth sense about people."
The woman said she also felt "sickened and angry" that the convicted sex offender had apparently fallen off the police radar for nine months to be able to murder a teenager.
She said that she and Miss Monk had launched their own investigation into Chapman after he vanished and discovered the telephone number of the ebay seller from whom he bought his new car - the vehicle he subsequently used to abduct Miss Hall.
The woman went on: "I feel a mix of emotions - sickness, anger and the fact that he had the audacity to be my friend knowing what kind of person he was.
“I felt guilty because he was here, but police didn’t know where he was and I didn’t know about it. If I had known I could have told someone and Ashleigh would have been alive today."