A Sydney man who would "never win employee of the year" has been found guilty of brutally murdering his boss almost three decades ago.
Kubilay Kilincer, 60, had denied violently attacking Hasan Dastan in his Esy Auto Dismantlers business on the morning of December 11, 1995.
He was found dead in a pool of blood lying partially under a car within the Blacktown premises.
A metal pipe was shoved six centimetres into his mouth and his severe head injuries were consistent with an attack using a bloodied sledgehammer that lay nearby.
After retiring to deliberate on September 6, the NSW Supreme Court jury on Friday found him guilty of murder.
Justice Helen Wilson allowed him to kiss and hug his wife and children before he was taken into custody to face a sentence hearing on November 16.
Kilincer gave evidence that Mr Dastan had been angry with him when he arrived late to work on December 11 but had quickly calmed down.
He told police his boss was fine when Kilincer left shortly after, buying cigarettes, paying bills and going home.
He said he and his wife visited the Commonwealth Employment Service, Centrelink's predecessor, to find out about his missing a dole payment.
They were there for about two-and-a-half hours and his ticket number was N817, before he returned to the workshop to learn of his boss's murder.
He denied arguing with or fighting Mr Dastan, saying he was "a very good friend of mine, I respected him".
His barrister Ertunc Ozen SC acknowledged Mr Dastan's only full-time employee was tardy, on occasions slack with his work ethic and it seemed he was skimming from the business.
""He was never going to win employee of the year," he said.
But that didn't mean he killed his boss.
Despite being a suspect from the start, forensic examination of DNA and fingerprints at the crime scene failed to connect him with the killing.
Freshly washed clothing and shoes seized from his home on the day Mr Dastan's body was found also did not contain any traces of blood.
But the prosecutor Brett Hatfield contended Kilincer tried to cover up his actions through false, implausible and inconsistent tales.
Kilincer, who had a gambling problem, had been stealing money from the till and was on the verge of being fired, he said.
A bloodied revenge note found at the crime scene contained phrasing similar to that used by Kilincer when telling police about an irate customer.
The customer was said to have threatened Mr Dastan after buying a Toyota engine from him.
"The note appears to have been left as a false trail," the prosecutor said.
The customer was out of Sydney at the time of the murder.
The prosecutor also suggested Gulser Kilincer had lied to the jury about where her husband had gone the morning of the murder.
Her claims included seeing him return home with a bag of bread.
"That detail that he came back home carrying some bread was false evidence given by both of them which they plainly, you might think, came up with falsely to assist the accused with his case," Mr Hatfield said.
Other witnesses described Esy Auto Dismantlers' large roller doors being shuttered early on December 11 - which was unusual - and a worker identified as the accused blocking two people from entering around 8 or 9am that day.
The dead man's wife, Sultan Dastan said she had called the business that morning.
Kilincer picked up the phone, saying that her husband was not in but that he would call back.
He never did.
