Andre Hypolite was convicted of the murder of Nicholas Dill for the second time last night, following a three-week retrial at the Supreme Court.

The 37-year-old defendant remained impassive as the jury of three men and eight women returned a unanimous verdict after six hours of deliberation.

They had heard gruesome evidence of how Hypolite went on the rampage with a knife amid a drug-fuelled sex party at the victim's home on Boxing Day 2004.

Hypolite chopped Mr. Dill's girlfriend, Stacey Pike, in the head as she tried to defend him, leaving her with a permanent scar to her forehead. That saw him also convicted of unlawfully wounding her yesterday, by a majority verdict.

Hypolite, dressed in dark trousers and a dark shirt, stared at reporters in the courtroom as the verdicts were delivered at 7p.m. He maintained his gaze at the media as he was led into a waiting prison van a short time later.

He will return to court on Monday morning for sentencing, where he could face a potential term of life imprisonment. That was the punishment meted out to him in 2006, after he was convicted of murder the first time around, and of wounding Ms Pike with intent to cause her grievous bodily harm.

Those verdicts were quashed by the Court of Appeal last November, which ruled that Hypolite's defence claims were not fully put to the jury during the original proceedings by his then lawyer, Mark Pettingill.

This time around, Hypolite engaged the services of English Queen's Counsel, John Perry. Mr. Perry asked the jury to find that Ms Pike – who has a manslaughter conviction for killing a man in the past – was responsible for knifing Mr. Dill.

They rejected that claim, along with allegations that Hypolite was actually the victim of violence at the hands of Ms Pike, 37, and Mr. Dill, 44, during the melee at their dilapidated shack of a home in Pearman's Hill, Warwick.

The retrial heard witnesses for the prosecution – the main one being Ms Pike – detail how Hypolite took drugs with the couple there in the early hours of the date in question.

Ms Pike testified that she performed a sex act on Hypolite in exchange for him giving her and her boyfriend crack cocaine, as had happened on previous occasions.

Next, she said, Mr. Dill let Hypolite perform a sex act on him, which had never happened before. She claimed Hypolite then turned on Mr. Dill, and stabbed him in the back after Mr. Dill refused to let Hypolite have full sex with him. She further alleged that Hypolite chopped her in the head when she tried to intervene.

The trial also heard testimony from a blood spatter expert from Canada and a forensic pathologist from the USA.

This time around, Hypolite was cleared by the jury of the more serious charge of wounding Ms Pike with intent to cause her grievous bodily harm. Instead, they opted to convict him of the lesser charge of unlawful wounding.

Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons told the men and women after their verdicts that they were excused from further service during the current Supreme Court session.

"It's been a very long trial and it's not been easy for you," she observed, thanking them for doing their civic duty.

The media was bound by a reporting restriction imposed by Mrs. Justice Simmons at the start of the retrial not to mention the previous proceedings until a fresh verdict had been delivered.