Sweeney will be sentenced today.
British authorities now suspect Sweeney murdered three other women and are seeking information on them, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.
Testimony indicated Halstead met Sweeney through her job as a photographer, which she took when modeling that brought her from New York to London dried up. Halstead’s sister Chance O’Hara, 63, told the court her sister predicted her own death and had been beaten by Sweeney, who was her boyfriend.
Testifying by video link from California, O’Hara said: “She told me if she ever went missing, that John Sweeney would have killed her. He had threatened that he would kill her, and he would make sure no one would ever find her body. He was extremely possessive and demeaning. He felt he owned her.”
O’Hara said she last saw her sister in London in 1987 when she was working as a photographer and makeup artist. She noticed bruising and Halstead said Sweeney did it.
After Melissa Halstead did not contact her mother on her birthday on Nov. 2 1990, her family became alarmed.
Her head and hands have never been found and the body was not identified until 18 years later when her DNA was matched to her family.
Det. Chief Inspector Paul Webb read a statement on behalf of Halstead’s family, including her brother Jack, of Kettering, following the verdict.
Halstead was an “intelligent and very attractive young woman” who had left the U.S. to “seek her fortune.” The family was “in agony” when she went missing for years and was “destroyed” when her remains were identified.
“The family’s hope for the future is that John Sweeney will never be allowed free to carry out such crimes again,” Webb said, reading from the statement.
Halstead left home at 19 after being recruited to model for the top New York City agency, Ford Models.
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