Raees Khan, 21, was unanimously found guilty by the jury at Leeds Crown Court yesterday of the murder of Kevin Jackson, 31, of Lower Skircoat Green, Halifax, last New Year's Day.
The seven-man five-woman jury found a second defendant, Rang-zaib Akhtar, 20, guilty of Mr Jackson's murder by a 10-2 majority.
The householder gave chase when he interrupted them stealing his father-in-law's Toyota RAV4 vehicle on December 30 and minutes later was found unconscious and bleeding in the snow. He died in hospital two days later.
The jury will continue its deliberations today in the case of Rashad Zaman, 21, who has also denied murdering Mr Jackson.
All three have admitted trying to steal the RAV4.
The jury has heard during the six-week trial that after a night out with his brother-in-law Mr Jackson fell asleep on the settee still dressed.
Shortly after 2am on December 30 his wife Julie was woken by a scraping noise outside and looking out of her bedroom window noticed fresh snow had been removed from the windscreens of her car and another vehicle parked nearby in Cow Lane.
She then saw a man sitting in the driver's seat of her father's Toyota fiddling with something below the steering wheel and shouted at him out of the window.
Mrs Jackson described in a statement how she ran downstairs and alerted her husband, who immediately put on some shoes and ran out of the kitchen door.
"I saw Kevin run down Copley Lane chasing two men. I heard him shouting 'You better be able to f...ing run."
Moments later her husband was found lying face down bleeding in the road by a passing taxi driver.
After the death, a pathologist found the weapon used to stab him through the skull had penetrated several inches into his brain and had been used to inflict other injuries to his back and head.
When he gave evidence Khan accepted he was the man who broke into the Toyota car. He said Zaman had driven the three of them to Halifax and waited in his Fiesta car somewhere nearby.
Akhtar was keeping watch and suddenly shouted to him to run because someone was coming. Mr Jackson then chased them both.
Khan said he stopped to pick up a wrench dropped by Akhtar and was jumped on by his pursuer. He only poked Mr Jackson with the screwdriver during a struggle and did not stab him with it forcefully.
He was calling to Akhtar for help and saw his friend return. Akhtar hit the man over the head with a branch, causing him to fall to the ground, before they ran off, he said.
Akhtar had denied playing any part in the violence. He said he ran ahead into a garden area and hid when chased by Mr Jackson.
"When I went back up the hill I seen a guy lying down and Raees was standing a bit above him further up the road."
He said he did not look at the man and assumed he had just been knocked out. He maintained it was only when he later heard Press reports he found out he had died.
Zaman did not give evidence in his own defence. He told police in interviews he was not involved in the chase or Mr Jackson's death.
He said he was waiting in his car having left Khan and Akhtar to take the RAV4 and suddenly received a phone call to go and pick them up because there had been a fight.
A screwdriver with Mr Jackson's blood on it was subsequently found in the boot of Zaman's car.
Khan, of Priestman Close, Mann-ingham, Bradford, who has already been found guilty of attempted bur-
glary at a house in Woodside Drive, Cottingley, near Bingley, on Decem-ber 26 last year with intent to steal keys to an Audi car, was cleared yesterday of a robbery on January 25 involving the theft of a Lexus car.
Akhtar, of Salt Street, Manningham, who denies the theft of a Rover car on December 10 last year, was also found not guilty by the jury of the Lexus robbery. He has admitted stealing a car on Christmas Day last year and the attempted burglary at Cottingley.
Zaman, of Apsley Crescent, Manningham, has already been found guilty on five charges of car theft in October and December last year and of the attempted burglary.