The man who mutilated and buried the body of a 31-year-old houseguest in 2017 was convicted Tuesday on drug charges, marking the conclusion of a criminal case that’s spent years winding through the justice system as lawyers argued whether the defendant could face murder charges.

There was no debate that Scott Leo, 55, had let Zach Kennedy die in his bathtub, most likely after an overdose on the sedative and party drug GHB. But during a six-day trial, jurors heard about this only to bolster the prosecutor’s case that Leo knew he was guilty of providing the drugs and desperate to cover it up so he could continue using his home near Downtown Long Beach as a venue for narcotics-fueled sex parties.

Leo preyed on drug-addicted younger men, luring them to his home with the promise of meth and GHB so he could use them for sex “down in the dungeon that he created,” Deputy District Attorney Simone Shay said, referencing the sparse basement at Leo’s home where police found sexual apparatuses and drugs.

“He’s willing to do whatever it takes to make sure nothing is going to stop the party going on at his house,” Shay said Monday in her closing argument to jurors. In Kennedy’s case, she said, that meant severing his feet, presumably so Leo could fit Kennedy’s body into a plastic bin that was buried in the yard.

“Nothing explains what he did other than he knew he had provided those narcotics and he had to cover it up,” Shay said.

When Kennedy went missing in October 2017, suspicion immediately turned to Leo because friends knew Kennedy had been invited over before disappearing. Leo insisted that Kennedy left the home without any problems, but after multiple searches, police discovered the body.

Shay said a fresh mound of dirt tipped off detectives after they compared the home’s current state to recent real estate–listing photos, and when they searched the phone of one of Leo’s friends, they found messages talking about Kennedy with blue lips and a weak pulse, apparently overdosing.

Leo sent the friend pictures of Kennedy slumped forward in a tub and asked for help moving him, but Leo later insisted Kennedy had popped back up and been no worse for wear. Six months later, police uncovered the body after an extensive investigation and awareness campaign by Kennedy’s family and friends.

Leo’s conviction was the final battle fought in memory of Zach, said his father, Jeff Kennedy, who’s flown cross-country to be at nearly every crucial court hearing.

“I think Scott Leo’s a predator,” Jeff said. “ … It was so calculated what he did, so planned, what he did. He knew what he was doing.”

Jurors convicted Leo on all three criminal counts he was facing: furnishing GHB, furnishing meth and maintaining a drug house—all felonies. Before trial, defense attorney Matthew Kaestner had successfully argued Leo couldn’t be charged with Zach’s death because he did not have a legal duty to care for the dying man like a parent of a child or doctor watching over a patient would.

As he tried on Monday to undermine the prosecutor’s case, Kaestner urged jurors not to be distracted by the horror of what Leo had done.

“We know his worst behavior, but it’s not charged in this case,” he said.

He accused prosecutors of using shaky facts to try to present a pattern of behavior—relying on messages between Leo and his potential dates combined with an eyewitness account of only two drug-parties to assert this was a regular occurrence at Leo’s home.

“There’s been a lot of smoke in this case. And sometimes the smoke gets so thick you can’t see,” Kaestner said. He described Leo as an upstanding citizen with a job in client development at a prestigious law firm who hid Zach’s body in order to protect his career.

Leo’s occasional parties didn’t turn his well-kept home on Eighth Street into a drug house any more than someone inviting friends over for beers would turn their apartment into a bar, Kaestner argued.

He also pointed out police weren’t able to test the drugs they alleged Leo provided or offered to provide on four specific dates in 2017 and 2018. Instead, they relied on witnesses’ perceptions and partial records of Leo’s messages recovered from an online backup. Detectives never found Zach’s phone and were never able to break into Leo’s to get a full accounting, according to Shay.

Kaestner said this incomplete evidence amounted to the government relying on innuendo and what he called the “troll” argument: essentially implying Leo was so old and ugly that he had to use drugs to convince men to have sex with him.

“They’re trying to give you one side of the story,” he told jurors in his final plea for acquittal.

In the end, the jurors were not swayed, deliberating for about an hour Monday afternoon and most of the day Tuesday before returning guilty verdicts on all counts.

Bailiffs took Leo into custody immediately after the verdict was read. He’ll remain jailed without bail until his sentencing on March 30 where he’ll face a maximum of between six and seven years behind bars.

Man who buried body in yard won’t face murder charge at trial