A homeless man says he would rather die in prison after confessing to murdering a waiter 38 years ago.

In December 1983, when Anthony Kemp was only 21 years old, he allegedly killed a waiter named Christopher Ainscough. After the victim didn’t go back to work, they found him dead on his sofa.

As there were no leads to the murderer, the investigation on Ainscough’s death was closed after two years.

But now, nearly four decades after the tragedy, the killer decided to come forward. As reported by Unilad, Kemp turned up at Chiswick police station and condensed to “bashing his brains in” with an ashtray.

According to Metro, Kemp said:

“I’m not going to live on the f*cking streets, that’s a fact. I’d rather the government look after me. I’d rather do the last few years of my life in bang-up than sleep on the streets. For 40 years I got away with it and now I’m owning up to it.”

Although the 59-year-old man couldn’t recall why they got into a fight, he vividly remembered the attack.

Kemp also confessed he had wiped down everything he had touched in his victim’s home before fleeing the murder scene.

However, three days later, Kemp tried to withdraw his confession. He attempted to pin the crime on his partner in an aggravated burglary case from 1988. While he was sentenced to only seven years behind bars, his accomplice took his life in prison.

But things didn’t end there. Following Kemp’s disclosure, investigators matched his DNA to a cigarette butt in Ainscough’s flat. At this point, the killer finally pleaded guilty.

In a victim impact statement to the court, an unnamed woman said:

“Chris was a kind, generous, caring and funny man. We just adopted him. He was charming and had the extraordinary ability to get on with anybody and everybody. What someone did to my beautiful friend was devastating.”

The woman added that the “brutality” of Kemp’s crime still “haunted” her and that he ended the life of a “very special person” and then “walked free” as if it didn’t matter.